Drowning

Posted by Anonymous.

They’re destroying us.. At nine months and 3 yrs, the children are ruining our marriage. I have been patient, thinking it will get better when they’re older, but how do we make it until then?

Nursing has completely killed my sex drive. I used to be the one who lustily drove our lovemaking and now I just don’t care. At all. My husband is actually pawing at me in desperation for the first time in our relationship. I have no interest, and am slowly realizing that my sense of myself as a sexual being and attractive and vital is deeply connected to certain hormones that seem to be on vacation. I am a shell of my former self. Everything is blah. Stop nursing? I could, but I like it for all the reasons women like nursing—the health benefits, the attachment, etc.

The preschooler won’t allow us to have a conversation. STOP TALKING!! He screams whenever my husband and I try to speak to one another. We spend all our time engaging him or disciplining him. Yesterday I spent most of the day with him yelling NO at me, kicking me, or throwing things at the baby. I feel like a closet abuse case.

Both children have always been terrible sleepers and now, to get any sleep at all, my husband and I sleep separately: one of us with each child. So we don’t even get to touch bodies in the night. Change things around? We’ll have to try because even sitting next to him and talking briefly about the day before we turn off the light is the *least* we can do to keep the relationship alive, right? But I’ve been sleep deprived for over three years now and the idea of getting even less sleep to train the kids makes me want to stick pencils in my eyes. I never bargained for how alternating angry, psycho, weepy, and passive sleep deprivation would make me. I hate myself for the way I can feel, then I hate the kids, then I feel guilty.

Sometimes I lay awake at night and a total panic overcomes me: the state in which we live, both physically and mentally is entirely due to the children. And I miss my old life SO much I could cry for days. I love them, but I am overwhelmed, exhausted, and I miss my husband terribly. Please assure me that it gets better. I am drowning in regrets, in guilt, in sadness.

Tired

Posted by Anonymous.

I am so tired. I am tired of taking care of everyone and everything. I am tired of always being the optimistic one. I am tired of going without so you can have whatever you want. I am tired of leaving my baby at home* while I work five days a week. I am tired of NEVER having enough money. I am tired of not having enough money and no groceries, tired of begging LITERALLY begging for food money. I am tired of saying that it could be worse. I KNOW IT COULD BE WORSE BUT GOD DAMMIT THIS IS BAD TOO. I am tired of putting on a happy face and taking deep breaths and continuing on. I WANT TO GIVE UP. I want to quit my job quit paying bills and quit leaving my baby. I want to sit on my fat ass and collect welfare and live off of someone else for a while. I want to quit hearing “But your better than that” FUCK BETTER THAN THAT. I want to be that, I want to be lazy and irresponsible and 22. I am 22 years old and I feel like I’m 40! This is fucking ridiculous. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t be this person anymore. I want to scream until my throat bleeds and cry until my eyes cannot cry any longer. I want buy pretty shiny things FOR MYSELF. I want to stop doing dishes and laundry. I just want to be happy again. I know that this will pass and that suffering is normal and I WILL get over this but for RIGHT NOW I just want to be angry and sad. I want someone to tell me that it’s ok and right now it’s shitty and that’s ok too and I want someone to rub my feet and get me a hot cup of tea.

That felt great. Already I'm feeling better - always the eternal optimist. *BTW - just to clarify I don't leave him at home alone! Ha-ha he is with a baby sitter.

Sick And Tired

Posted by Anonymous.

Dear everyone in my family,

I am sick of you all.

My darling pain in the ass in-laws, I am tired of playing nice with you. You two do not give a shit about my kids. You act like you do but yet you only see them when you want to look good for other people (as of this post you have not seen my daughter since July and the boy since Christmas). My husband is in a war zone but yet in the last two fucking years you have never once NEVER ONE FUCKING TIME asked to see if I needed a break, could you take the boy for the night so I could have a girls day with the teenager. YOU HAVE NEVER ONE FUCKING TIME asked to see if I needed something done to the house, if anything needed fixed and you only live a few blocks from the house. I AM FUCKING TIRED OF IT ALL. You blame me for it all because you hate my guts, well guess what I don't like yours either.

My daughter, I know you are almost out of high school, I know that you are almost a grown woman, but guess what? You are still my child, quit giving me attitude. I don't care if your friends don't have to help around their houses, you are under my roof and I am trying to teach you responsibility, what a majority of your friends will never learn if they are not taught it by their parents. Quit playing like it is poor poor you, who has to help me because Daddy is Gone, I am tired of it, I am tired of you letting everyone think you are such a Cinderella, you are not, you do not have that many thing that you have to do, just the dishes and taking out the trash, that is not too much. IF YOU WANT ME TO TREAT YOU LIKE AN ADULT FUCKING ACT LIKE ONE IT CAN'T BE BOTH WAYS.

