So I love my family completely but sometimes I just need to vent, to express my frustrations at the job I’ve been doing for almost ten years now with no promotion, cost of living salary increase and truth be told no holidays, apart from a few long weekends. Recently I’ve been driving my partner crazy with my rants about how invisible mothers are in modern Irish society. I’ve been both a working and a stay at home mother, both of which are largely ignored and exploited. Both have their positive and negative aspects, which I’m sure I’ll rant about in the weeks to come! My partner being male and therefore a problem solver set me up with and blog so he will be spared my soapboxing when trapped in the car in gridlock or that happy lunchtime phone call that leaves him feeling drained.
I got married in my early twenties to my childhood sweetheart, now don’t jump to conclusions, we don’t live in the deep south and we didn’t dropout of school at fifteen. We have both gone to third level education and my partner has a well paid job that allows me the luxury of not needing to work. I suppose the reason our relationship lasted (whereas all of our contemporaries relationships didn’t) was because we always seemed to be looking in the same direction even if our paths took us away from each other. When we married it was just a natural progression after living together for several years, we both had no intention of starting a family, travelling and adventures were our priorities. We even uttered the fatal “We are never having children”. Almost exactly a year to the day after we had our low key marriage ceremony we discovered why I’d been a total bitch and throwing up for the past month, we were expecting, my husband whooped with happiness, I sobbed with utter terror.
In time our son was born, needless to say both pregnancy and birth were horrendous and although delighted to meet the little guy I found the whole experience very unpleasant. My little guy was a puker and the first six months were hell, when he would cry I’d cry. At the time I thought it was the blues but it only applied to this one aspect of my life, and I loved my son instantly, I had no difficultly in bonding with him. Looking back I think it was a kind of post traumatic stress, the birth and subsequent total change of life being the cause. Another cause I think was the pressure to be perfect, as a young woman the pressures were to be clever and pretty but as a young mother I felt under pressure to be perfect in every way and also clever and pretty! As a result my husband and I decided not to add to our family.
Years passed and our baby grew into a fascinating little person, intelligent and interesting, full of surprises. When he stared school we missed his omnipresence in the house, my husband and I celebrated our thirtieth birthdays and as our friends were now starting their families we decided to try for a sibling. We were lucky and our daughter was born at Christmas, a beautiful blue eyed angel, the birth was wonderful and she stole our hearts the moment they but her squirming on my tummy. Now I understood what people meant when they described the overwhelming love they felt the instant they held their babies, which made me realise how much I’d missed out on with my son. The pressure to be perfect still existed but being older and wiser I had the confidence to stand by my mothering and enjoy my family.
After a couple of years my daughter went to Montessori and I had itchy feet and returned to the workforce, I was delighted to have my life completed by the feeling of independence and an identity outside of the home. Having been a stay at home mum for eight years it was difficult to get back out there but I loved it and the skills I’d honed over my years at home really helped, when dealing with difficult co-workers I reverted to mummy mode and treated them like a stroppy two year old. Our family was now complete and I felt like I’d entered a new exciting phase of my life.
In the summer of 2006 after our first foreign holiday in five years I started to feel ill, really ill. My instincts whispered that I was pregnant, against all the odds, my husband thought I was insane as there was no way I was pregnant. After a particularly vomity day I secretly bought a pregnancy test and told him I was going to do it. We left the kids watching Spongebob Squarepants and went up to the loo. Three minutes later we both stared at the two blue lines. Hubby said it must be wrong and disappeared to the chemist to buy another test, while I sat on the loo numb and incredulous.
So four weeks ago my beautiful son made his entrance into the world, extremely quickly! Our lives have changed again. Now it’s back to four hourly feeds and sleepless nights. I’ve gone from a semi independent woman to a recluse who smells of poo and baby formula (I stopped breastfeeding after only a few days due to my desire to leave the house and my dislike of daytime TV). The baby is demanding as babies are but he’s very easy going and has to fall in with my routine. This involves driving to school and Montessori twice a day, and the endless after school activities and social events that my son has in his diary and my daughter is starting to have in hers. Then there is the maintenance of our home, mum, dad and two point four children in a two up two down makes a lot of mess, and then the constant shopping for, preparation and cooking of food. Add to that a petulant prepubescent boy and a diminutive diva with an ego that makes Barbara Streisand look humble and I literally never stop. At the end of the day if I have an hour where all three children are asleep I have to make that difficult decision do I (a) catch up on my sleep; (b) spend some time catching up with my husband now that we are sleep deprived zombie ships that pass in the night or (c) take some me time and have a bath, read a book or phone a friend. What do I do? Well It’s not gonna involve a or c. Past experiences have shown me how important it is to keep my husband close, we are parents but we still should be a couple, which involves time dedicated to each other (watching ugly Betty together doesn’t count).
So with all these demands on me it’s no wonder I feel like I’m giving away little pieces of myself every moment of the day. Every time I raise my voice to my darlings or let them have sweets to buy myself an extra five minutes of silence I feel guilty. When they refuse the organic porridge I’ve made and demand coco pops mega munchers (when did cereal turn into sweets?) I feel guilty, when I heat up the bottle for my baby instead of breast feeding I feel guilty and when I put another disposable nappy in the bin instead of washing a terry nappy I feel guilty! I’m hoping that writing down my silly little thoughts here I can look at them and see how silly they are, and that by doing this I’ll force myself to take some “me” time now and again. Cos I know if I don’t it’ll be a long stay in St. Pats for me.
That was a long post, but it’s my life to date and as such it’s actually quite short and disappointing! I’ll post again soon, Next time some old dear in the supermarket tells me why my baby won’t stop crying, some teenager pushes past me the two kids and the baby in the buggy cos we are invisible or some middle class mother with one sleeping child in a designer buggy looks down her perfect nose at me as I give my daughter a (Shock Horror) lollipop.
So for now it’s goodnight, My Daughter has just fallen out of bed and the baby is due a bottle. Life’s a party at my house!
