Lets be completely honest here, parenting is no walk in the park. It can be damn right stressful and sometimes even depressing. It can be extremely difficult to admit to ourselves that sometimes, we just feel like we don't want to do it anymore.
In my blogs about parenting, I like to tell it how it is. I have had many of those days where I think to myself "I just cannot be bothered being a mum today" and then visions enter my mind of a kid-free life. I then look down at my five year old who is looking up at me, his eyes filled with love like I am the only important person in the whole wide world. Or I step away from the dream-state that my mind is currently absorbed in and I see my three month old cooing and smiling at me, like I am the only person in his whole entire world. I then feel a rush of guilt overcome me and a thousand questions enter my mind:
Why am I feeling like this?
Am I the only parent to ever feel like this?
Am I a monster?
Am I even cut out to actually be a mother?
But then I have to stop and remind myself that what I am feeling is completely normal. I am not a failure and I am cut out to be a mother. Some days can be just so hard and awful, that I do wish I was a free flying "ordinary" 23 year old. Travelling, studying abroad, socializing with friends and doing everything that I feel I should be doing.
Truth is, my kids are my absolute world. Although I have these fleeting feelings and emotions now and again, I am soon brought back to the magnificent reality in what I am surrounded by on a daily basis and one which I am extremely lucky for.
Both mothers and fathers can experience these feelings, and I cannot stress anymore how completely normal they are.
It's OK to wish that you where elsewhere other than sitting at home, being involved in imaginary scenarios with you four year old daughter, it's OK to wish that you were out dancing the night away with your girlfriends instead of wrestling you six year old son to bed because his routine has completely gone out of the window. It's OK to wish that you were booking a six month travelling experience away but instead your trying to find the latest bargain on the Pontins website because that's the only holiday you can actually afford to take your children on. It's OK to wish you were in a cosy hotel bed all alone whilst you are squashed in between your 1 year old who's led sideways with their feet in your face and your seven year old on the other side because they just won't sleep in their own bed. It's OK to wish you were paying for a 3 day spa break but instead your paying a hefty £85 so your kids can learn how to swim. It's OK to dream about not having to do that shitty school run every day and instead you could lay in bed until whenever you want and not have to wake up for no one. It's OK to look on social media and be filled with jealousy at the edited Instagram images of the happy couple who are somehow managing to hold their marriage together after having 8 kids. It's OK to wish you were a completely different person than who you are now because at that moment in time you are despising every little thing about your life.
My main point here is that it really is OK to sometimes hate being a parent. Whether your a parent to one kid or 12 and whether your kids are babies or even grown up because lets be brutally honest, even when your kids are 40 years old you are still riddled with anxiety and constantly worrying about their well-being.
These feelings do not define your parenting, nor do they define who you are as a person. You are not selfish or evil, you are human.
Please don't be hard on yourself, I have experienced all these feelings. It's better to actually experience them, rather than suppress them.
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