Son, you are 8, act like it, quit the fucking whining. I can't stand it, I cannot handle the yelling the constant fucking yelling (both my yelling at you and you yelling for no fucking reason). SLEEP IN YOUR OWN GOD DAMN BED. Pick up after yourself, clean up your own messes and wipe your own fucking ass. I am not your maid and I am not your own personal ass wiper. Please quit giving me attitude and please please please quit being up my ass. You do not have to entertained EVERY FUCKING WAKING MOMENT OF EVERY DAMN DAY. You can play on your own. Go to school without a fuss and stop the damn whining. Listen to me, quit sassing me, quit telling me no that you don't have to do whatever it is I am telling you. Just be good for once dammit.

My husband, you may be miles away from me and I can't bitch too much about you except you think I am a miracle worker and can do it all, NEWS FLASH, I am not wonder fucking woman. I cannot do it all. I try but I am only a lowly human and can only do so many things. So if I don't get it all done give me a damn break. I am trying to be mother and father for our kids, I am trying to take care of it all, bills, house repairs, auto maintenance, take care of the animals, take care of the kids and sometimes try to take care of myself.

Love,

Mom and wife

Outside The Bubble

Posted by C at This Matters This Day.

Liz Lemon has done it again. Put a window on something that, in retrospect, felt close to the truth…

Last time was the reunion episode. Weeks later, when wondering idly why some people from high school still haven’t ‘friended’ me – when they had friended others. Not just ‘the popular kids,’ but even kids more off-the-grid, now FRIENDING the ‘popular kids.’ Then, the episode came back to me.

Liz was at her reunion, and discovered that she was mean in highschool. That her reverse-snubbing, her snub-or-be-snubbed was NOT invisible. That the popular kids didn’t like her because she wasn’t likable.

I laughed and payed no real attention. Thought it wasn’t one of the better episodes.

Later – much later – weeks later… **gasp** …

When you are 15-16-17, sharp-witted and imagine yourself slightly better than those around you – the prettier ones, the more together ones, the ones who aren’t so afraid of trying, of proving themselves, of fitting in… ooops.

You become Liz. Snarky, with thinly-veiled quick-witted asides that are – oops again – sarcastic and more than a little mean.

I thought then that those honor role kids just didn’t get me. The truth was something else. I just didn’t want to play. And thought I should get by on my (under-appreciated) looks and (underexercised) raw intelligence.

OK. So flash-forward. Now those same kids – the ones who tried? Who made it all important when, I, in my infinite wisdom (and 2.75 GPA) suspected it wasn’t? Those kids have kids. And their kids are in private school. And they play with my kids. My kids who are woefully unprepared.

I could list the reasons why, or how they are unprepared: mom works, mom is scatter-brained, mom is not wealthy, mom has no idea what the rules are… but the truth is this: Mom doesn’t want to play.

On last night’s 30 Rock, we saw the return of Dr.Drew Baird. (Moment of silence, please, to acknowledge my disproportionate love of Jon Hamm…) The premise was that he is so good-looking that people expect little of him, and fill him with lies. So he’s a doctor that doesn’t know the Heimlich, is awful in bed, and cannot play tennis – and has never waited in a line.

Again, good show. I laughed. I was mad that Jon Hamm was leaving again, (c’mon Liz! Do you HAVE to be the bearer of Truth?) and I laughed harder when Jack Donaghy explained The Bubble and the loss of the Bubble. I laughed ‘cuz it was funny, right? A ridiculous premise?

Oh, shit. I laughed ‘cuz it’s True!

At the risk of being exposed as more narcissistic than I feel (although I guess even narcissism has its roots in self-loathing, but I digress) – I was driving home from my son’s third grade play almost in tears and realized… ooops… I GOT IT!

Now, the almost-tears were for a number of reasons. Chief trigger was that the set looked great. I had derided the moms that made a big deal of the set – thinking that this is third grade, they are walking up to microphones, the play isn’t blocked, each character is shared by six kids, etc. And TWO of my props were rejected as inadequate, and my son’s Zukerman costume was Not Quite Right, even though we got the same Farmer Costume memo as every other mom.

The secondary trigger was the Perfect Moms who told me afterward that my son was great – Moms whose children I did not know, moms themselves whose names are filed somewhere in my back brain where they cannot be accessed as I am trying to anonymously high tail it out of a multimillion dollar performance facility (where my son just performed a walk-up-to-the-mike rendition of a play written for about 8 kids along with 59 of his closest friends.)

You see, friends, I lived in The Bubble. Because while high school may not be kind to the I-think-I-am-prettier-and-smarter-than-you-so-I-flirt-too-much-and-laugh-too-hard-when-I-get-the-grown-up-jokes-of-the-AP-English-teacher-and-treat-everything-with-a-note-of-disdain-and-irony… your twenties? Especially if they got to occur in the nineties? In your twenties, folks eat that shit up.

All the sudden – for a minute, maybe, or for something like six or seven years – I was IT.

I ran in a circle with famous people for a college internship and later, I had a great job. I had loads of friends, I had loads of sex, and I had great hair. I dressed well and drove free German cars. I was connected. Professionally, personally… I felt untouchable. I flirted as I breathed. I got promoted. I worked way over my head, and I gathered in large chummy packs at the neighborhood bar in the tony neighborhood… that I walked to.

