When you're in the thick of being a mother, it's ok to feel rage and hate. It just is. Motherhood can make you so small, you lose your voice. You lose your self. It's natural to resent the little people who chip away at your self day after day.
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I was listening to a gut wrenching podcast about Motherhood by Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond. Its the "Dear Sugar" podcast which is basically an evolved, profound advice column for the 21st century. It's that amazing and has caused me multiple times to stop what I'm doing and re-evaulate life. In this particular episode, a brave and honest woman writes in that she's come to the realization that she doesn't like being a mother. That it hurts her to feel that way and it hurts to keep having to parent. She feels like an outsider and the guilt is suffocating. The "Sugars", as they call themselves, praised her for her bravery and explained how she is most definitely not alone in this conflicted feeling. Listen to the podcast for the details, it will change you.

As I listened to the letter, I texted my own Sugar, my sister-by-choice, the friend that knows me deep and gets it. I texted: "I'm listening to Dear Sugar and I'm pretty sure I could've written this letter". I had to pull over on the highway because my mascara was running thickly down my cheeks and I couldn't drive and cry simultaneously. She texted back: "Me too". I breathed. Relief washed over me knowing I wasn't crazy. I wasn't alone in this.

Motherhood is discordant. I can fiercely love and hate simultaneously. The fierce love is evolutionary. I will cut you if you hurt my babies. I will forego sleep for nights on end if it means my kids will eat or break their fever. I will drive stupid distances to get my kids to soccer practice and endure a van load of boys who smell like cumin tinged body odor and old socks. I will listen to them crying about the one role in the play they didn't want- and got- and I have to stifle the urge to call the drama teacher to say "she doesn't WANT that role" (I don't do that). To see your child sad is a pain that goes from sharp to dull but never goes away. There's a deep, biological mandate to meet your children's needs and to protect them from pain. Without that instinct, they die. It's a perfect, brilliant desire encoded in our DNA. This crazy love is what keeps us alive. It's why kids are small and cute- so it's easier to meet their needs. And I love meeting their needs.

But there are so many needs. It's easy to get subsumed by their needs. To be swallowed whole by motherhood. The hate comes when I realize how swallowed I've become. How sometimes I notice that all my husband and I have been talking about for the last 30 minutes are the kids. Their schedules, their school lunches, their emotional health, their medications and doctors appointments. My planner (yes, I use a paper planner even though it's 2016; don't judge me) got so full of kids stuff that I went out and bought a "MomAgenda"- a planner devoted to kids. As much as it keeps me organized, I see it as a reflection of what my identity has become. Mom. Caregiver. Carpool Driver. Nurse. Secretary. Therapist. Fast Food Cook (i'm being honest). It's at the same time rewarding and instinctive as it is life sucking. Sometimes I feel so depleted as a person and it's easy to forget who I was before children. I must've been someone. I must've been an individual with needs. What happened to her? Where are those needs? It's too easy to store them away in an attic for years when you have kids. It's almost the natural trajectory. I hate that trajectory.

This is when I resent my children and the woman I've become. When I've been swallowed whole and am sitting in the belly of the beast- thirsty, starving for something of my own. Something that's meaningful to me. Something that gives me a sense of purpose outside of parenting. Something that ignites a fire and makes my blood pump stronger than before. Something I create that's not a human. I'm working on this now and giving myself permission to do it even if it means spending less time focused on the kids has been everything. It's a reawakening of my self.

When you're in the thick of being a mother, it's ok to feel rage and hate. It just is. Motherhood can make you so small, you lose your voice. You lose your self. It's natural to resent the little people who chip away at your self day after day.

I really wanted children. I consciously had children. I underwent many rounds of IVF to get them. There were no accidents there. I knew with every cell that I wanted children. I love them with every cell too. But I know too that I can't be subsumed by them, lest I end up a raving lunatic full of bilious rage. I also have to write, exercise, maintain real friendships, talk about things other than kids, read and write some more. I need a life outside of being a mother. I suspect there are women who feel this way too. The danger lies in the shame of it and the keeping it inward. It will surface eventually. And the collateral damage of that bubbling may be heavy. Instead, can we agree that as much as we love being mothers some of the time, there are times when we would rather do anything else? Can we say out loud how motherhood makes us sad and regretful at times without feeling that we are deviant and less than?

Like most worthy things- motherhood isn't simple. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. It's the most painful. It's, without a doubt, the most fatiguing. It can destroy you and leave nothing but a shell of your old self. It doesn't have to, though. Let's talk about it and strategize how to make it easier to maintain our selves and still be "good mothers". Let's shine a bright light on the dark and dusty resentment so we aren't alone.

We can do it. We're mothers, after all.

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