It's Sunday night, today was mothers day. This morning my kids barreled into my bed with smiles and gifts and "I love you mummy" and "you're the best mummy". But I sit here tonight feeling mixed emotions. I haven't been a great mum the past few months, I'm not sure I deserved that praise.
I struggle with parenting at the best of times, like I think we all do, but this lockdown has been tough. Some of my friends and clients have welcomed new babies recently, I look at those little babes and remember how much hope you have with a new baby. Not just for who they will become, but for who you will become as a parent. You have a picture in your head of the mother you hope to be... It rarely comes to fruition.
As they grow and they develop their little ways, they find more and more ways to test you. It can be so hard to keep that dream alive of the parent you thought you'd be, when they find every button you have and push it 1000 times a day, with gusto! Isolation exacerbated this for me. I honestly did not feel worthy of mothers day this year. If anything we should be saving the money on gifts for the therapy these kids will need for being locked up with me for 2 months.
We have driven each other mad. They have fought constantly, trashed the house daily, and I have lost me temper more times than I can count. I have been the worst version of myself. Missing my job, and giving up my beautiful studio to become a school room (that got trashed daily) smashed my confidence, and took away a part of me that gets to not be 'mum', but gets to be 'Bec'. Every day has blurred into the next, and I have felt like I have been going steadily more insane by the hour.
Supporting their learning has been tough. I have a wild one who doesn't want to know about it, and a keen one who gets next to no attention because I'm chasing the wild one. I admitted defeat this week, he's going back to school, and I can't lie... I feel like I failed. So many have been able to support their kids at home and I (she who has a teaching degree!) failed miserably.
But I do love them so much. I love him enough to know school is better for him than what I've been giving him these past weeks. And I love her enough to give her the chance to learn at home without a screaming match going on in the background each day.
I hope that one day when they look back at their childhood, they can see past my faults. I hope one day when they have kids themselves, they get it, and forgive some of my failures. I hope they understand that I do love them, and that I was just doing my best, which wasn't always enough, but I was trying.
So why am I writing this... Because I know I'm not the only one. I know there are a lot of people struggling with parenting, especially at this time, when we are boxed in like rats in a cage and driving each other spare. And I hope it makes someone feel less alone.
I also hope it's cathartic for me. To admit my failures, own them, and move forward, hopefully better than before. Hopefully as a better mum. Not the one I thought I'd be when they were babies, but just a better one than I was yesterday.
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