Because no one ever accused me of making things look easy, I assumed my aggressive wheel spinning and frenetic pace meant I really was working hard.

I assumed, that somehow, without actually working for it… I had earned it. I believed my press.

My eventual husband believed it, too – he would say later that his initial impression was that I was ‘out of his league,’ he imagined that I had it together – because there was so much of it, and it looked confusing to the outsider.

I was In the Bubble.

And inside, it actually was confusing. But it was contained, somewhat.

All that happened, besides growing up and getting married and having kids and folding into private schools (quite by accident, but again I digress) is that I outgrew the bubble. And now? 40, with those intrepid kids in tow … the bubble is gone.

The mess is no longer contained by the walls of the bubble, and I am exposed to the (god love him, still-with-me) husband. I am invisible among those working harder, with more qualifications and a more complete rule set. My confusion confuses them. They expect more of themselves… shoudn’t I?

Inside the bubble was better.

So, somehow? Now, I guess? It’s time to grow up. Or at least fake it a whole lot better.

Ergg.

No Clue

Posted by Anonymous.

I have no clue what the hell to do.

Do I play with them? How long should I play with them? Let them play by themselves in the yard? Leave them alone? Let them go to the park across the street without me? I've been a mom for 6 years and I feel so lost.

I have no example to go from.

I didn't have a mom from 3 until I was 11. Well I did, but she was drinking, drunk or passed out. Her mood depended on time of day and drink of choice. She wasn't volunteering to be the Cookie mom for scouts. She wasn't helping my class. She wasn't chaperoning the class trip or teaching us about art. She wasn't taking me to the park. She took me to the store down the street occasionally, but only when she was out of her drink of choice. She was either passed out, screaming at me to do stuff around the house, or telling me I was a waste.

I hated staying home sick.

Don't even ask about other family as everyone was working full time when I was born.

I remember being three, sitting on my Holly Hobby comforter and watching I Love Lucy and eating Oreos and Pepsi for lunch because she was already drunk and passed out. I was hungry and had to eat what I could reach. Or the time I had to tell the bus driver for my Early Childhood program that I couldn't go because I had no clean pants. Or having to go to grade school in clothes that didn't match because that was what was clean and I had to get my self to school on time so the school wouldn't have to call home and say I was late. How I stayed in that house is a mystery to me still.

I had a dad, but he had to work to keep us afloat. He came home each night, judged what had happened that day and took over. Did he have to cook dinner? Pick my mom off the bathroom floor? Check my homework? Take my mom to the hospital? Figure out where I was? By the end of all that, he was exhaused and just wanted to watch TV, not take his kid to the park.

So I have no clue how to be a mom to my kids. I still don't have it figured out at this point. What do I do? How much should I be involved? Am I too involved? Are they in too many activities? Too few? Do I step back and let them be more independent? Less independent?

The parenting books don't handle this. Their father is no help as he was raised by his grandma while his mom was busy making sure the younger brother stayed alive and his dad worked constantly or was drunk and passed out. Their father thinks I'm doing fine. I have my doubts constantly and frequently.

I am so confused.

The Price Of Motherhood

Posted by Anonymous.

I feel like shit. I interviewed for a position and the person they hired posted their resume on the internet. I googled her. She speaks 3 languages, has a degree and diploma, has worked with countless graphic design firms, and she had to come along and eat the little job I was applying for. Why didn't she try for something bigger and leave the scraps for me?

What makes me upset the most is that there's no way for me to get what she has. I have no time to upgrade my skills or gain the experience she has without risking my steady paycheque. I spend ALL of my free time taking care of three children. I can't go to the bathroom myself, can't shower by myself, can't go to sleep by myself. It's always "mommy, mommy, mommy" for everything, even in the middle of the night. My whole life has been interrupted by these kids. I once had so much fire in me that I felt I could take the world by storm and show them what I'm made of. Now I've been reduced to a depressed mess.

I feel like I missed my chance to have a career, and not just a job. I wanted a family, but didn't realize at the time that it would mean my doing 90% of the household work and still being looked at like I'm not doing enough. I didn't realize at the time that I would have to give up who I was and what I stood for in order to be 'mommy' and 'wife'. I didn't realize how much I would have to sacrifice to have kids. And despite how many times people tell you about the true responsibilities of having kids, I never fully got it until I had them. Now I'm bitter and angry.

I'm mad at my husband for being allowed to carry on as if nothing has happened to his life. He can still climb that corporate ladder, socialize and put his needs first without being accused of being a bad parent, while I have to take a back seat and pretend that I have no needs of my own. I have to listen to other mothers at work talk about mommy guilt and how they can't do enough for their babies and wish they had time to do more for their kids. More? Really? Is sacrificing everything not enough? It's like they've been sucked into a 'mommy' universe where they are no longer people, no longer women, just mommies with no desires outside those that involve their kids. Some women will whisper to me about the difficulties they face, but won't say anything out in the open. It's like a secret, a big shameful secret to be tired and exhausted from carrying an entire family on your shoulders.

