I’ll Love You Forever, But Sometimes I May Not Like You - OR Confessions of a Single Toddler Mom, Chapter 2

Oh hey y’all! Bet you thought you had seen the last of my crazy ass. But nawwwww. Here I am, live and in living black and white, back to share more of my life and insanity and what passes for wisdom with you! 

Without further ado, I’m going to jump right in to the meat of this post, which is: 

Mamas: it is okay to think that your child is a straight up asshole. Because chances are, they are sometimes. 

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I will (kind of) attempt to explain myself. Not entirely, because unless you are paying my bills this month (which, feel free), I don’t owe anyone any explanation, because I am an adult and I am the parent and because god damnit, I just don’t. BUUUUUUUUUUT, I do owe you one, for the purposes of this post. 

There is a SHIT TON of guilt that comes with being a mom these days. Especially when you’re a working mom. You’re either with your kid too much or not enough. Your work takes you away from them, or playing superheroes and drowning spiders takes you away from your work. There is no healthy middle ground, there is no in between. Some aspect of your life is going to suffer, and usually we choose our own self worth and beat ourselves up over not doing enough, and not being enough, when in reality? If we had like four more hours in any day of the week, we would feel like the goddesses that we seriously fucking are, and have been, since the moment we decided to bring another little human being onto this Earth. Truth.  

Especially at this time of year, and in this day and age, that guilt sometimes is aggrandized by our friends who maybe haven’t had a child, are struggling to have a child, or who maybe just think we complain too much - because after all, we get a whole day of the calendar year dedicated to celebrating us so...shouldn’t that be enough? 

 

To anyone who has ever had that thought I say: loud and clear, a very VERY emphatic FUCKKKKKK YOUUUUUU. 

Because no.  
No, it is not enough.
Did we make the choice to become mothers? Usually. (I’m not getting into the pressure of that whole situation, that’s a horse of a different color.)
Are we so so very lucky that these little humans call us Mommy or Mama or something of the sort? Fuck yeah!
 

But here’s the truth:
Sometimes they fucking suck. Sometimes, they suck our energy, and they suck our souls, and sometimes we really do end up locking ourselves in the bathroom and having a real good cry on the other side of that door for about ninety-three seconds, then splashing cold water on our faces and acting like it’s all okay. 

These. Are. Facts. 

Are they attractive? Are they comfortable? No. Maybe not. Some people make them into humorous situations to hide the truly difficult dynamic of being a parent (I.e. the “have kids they said, it’ll be fun they said” kind of comment). To mask how overwhelmed they are. Some people drink. Some people work out too much. Everybody is their own unique coping animal. But no matter how you twist it, they’re miniature despots, and it can be so so fucking difficult some days to look at them, because you maybe peed a little because you’ve been holding it in at the playground, and you can feel it running down your leg silently as you also feel the judgey looks from the Lululemon moms at the playground because your kid decided he was going to launch himself off the top rung of the ladder on the jungle gym (not that I know from personal experience or anything...) when you asked him for the fortieth time to please come with you because you have to leave.  

And you know what? 
I am SO SO FUCKING TIRED. I am tired of us apologizing for feeling that way about our kids just because we are lucky enough to have them.

Something my mother told me my entire life was: “I love you all the time, but right now? I don’t like you very much.” On separate occasions recently, my almost-four-year-old has inspired myself and my brother to say this to him, and it really made me think about how true and appropriate it really was. I hear all the time about how all moms do is complain, when we chose this. How we should be grateful, how we should shut up and just be parents. But we all parent our own ways. Some people choose to let nannies raise their children in favor of chasing their own dreams and interests. Some people stay at home and have a spouse who supports their family. To both of these people, I offer myself up for late term adoption.  

To the rest of you, I submit this statement...and you might want to sit down. It’s a little crazy. A little next level.  

Ya ready? 

WE DO NOT HAVE TO LIKE OUR CHILDREN ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME. 

We don’t even like ourselves a hundred percent of the time! Who are we even trying to kid here?! 

What needs to change, though, is the innate guilt that comes with admitting how true the above statement is for all of us, both moms and dads alike.  

It doesn’t make us bad people.
It doesn’t make us bad parents.
It just makes us humans.  

Now. 

At one time or another we - as parents - have read to our children that “I Love You Forever” book, with the creepy mom and the song, and the feels and the tears it dissolves me into just about every fucking time I read it. My mom read it to me as a kid, and gave me a copy while I was pregnant. It’s like a mom rite of passage or something.  

But that “I’ll like you for always” line? That bit is what trips me up. That bit is what I cant get behind. Because, ladies, IT. IS. A. LIE.  

If you know the story behind the book’s inception, it maybe makes sense, considering it IS, after all, about a stillborn child. And look, I’m not downplaying the tragedy any mother of any kind of child has experienced, but I can only speak from my own experience. That’s just the way it is and will always be. And if you don’t like that, feel free to exit out stage left, have a glorious fucking day. 

Because even though my kid is kind, and smart, and curious, and funny, and polite, and helpful, and friendly, and so loving...he’s also (almost) four. 

So that means that sometimes?
  Sometimes, my kid is an asshole.

 

But...guess what?
 He’s my asshole. And I wipe his, so I get to feel that way about him. Whether you like it or not.  

That said,
I hope all you badass mamas have a fucking incredible Mother’s Day. I hope you get the greatest burnt pancakes and not quite cooked eggs in the world brought to you in your bed. I hope you get to pretend you’ll do all the things you want to do, but really you still end up doing the dishes, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

And most of all,
I hope this made you smile.
I hope you feel even a little better.
And on days when shit is rough, 
I hope you know you’ve got a friend in me.
 
Keep it creepy, y’all.
Yours, in motherhood and beyond, 

Rachface xo