I want to preface this post with I really do love my children and being a mom. At least 99% of the time. Even now, I can feel my overactive ovaries dropping eggs like crazy. I can hear my uterus urging for the company of a placenta and a baby. It’s a lonely little organ. When you think about it, it’s so lonely that it makes its own accompanying organ. What other organs do that?
There are more days than not that I yearn for another baby but then sometimes, not often, but sometimes, the pang of regret is so palpable, it hurts so deep I feel like my heart might break. These are the days that I wish I would have used birth control until I was 40.
No one tells you about the drudgery of parenthood. Sometimes it can down right suck. When you have kids, you no longer live your life according to the beat of your own drum. You turn your drum in and it gets smashed and incinerated and you get the little baby drums of your children. You live your life according to their drums. They have erratic little drums, just when you think you’ve found the rhythm they change the song, sometimes even the whole genre of music. You’re floating along marching a quaint and easy lullaby and then Crash, they’ve moved to the blues. Blues has no predictability. You stumble along until they decide to change it again.
Bong. No more sleeping in. You get up at 6.
Bong. Forget manicured nails, you’re changing dirty diapers for toddlers that refuse to reliably use the potty.
Bong. No successful career. You stay at home to raise happy, well adjusted, good little humans.
Boom. All of the things that you used to be are now redefined. You’re now a cook, chauffeur, maid, negotiator, peace maker, teacher, wife, butt cleaner, disciplinarian, nose wiper, meanie. Each day, with each dirty diaper, with each load of laundry and meal cooked you loose just a little more of yourself.
It isn’t often that I think of all of the things that I gave up to be a mom. They all seem so petty and selfish. Honestly, some of them I don’t even want. Even some that I think I might want, I know I really don’t. Every once in a while, something creeps up and blindsides me. It will remind me what I might be missing. It’s the want for something more than missing sleep and the drudgery of the housekeeping and monotony of the cooking. It’s that thing that reminds me of the person that I am deep down buried under the dirty dishes and clean laundry.
Regret rears her ugly little head. She’s a bitch. She shares her malcontent and short temper. She breaks out the black streamers and the alcohol and the pity party starts. I’m ashamed to say that sometimes I’m more than happy to join her. I just want to wallow in it. I want to swim around with her until my fingers get all shriveled and pruney.
I know how incredibly blessed and lucky I am. I could write every day about the wonderful things my kids do, the wonderful little people they are turning into, the perfection of my husband. Yet, there are still those days that I morn for my drum.
Overactiveovaries 
Can I just say thank you for being honest! I think at some point in time we all feel like that, I feel like that quite often. I feel used and abused. I hear Im the worst mommy ever and Im mean and My 6 year olds tell me they hate me. I do know that one day they will thank me. For every time they tell me they hate me they will have a reason to thank me when they are older. Why do we have to feel guilty to want more??? Who said we have to lose ourselves to be a mother??? I havent been away overnight in 7 years, my children rule me but I have to say I held an 18 day old baby yesterday and I thought I could this again! Thank you for not making me feel alone!!!
I wish I could say it some day changes, but I don’t think it ever does. I know my adult children all tell me it is my choice, but I guess once you accept that lot in life… I still choose to put my children & grandchildren first in everything.
I think most of us moms feel this way sometimes, not that we will admit it. For me…I sometimes think about how it would be if we had only had the girls. I know, it sounds horrible. I know for a fact that we wouldn’t have Kai, if I hadn’t already been pregnant with him when Niko was diagnosed with SPD. Now that I am homeschooling the boys, and the school doesn’t cause anymore heartache for us, I can enjoy my wonderful boys.
There are those days that I feel sorry for myself, but I have to believe that I am doing the right thing.
Thank you for your post:)
you know I have felt this way too. I have four children, 11, 8, 7, 5. I homeschooled them when only the oldest two were school-age.
I am not familiar with you blog and you may already being doing some of the things I am going to suggest, please know that I am not judging you and I do not think that you are a horrible mom.
When I homeschooled I began to feel trapped. I was home all day and the only things that I did were schooling or housework. I had been a teacher and I had been a college student, I had many dreams that I had never attempted much less achieved.
While lying in my tub one evening trying to shed the day’s crises, it dawned on me that I owed it to myself and my children to work toward the dreams that I had. I wanted my children to know that we do not have to push our dreams aside and become complacent in our lives. So I thought about the one thing that I had wanted to do since I was the age of my younges daughter who was probably around 5: I wanted to be in pageants. Silly? Maybe. Possible? I wasn’t sure. I began to look into pageants in my area and there was one coming up ( in fact the deadline for entry had passed.) I knew a particular family that participated in pageants and I sought advice from her. My first pageant was fun and I enjoyed just being on stage. My pageant skills were lacking in every area, but it didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to attempt it. I did and I loved it. I continued to do pageants up to the state level where I won Mrs. Photogenic. I was devastated that I had not placed in the top five but I still loved it. I plan to participate again in the future. After the pageant, I have always wanted to be a doctor, so I applied to get back into college thinking that I could maybe take classes to become a teacher because I knew quite a bit about education, after all I was a homeschool mom. Once in college my old dreams crept back in and I couldn’t imagine going to college for anything other than what I had wanted to do when I had began 15 years prior. So in December I will graduate with my bachelors degree in Biology with a chemistry minor.
I am currently applying to medical school. My children are all in public school and every day I wish that had not started this journey but I compelled to finish it.
My children love PS and they do well, they are very proud of their mother who is becoming a doctor.
My point in all of this is to say that the grass is always greener on the other side. If you know that you are called to homeschooling then choose some time for you to invest in the things that you once enjoyed without giving up the homeschooling. If you are not sure then pray if you are religious and if not then think about what is important and what lessons you want to teach your children about life.
I hope you that you have a blessed day and I am sure that whatever you put your mind to do, that you will do it to the fullest.
Enjoy these moments; they are life.
Blessings
Amy J.
I get you!!! I walk a path like yours. It is a daily challenge for me. I love my kids. I have one less than you. I hear it all the time WOW 4 kids. I bet you get it more.