I just want to scream sometimes in the most inappropriate places "I can be a mother to my children without having to give up everything!!!!!!!". Even if I just had a space to talk about it and not have to bottle it inside to avoid the 'selfish mother' title. Now, I'm stuck in a job I don't like and I barely have enough time to brush my own teeth let alone study for school to upgrade my skills. Even though I love the little people inside my house, I know that given the chance, I would not ever do this again. The price of motherhood has been too much for me. I am so miserably unhappy.

Not Welcome

Posted by Anonymous.

I live in an elitist town.

What does this mean? It means I will never measure up. I will never be good enough to be in the "hip mom" circle.

Most of the time, I'm okay with that. I know I'm educated and my child(ren?) will grow up to hopefully be educated, caring people.

I don't care that I'm not the most fashionable mom at the park. I spend my money on things that bring pleasure to me, like books and photography equipment.

But sometimes, it really hurts.

Like tonight.

I went to an open house for a new toy lending library. I was hoping to get some business exposure (I have a home party business selling toys) since I figured that anyone willing to shell out $100 a year to borrow a few toys would be willing to buy some of these good quality educational toys.

Everyone at the open house was wearing a cute little dress and looked like they had just come from having high tea. I was wearing a decent shirt (no baby snot) and casual pants.

I tried to smile and act like it didn't matter that no one was talking to me.

The "owner" introduced herself and I was able to talk to her for a few minutes about our business possibilities since we had spoken on the phone.

Then one of the "committee" members came up and was introduced. And proceeded to monopolize me right out of the conversation by speaking only to the owner and facing her. Hello, I can read that body language a mile away. It says, "you're not welcome here".

I was so hoping to break into this circle for my business, but I guess I'd have to be "one of them" to do that. And that's not going to happen while I slouch around in my flip-flops, taking pictures of everything and not caring that I have dirt on my butt.

Redemption In A Baby Album?

Posted by Amanda.

it's sunday. it's sunday again, and again i have put off everything. i always look forward to the weekend, thinking of the many things i will accomplish - oh how productive i will be. friday rolls around and i make mental lists, plan my time; strategize cleaning, organizing, sports, time with my son, finally getting that baby album together (hey, he's only 6...). during the week i convince myself that my inability to accomplish much at home is because i am so busy (work, mom duties, errands, every after school activity under the sun) and that redemption will come in the form of a weekend well utilized. yet every weekend, sunday evening comes and i begin to panic, start beating myself up for having finished practically nothing on my list. the minutes go by and i think to myself "do something! the week is about to begin again and you will have no time until next weekend!" i let myself watch a re-run of "law and order" or "i love lucy" - the two shows which seem forever on, making it difficult to differentiate days and times. i know, i'll check my email for the hundred and third time today. procrastination. and now it's almost time to make dinner. i can hear my son building with legos in his room. i take a deep breath knowing that after dinner there will be games, stories, then bed. there will be no redemption this weekend. the list will wait. who needs a perfect baby album anyway? i think i'll go play with my son.

The Post-Partum Week From Hell

Posted by Anonymous.

The last four weeks of my pregnancy were hellish. First, my doctor almost killed me and my unborn son by administering an anemia treatment to which I had a severe allergic reaction.

I could barely walk by the end, and when my doctor told me she wanted to deliver me five days early, I issued no protest.

Now I'm wishing I could turn back the clock.

It isn't the baby - he is as sweet as pie, some nights even sleeping for six hours at a stretch. He wakes twice at the most. The blessing of birthing an almost 10-pounder. I earned some good karma while waddling around with his big noggin pressing on my cervix.

But this week? This week after the birth?

Is from HELL.

First, every in-law I have descended on me, with my FIL and MIL doing their level best to divert my husband's attention from me and our new baby. Their 30-year-old divorce feud spills over into every family event, culminating this time in a call from my MIL to my husband the day after I came home from the hospital, summoning him to her hotel room so she and her husband could interrogate my husband as to his "feelings' about the divorce.

IT WAS 34 YEARS AGO. GET OVER IT ALREADY.

Then my brother found me on Twitter and made his way to my blog. This is such a bad, bad thing. Such a very very bad bad thing. He and his wife now have the goods on me - my mother doesn't know about my blog, and my brother - and especially his wife - hate my mother.

There is little to deter him from using my blog as a weapon against my mom - or me, for that matter - should one of them get in a snit about something.

And I don't want to hurt my mom. I never told her about my blog, because at the beginning it was a place for me to vent and grieve in private anonymity. Not even my husband reads it, giving me free reign to write honestly about my inner life.

A freedom now curtailed.

I am stifled by the idea of their eyes on my words. I'm tentative, where once I was fearless.

What do I do? Clear out my archives of precious words and tell her? Or wait, crouched in defensive position, to have the bomb dropped for me?

How do I explain it?

Oh, and just after that, my husband decided we should finally, after six years of marriage, combine our bank accounts. Let's just say we have very different ideas when it comes to finances. And that was the last vestige of freedom I had - my own checking account.

As a woman who gave up all her independence to stay home and raise children, the few dollars I earn from my writing gave me a sense that I am not totally reliant on my husband.

