Dear Tess,
I have to start with a confession. It was when my second child Eli was about 8 months old, I had gone back to work when he was 4 weeks old but my husband was also working a 9-5 at this point. I was constantly hounded via email and my office was set up in a small corner of the living room. I had given Eli some food in his highchair and thought it would be a good time to get through some of the email at my desk. Within minutes he had hurled himself (a testament to who he is now as a 5 year old) out of the highchair, head first onto the floor….well you can imagine the guilt. God forbid I had tried to juggle, to have it all, to tend to my business at the same time as mothering…my absolute panic meant I grabbed a half-dressed sweet potato crusted baby into the car, forced by husband out of work, and drove us to A&E..Eli was fine. I think I took him to try and absolve myself of guilt. Almost like I wanted someone to tell me that I was wrong not to watch his every move…..
Even now I still think about this time. I am most definitely (although undiagnosed) ADHD and I tend to hyperfocus on tasks sometimes…unaware of anything outside of my bubble, including my own needs to pee and eat. I think this often makes me a bad mother. I guess I also can empathise with your mum’s story about becoming so absorbed in her work she forgot to make you dinner, I bet she still thinks about it now. I can imagine how she must have felt when you brought her dinner!
I kind of remember the way it was when they were as young as Rose, it’s that kind of foggy memory where everything is fragmented. That’s what happens when you’re in the thick of it, I guess it’s a coping mechanism in a way. That’s what I think you are in now, the thick of it. When their needs are really high and it feels relentless. I could tell you it gets easier, that you get more independence, but I know you already know this, it doesn’t help you now though.
Sometimes I miss those days, I miss being needed so much, I miss the feeling of breastfeeding – even though I mostly hated doing it – funny how that happens, like nostalgia has this ability to gloss over the many hardships.
In answer to your question, even if I had my time again, knowing what I know now , knowing jut how quick the years fly even though the days are long. I doubt I’d do anything differently, I would still be an artist, I would still prioritise my career in many ways, I just think it’s something in me. I don’t think I’d do well as a stay at home mum, I would have (like you) started a masters, or another business…something. Something for me. Because I love my kids, but no motherhood does not fulfil me.
I feel we are so much more than mothers.
Hopefully you have no mishaps with highchairs…most of them have the straps but he had even managed to wrangle out of them…but this is the boy who scales 12ft walls and runs along the edge of them on the regular.
Becy x
Dear Mother 