I've once condemned mothers who called their kids names, telling them swore words a kid is not supposed to hear. We had a neighbor back then who always shouts at her kids as soon as the sun goes up. She only have 2 kids, one around three and the other one almost one year old. She literally howls at them you'd think she had conflict with another neighbor. Not that she's hurting them physically but duhh! She's talking to kids who are yet to start talking.
Then there was a day when two of my acquaintances talk about their kids. One said, I got so angry with my kids who keeps fighting and said they wanted to kill each other, so I give them both knives and said, there you can kill each other now! Both kids, she said, got so shocked that they just stared at each other scared. Her kids were aged 8 and 10.
One time I even heard an enraged mom, shouted at her kid who run away and said at the top of her lungs "I'm going to kill you!"
And I thought, why would a mom do such things to her kids? She shouldn't have decided to have kids in the first place.
Then I became a mom myself. It was a blessing and a gift. My prayers were finally answered. After two failures, God decided that it’s time and gave me a rainbow baby. One that makes all the storm worth it. I can't seem to stop looking at her when she sleeps as I proudly mumble to myself that I made this adorable little angel. Every second that she sleeps, I can't seem to stop checking if she's okay, if she's breathing fine.
Then starts the wailing. The sleepless night. The nonstop carrying of a crying baby for God knows why. The stress of not knowing what keeps the baby uncomfortable. And I said, I can do this. Then days turns to months and in a blink of an eye my baby started to walk. That is when I realized that being a mom is not an easy job. As much as you love you own kid, there comes a time that your patience is about to be tested no matter how long. And to think that I only have one yet. How much worse are those of have more? Then I begun to understand what those mother's have gone through.
A mom has to do everything. Doing different things at the same time and at the end of the day, the father would heartlessly say, why are you so tired when you're just here at the house looking after the baby? Do husbands even know what we've been through the entire day? Like I never get to finished cleaning the house. My daughter has the seeming little gift of wreaking havoc the moment that I turn around. I learned to cook while carrying her when she decided to just wanted to cling on me.
On top of that, you'll forever thinking what else to feed her when she decided to not eat what you want her to eat. And the nonstop lookout because she always wanted to move around, climbing every tables and chairs she could land her feet to. You could only take a breath when she's taking a nap, a moment when you wanted to take a rest too but can't because you have to go and clean up the messed that the little creature has made.
Whenever I tried working at my computer, before I can even write a sentence or two, she'd go and sit on my lap, fingers nimbly tapping on my keyboard that sometimes shortcut windows would started popping up I never even knew existed. I had no other choice but to work when she's finally settled down at night. Then I can work in peace. The moment I decided to end the day, tired and exhausted, slowly lying down beside my baby to not wake her up, she then suddenly turns around and smile at me like a little devil in disguise, with eyes saying, "Your day's not yet done mom!"