And now I am.

I had hoped to avoid anti-depressants this time around. But major life changes are my biggest triggers. How about a series of stressful life-changing events?

Please pass the Lexapro.

Beast

Posted by Anonymous.

Immediately after it happens, I am surprisingly cool. It's only a few minutes later, when I think of his little face and the fear and confusion written on it that I start to crumble inward. The guilt and disappointment in myself are overwhelming, and there's nobody to blame, no extenuating circumstances to add up and say "This is why it happened." It just comes out of nowhere.

I am surprised because it's not a particularly hard night. I was easy on everyone, letting the children watch a new DVD, skipping bathtime so bedtime could happen punctually. Kyle wasn't even resisting more than usual, and he even cleaned up his cars without being forced. But he peed in his pants and then asked for water. I said no. He cried. I thought about how he gets his way in this manner too often, that it's becoming a pattern and it must be stopped. So I stood firm, and kept saying no. He threw a tantrum. I lost it.

I slammed his closet door and yelled at him as loud as I could: "LISTEN TO ME! WHEN MOMMY SAYS 'NO' YOU SAY 'OKAY, MOMMY!' You do NOT throw a tantrum and scream and cry!" I held him by the shoulders and yelled this into his face, which made him cry harder. His eyes widened and he shrank away from me in fear and despair. He had awakened the hideous impatient unmotherly thing inside me. He knows the deal by now. He's already three. This would end badly, and he was totaled.

It only gets worse. I roughly pulled his Pull Up on and then shoved him into bed, yelling "I'm sick of you! Go to sleep!" and then slamming the door on my way out of his room. And then, as he wailed with rejection and sadness, I calmly took the garbage outside and threw a load of laundry into the washer.

Who is this version of myself that can treat my child this way? Why do I, the nurturing woman who dissolves into tears when I hear of any child being mistreated, mentally stand aside and watch from within as this happens? It's like another person takes over my body and I can only think "you should stop. This is getting worse. You'll regret this later."

And I do. I do, very much. My throat hurts from yelling and from suppressing the sobs that are just below the surface. My heart hurts, and it's making my back hurt and my toes hurt and my head hurt. I have hurt my child with my words and manner, and I can't take it back.

I need a way to handle this when it happens. I need my self to speak up when the angry beast rears her head and takes over. I need to stop this now, before it happens again as the children get over, and these episodes root themselves in their memories and affect the way they are shaped as people. I need help.

I'm Angry

Posted by Marti.

I’ve been carrying this around for six years and two months. No one knows. And now it’s getting heavy; as my son grows older, it’s getting unbelievably burdensome and awkward to hold within.

I’m angry. I’m bitter.

You would never guess that from looking at me. I have myself together. I’m an independent single mother. I provide nicely for my son. He attends a private school. I have my nursing degree, and I have a stable, dependable job with excellent benefits. I am incredibly laid back. I don’t yell, I’m not excitable, I don’t have mood swings.

Except that my insides are teeming with anger. Seething. I grind my teeth and don’t even realize it. I clench my jaw until it aches. Because I am angry.

When I found out I was going to have my son, I was twenty-one years old. I was living with the “father”, who was already a father to a one year old girl. The daughter’s mother did not know that he and I were “together” like that. He told her I was a lesbian and that we were just “roommates”. So imagine her shock when she walked into the apartment one afternoon and found us taking a nap together. She freaked. He freaked, thinking she would take the daughter away from him. She ran out. He ran after. And left me alone, where I remained until he came back in and furiously declared, “You can’t be pregnant and live here”. So I left. Alone. And alone is where I am now, six years and two months later.

I love my son. He is the sole purpose for my existence. He is everything I never thought I wanted. The moment he was born, I realized – this is it. This is why I am alive. For him, and him only.

But still, I was alone.

Yes, there were friends and the occasional family member and heaven-sent home daycare workers, but at the end of the day, after going to school from eight in the morning until noon, then working from 4pm until midnight, I was alone. Me and my baby.

I put myself through school. Twice. I received food stamps, Medicaid. I still remember the hot sting of the flood of tears I had to hold back until I could make it out of the government building and to my car. My pride was crushed. My spirit was broken. And out of those ruins, I created this – our life.

My family told me I couldn’t do it. My mother gave me money for an abortion. I sent it back. I am pro-choice, but my gut told me to hunker down, pull myself up from my bootstraps, and plow through. My relationship with my mother was forever damaged from the moment I marked “Return to sender” on her $400 check. My son is half-black, and my mother’s second husband is incredibly racist. We’re not welcome in her home; therefore my son has no real “grandparents”.

I’m angry.

But for all those people who told me “You can’t do it”, I proved them wrong a thousand times over. I turned myself into a one-woman operation. Cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping, lunch-making, kid-bathing, lawn mowing, rent-paying, ...I could go on but you name it, I do it. Alone.

The “father” has since gotten back together with the daughter’s mother. They had a son, and now they’re married. My son is no more than an after thought to the “father”. A distant memory, a living walking talking piece of proof that he once lied and got caught lying.

