Welcome to motherhood! Welcome to the world of double standards, little support, isolation and the endless data about parenting (much of it unhelpful). We also will gaslight you if you mention that you are not loving the job because our culture still only associates \u201cparenting\u201d with \u201cmothering,\u201d and you are meant to be in a state of bliss (or at least deep fulfilment).<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, fathers have come a long way; collectively, they do more now than they ever have. Still, there\u2019s a long way to go to get to parity. From running appointments to helping with homework to feeling judged, women report carrying more responsibility than their male counterparts. This leads to higher rates of burnout, stress-related illnesses, depression, anxiety and more for mothers.<\/p>\n
All this to say: give yourself a break. Maybe other mums are having more fun. More likely, they\u2019re putting all their energy into making it to the other side, too.<\/p>\n
Tending to your mental and physical health is part of how you\u2019ll make it to that other side of this tough parenting moment. It could well be that you are feeling depressed watching other mothers seemingly love life. You could also have postpartum depression (PPD), which can be caused by a rapid change in hormones, exhaustion and your body\u2019s own tendencies toward depression. From \u201cbaby blues\u201d to full psychosis, PPD used to be waved away in medical offices, but it is now being treated as the serious condition that it is. It is worthwhile for you to write down all of your symptoms, their duration and severity, and have a full physical with your doctor.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also okay to admit that maybe you just don\u2019t love parenting \u2013 or at least parenting young children. I have a distinct memory of sitting on the floor with one of my children, putting on and taking off Calico Critter clothing and thinking to myself: \u201cI am going to die of boredom. On this floor. Right now.\u201d I loved (and love) my children, but parenting very young children was rough on me, and so I always was doing something else: finishing my masters, working outside the home, volunteering, starting my own business. It was a privilege to patchwork my parenting and work life like this, but it was also hard, and easy to feel seething resentment toward everyone \u2013 society, my spouse, other mums and my own children.<\/p>\n
Finding your lane in these early parenting years is crucial for your mental health as well as the mental health of your children. Your children don\u2019t understand that your disbelief, anger, fatigue, boredom or any other feeling isn\u2019t about them personally; they will feel like they are the problem. And I\u2019m not saying this to make you feel guilty, but when parents are distant and stressed, it creates insecurity in the children (which can lead to a whole host of mental health issues).<\/p>\n
It behoves the whole family system for you to prioritise your mental health. Parenting young children is hard, so please see your doctor, find a good therapist and take care of yourself. Good luck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to motherhood! Welcome to the world of double standards, little support, isolation and the endless data about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1665,95,9442,8608,5972,14768,35964,1333,31989,702,1899,13840,156506,2721,111,139,69,1118,8765,3235,213,150065,1237,8238,6736,1316,1533],"class_list":["post-467390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-advice","tag-and","tag-better","tag-comes","tag-day","tag-every","tag-feels","tag-get","tag-im","tag-it","tag-kids","tag-like","tag-miserable","tag-mum","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-parenting","tag-sold","tag-sports","tag-toddlers","tag-two","tag-under","tag-was","tag-when","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}