All of my friends are married, most of them have kids. And supportive families, and in-laws. It’s hard to be around them sometimes. The husbands and the grandparents and the idea of “family” seems to point to all I don’t have, and all I ache to be able to provide for my child.

Because it’s just me, me and my baby, and I am angry about that.

I am grateful for all that I have. I’m not so incredibly bitter that I am unable to be grateful. We have our health; we have a roof over our heads. My son is beautiful and articulate and imaginative. I no longer have to rely on government assistance. I was able to go to school and rise above the statistics of single motherhood. I also know that I chose this; I knew (to a certain extent) what I was getting into. But really, who truly knows the full repercussions of “what they’re getting into” when entering parenthood for the first time?

Every night I crawl into my son’s twin bed, squeeze myself between him and the wall, fold him into my arms and sing what he refers to as “The Sunshine Song”. And most nights I fight not to cry, even as one or two tears escape, because the words tear me apart. He is my sunshine, he does make me happy, and I would die if ever someone tried to take him away. After the song is over, I kiss him, and I hug him. I tell him I love him, make sure he has his blankets the way he likes them, and his blankies are within reach. I scratch his back, adjust his nightlight, and then I shut his door, and I am alone. My baby is sleeping, and I am alone.

My anger has been shoved down deep inside me for a long time. It festers in the dark, mostly because I won’t allow it in the light, where it could begin to air out, scab over, and eventually heal. I can’t keep shoving it down any longer. It’s eating me from the inside out. I need to allow it to heal, I need to allow it to the surface. This is my attempt. This is me saying, “I am angry”, bringing it into the light, allowing it to the surface, not letting it fester anymore.

I’m angry. But I don’t want to be anymore.

This Ain't A Song For The Broken Hearted

Posted by Anonymous.

My son got dumped yesterday.

Let me start over.

My teenage son's girlfriend of 8 months who started out as his Best Friend Forever and who was the first girl to hold his heart in her hands took his heart and broke it today. Into several little pieces. THREE DAYS BEFORE THE BIG DANCE AT SCHOOL.

Let me start by saying that I gave him some good advice the last few weeks when he and I felt like she might be stringing him along. She started ignoring him for no reason and hanging out with other boys. I told him that I know from experience that this is her way to be passive/aggressive about dumping him. I had been dumped that way many times. So he confronted her, and she dumped him.

I also would like to go on record saying I gave him some good advice about how he should stay friends with her since they've been friends for so long and they'll probably be friends for years. But that maybe it's okay to make her feel bad for a few days since she did dump him three days before a dance.

Now that I've sworn to you that I was a good Mom, at least a little bit. Let me tell you the rest.

I might have spent the majority of last night helping him mend his broken heart by calling this poor girl a frakkin' beeyatch and possibly offering to burn the gifts she had given him. I may have also tried to talk him into rolling her house. There may have been times when I openly mocked her annoying habits by doing exaggerated impersonations of her and then encouraging him to direct horrible insults at me, pretending I was her. And then there was the whole, "Fuck her. You're too fucking good for her anyway," comment I might have made in a fit of desperation when I thought he was going to start crying. It may have been the first time he's ever heard me use the f-word somewhere other than the car. And, of course, there might have been a moment when I told him that if she went to the dance with the boy she's been flirting with, I was going to spray paint the walls of his school declaring that she is a WHORE.

Of course, I wouldn't actually do that.

(Or at least I'll let you think that I wouldn't. But I totally would.)

But - I did threaten it and it made him laugh. Actually - all of my rants where I may or may not have called his girlfriend "THAT SKANK" made him laugh. And it's the only thing I knew to do for him. Make him laugh.

I asked him if he'd still go to the dance, just to hang out with his friends. He said, "No." I don't think he wants to risk seeing THAT SKANK dance with THAT ASSHOLE FUCKWAD. So he asked if I'd go see a movie with him instead.

And now my heart is broken.

I guess I'll just toughen up and enjoy a date night with him since this is probably the last time he'll invite me out to a movie. And then, when he's not looking, I'll totally take her off his top friends in MySpace. It's the least I can do.

Pretty/Unpretty

Posted by Anonymous.


For a flirty girl, I never felt very pretty. I was one of those girls that was just sort of there, friendly to everyone; never a threat to the other girls, because the boys never really considered me as dating potential. I wasn't ugly, but being good looking was an afterthought (as in "Oh, she's such a sweetie, and she's really funny. Is she pretty? Yeah, I guess she is. I hadn't really thought about it")

I met my husband when I was 20, and was just coming off of a really bad time in my life. We've been together through job searches/changes/losses, through health scares (mental and physical). We've had over ten years of marriage, three children, the buying and selling of two houses. He still makes my heart jump when I see him in a tuxedo, and he likes the way I look in my low rise jeans since I made a decision that I needed to start exercising more.

But there's this guy at work. I thought the initial attention was what I had seen so much of in high school and college- more of the joking flirting that happens when both parties don't actually expect anything to develop for real. But after a few drinks together at a conference, he told me that he was willing to take things wherever I wanted them to go. Whether I wanted to leave it at a few cocktails when we were two time zones away from the office, or whether I wanted to take it to another level. And, then at least, I was too taken aback to even consider the options.

And more than a year has passed. We've had happy hours where we've barely spoken two words because there were so many people nearby. We've had highly charged chats where the only thing holding us back from making contact was the fear of someone walking into the cubicle. A few weeks ago, we ended up at a co-worker's party, each of us alone (his wife and my husband both declined to attend due to work commitments, but encouraged each of us to go on our own and have fun.) We left the party as part of a small group, but lingered together for awhile before parting company, and we went out for drinks last week, just us, to a bar near the office, but in the opposite direction from the regular haunts. He's put the offer on the table, if I want it, that we can go away overnight and he will take care of the details under whatever cover story I want to use. But I'm not there.

The reason I need to get this out, the things I can't say on my own blog, have nothing to do with needing advice about what to do. Because, seriously, I know how much I have to lose and what I can't do. What I need to pour out is my frustration, my anger, and my disappointment that no matter what happens now, things have changed. It was flattering to have someone find me attractive just because. Not attractive, despite having given birth three times. Not attractive with the strings of having taken care of him when he's sick and supported him in his career. Just attractive. Period. For a couple years, there have been people who hinted at us having chemistry between us. But because there is that chemistry, we have to avoid each other. The interactions I have with other people in the office, the jokes and the smiles and such, can be perceived differently now. So, whether I do something that could damage my marriage or whether I don't, I've lost a friendship because of what it might look like.

And that is a bigger blow to my self-esteem that being the "not pretty" girl ever was.

Is It Wrong...?

Posted by Anonymous.

Is it wrong that I have, on very bad days, on sick days, on tired days, TRIED to get my child hooked on television?

Is it wrong that I have, on a very few occasions, let her eat onion rings dipped in ketchup?

Is it wrong that I sometimes let a wet diaper diaper go a bit longer than it should before changing?

Is it wrong that I just don't feel like going to the park some days? MOST days?

Is it wrong that I am sometimes a really, really lazy mom?

Am I a bad mom?

Finding Friends

Posted by Kendra of Heart Wide Open.


Throughout my life, I have always had 1 or 2 very good friends. The type of friends you can sit and be silent with or laugh until you cry. Since graduating from college 3 1/2 years ago, my friends have scattered all over the country and a few outside the country as well. We see each other a few times a year. We email daily and we talk on the phone. I miss them. But they are in grad school or just starting out in their jobs. They party every weekend and don't understand that I don't do those things anymore.

I got married 2 weeks after graduating college and I love my husband very much. He has been my best friend for 6 1/2 years. His friendship was enough for me for a long time after college. We have an almost 1 year old daughter. I love the life I have, but something is missing. We moved 2 years ago to a small town in the midwest. It's the type of town where pretty much everyone has been there since they were kids. They grew up there and somehow I don't quite fit in, which is weird to me since I grew up in an equally small town an hour away. I never realized how easy it was to be accepted because you had lived there your whole life. I joined a volleyball league and a bunco group, but I have no close friends like I did all my life up to this point. I don't know why, but lately it seems to be all I can focus on, the not having close friends, especially the last few days. I've talked to my husband about how I feel, but he doesn't know how to help me. I tend to be shy at first when I meet people, which I've worked very hard to over come, but still it is there.

I seem to be at a loss on how to cultivate a good friendship, someone I can talk to about anything and have their understanding. My husband is my best friend, but he is a guy and doesn't always understand the things like a girl friend would. I work 40 hours a week, so I don't get to attend group things with my daughter where I might meet other moms my age. The two women I occasionally do things with have formed their own friendship and do things together every day while I am at work. They know each other inside and out and when I am with them I feel like an outsider. I don't blame them for that, I am just as bad about not inviting them to do things.

How do you find friends? Why can't I be happy with the wonderful life I have? I love my husband and my daughter and I wouldn't trade my life for anything (well except being rich enough that I didn't have to work). Why is this lack of friends so important that it is all I can focus on? Writing has been my outlet and I didn't feel I could post this on my blog. Since I started my blog when I was pregnant, it didn't seem like the right place to air these feelings, even though my blog has become as much about me as my daughter. I'm hoping that just writing this down will help me focus on the positives in my life, like my family. I'm not really looking for answers to these questions, but wanted someone to know how I felt and maybe hear that someone else has the same problems.

Imperfect

Posted by Anonymous.

I'm not perfect by any means. I've been a piece of shit since I was born, my parents told me so... I hate being a piece of shit and no matter how hard I try I'm just not good enough. I grew up poor, beaten, verbally abuse by a drug addict father and absent mother. When I graduated high school I looked at my college forms my mother filled out, they made $17,000/yr in 1999. I went to an all black poverty ridden school (I am white) but graduated with honors and paid to start college but quit after 1 1/2 years b/c I couldn't afford to pay for college and it was too hard working 20 hours a week going to school full time. I had no help or support. I moved out of my house at 17 and never returned. My husband and I bought our first house when I was 20 years old and I worked (as an ophthalmic technician) until I had my first son.

I am 26 years old, 123 lbs, 5' 2", stay at home mother of two boys (3 yr old and 1 yr old) and married to a wonderful man. I live a middle class lifestyle in a modest home and should be thrilled but I'm not. I'm not thin enough, I'm not a good enough mother, I'm not a good enough wife or even a decent woman to know. Here's why...

I'm definitely not thin enough! Someone my height should be somewhere around 110lbs. For the last 5 years I've been 150 lbs not pregnant and right before I delivered my last baby I was 194lbs. So in the last year I lost 70 POUNDS but it's not good enough. I should've done better. I'm a compulsive eater and I hate it. I've struggled with it for years and I still do. How did I loose all that weight being a compulsive eater you may wonder? I started compulsively eating healthier things but it doesn't change the fact that I eat when I'm sad, happy, frustrated, angry or any other reason besides hungry. I also breastfed and that helps a lot too. Which brings me to my next problem...

I'm not a good enough mother. I stay home with my boys and I'm supposed to love it. "These are the best years..." is all I ever hear when I tell people I stay home. I resent the mother who says "I could never stay home all day, I'd go nuts" because that's exactly what is happening to me. I'M GOING NUTS! My children are on a strict schedule, they almost never eat sweets, I make my own baby food, I breastfed for the full year (that the aap recommends) for both boys, I've read more than 10 parenting books (that makes me an expert, right?), they watch little t.v., we go for walks, make projects, do art's and crafts, exercise together E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y. That's not good enough, I should do better. A really good mom would do all this with a huge smile across her face, with a sense of humor and more. I never hit my kids, my 3 year old gets time outs but that's not good enough, a really good mom would just lovingly explain that stealing toys isn't the nicest thing you could do, right? I yell, I scream, I have to take time outs myself, a good mother would never need to do that, right? Patience would come in an abundance. I'd have an endless supply of fun everyday for the little ones, right?

My poor husband, we've been together for 9 years and married for almost 5. He's beautiful, I mean the most wonderful man anyone could ever come across and this poor man has to come home to me. He's attractive, intelligent, hard working and, most importantly, a really loving father. He works 8 hours a day, that's it. He's a software developer (programmer) and he's expected to stay longer but he never does, his family comes first. What men do that these days? When he comes home he sees his house in disarray, toys everywhere, a sticky kitchen table, kids screaming and an unkempt wife who is usually miserable. He doesn't deserve this! I make his lunch everyday and dinner. I wash and fold his laundry. Give him BJs once a week (he'd like it more but I HATE HATE HATE doing it, I'd rather chew on glass) and sex 2-3 times a week. But that's not good enough. I usually don't have time to straighten my hair or put on make up but I do try to make sure my hair is neat and dressed nicely. But a good wife would be dressed her best everyday, wearing the pretty diamond earrings her hubby bought her and having her hair straighten with make up on, right? A good wife would put her needs on the back burner and give the BJs when he wants them instead of limiting them to once a week even if she does hate it, right?

What makes me a indecent woman? All of the above and the fact that I have no interests or hobbies or LIFE of my own. I have no real friends and I eat, breathe and live for my children and husband. There are things I'd like to do but they come last or not at all most...I mean all of the time. I feel like an empty shell and my head feels like a jumbled mess that is constantly stirring around. I can't think and I can't even process what the hell is going on. I don't know if this is a quarter life crisis but I know this is 100% my problem. I love my children and husband and wish I could be a better me. I'm sure my childhood has a lot to do with this but I don't know how to shake it.

HELP!

Not Always Feelin' The Love

Posted by Anonymous


Is it just me that hates their children some days? I have a 3 year old and I'm VERY recently pregnant with my 2nd child. Some days I wonder why I'm going to torture myself by having another child - how disgusting is that? My sister has been struggling for years to get pregnant and here I am complaining about the one thing she dreams of.

I LOVE my daughter, she's the light of my life, but as everyone knows, in this day and age of monster home prices and cost of living, it's just complicates everything to try to find a decent job that allows me to drop her off and pick her up at preschool.......especially since my parents are so young and are still working full time, so I can't lean on them for babysitting during the day, and a lot of the time for what a babysitter costs, I would just be turning my paycheck over to babysitter. So, all of that adds up to a crappy part time job, which causes money issues which causes tension and stress between my husband and I, who I love and miss so much- because most of the time we're barely talking because we can't handle the stress of it all.

And why is it that it's so hard to find a job that will allow you to work from home so that you can juggle work and your children's activites? I just need to drop her off and then pick her up 3 times a week - that adds up to a half hour a day. I've had a MILLION headhunters laugh at me when I mention working from home. I swear to god, I'm not kidding.

I must sound like a horrible person. There are single mothers out there that handle all this on their own, so what right do I have to complain? But I do - and I can't get through the day without screaming in anger because of the stress.

What's wrong with me? Is it just me? Am I terrible? Will my daughter, and the next baby just end up hating me because I don't know how to get any joy out of the day because I'm constantly worrying about EVERYTHING?