Mom-guilt...it's really a thing!

People, I’m going to be honest...I absolutely LOVE social media. I love to see what others are doing with their lives. I love to discover new accounts that motivate me and I love to meet new people on social media platforms, but...oh.my.word....social media (unfortunately) also creates a space where you are constantly reminded of how amazing others are, how they are just acing every aspect in their lives, and how they just never.ever.EVER have an off day. And that’s when you cue “the mom-guilt”. Well, for me at least.

Our little bub of 10months have been sick for 4days with the meanest cough that literally wakes me even before he made a sound. So in addition, we’ve not slept too well this last week.

Throw in our 3yr old who still wakes at night and calls her daddy....that will give you the sum total of little to no sleep for us.

My family and my husband knows this all too well...I do not operate too well on little sleep. I mean, I can cope and all...but when we are on day 5 of little sleep, I go into “managing mode” and try to just manage to get through the day without either having a emotional teary moment, or being a little short of temper with our busy two kids (side note: I definitely would choose busy kids over passive kids in general, but just bare with me).

So being all emotional, tired, drained and lacking creative ideas on how to keep our 3yr old busy on days where she doesn’t go to school and cannot play outside due to the winter weather, I seriously need to check myself all the time to make sure I’m not

1) overreacting

2) reacting out of my emotions.

Taking all of the above into consideration...it’s SO easy to start a negative thought cycle & then the “Mommy-guilt” soon follows.

I’m sure there are moms who can relate.

I sometimes get my moments where I wish I had MY life back again. - A life where if I wanted to nap, I can do so.

- A life where I can order whatever food I want and not have to think whether my toddler will like it or not seeing as she is ALWAYS eating from my plate. - A life where we can go and do whatever we want, whenever we want. - A life where I don’t have to help our toddler pickup lego 20 times a day. - A life where I can just sleep in till whenever I wake up (the way I’m feeling now, I can do a 24-hour sleeping cycle eyes closed). Excuse the pun.

Then the mom-guilt sets in and I seem to cry over the fact that I cry over these parenting things. Weird how life works. You want kids. You get kids. You then sometimes wish you could have a day of the life you lived without kids and so forth.

This life mentioned above sounds awesome.

It sounds so freeing.

It sounds so fulfilling. It sounds so...not me?

I ADORE our kids. Man, they just light up my life with their smiles, giggles, their sayings and just having their amazing presence in our lives.

BUT

I think it is TOTALLY normal for any mother (and father) to sometimes just wish for a break from thy busyness of “life with kids”. I also think it’s normal to think back to your “no-kid-days” and long for that kind of life. I think it’s normal to sometimes cry over the constant sharing and giving of yourself to not only your kids but your husband also.

As mothers and wives, I honestly think we give more of ourselves than others could imagine.

We are only human.

We don’t have superpowers. We get tired. We get irritated. We get emotional.

What we cannot afford to do...is to stay in that place for too long. That’s when life will start overwhelming you in a negative way and before we know it all things fun will not be relevant to us anymore.

So to myself, I say: Ignore the mommy-guilt. You are allowed to sometimes feel the pressure of being the go-to-person for everyone, but make sure you then get up from the spot.

Go wash your face from the smeared mascara. And say this out loud to myself: You’ve cried. You’ve poured out your emotions, now go and bouldly face the world of lego, dirt marks and play dough again until the next time you feel you need to go to your “mommy corner” and pour out your emotions.

So to you mommies who also feel tired, weary and emotional at times from being a mommy: I’m giving you my husbands favorite line which he throws at me in these struggling times...”this too shall pass”.

And you know what? It will.

One day we will be able to look back and laugh at these tiring moments in our past, but the question is, how do we move forward?! The most important part of being a mother in the now is to make sure you are the woman who is “clothed in strength and dignity & a woman who can laugh at the future without fear” - Proverbs 31:25

You can do it mommies. YOU'VE BEEN CALLED FOR A TIME SUCH AS THIS!

So much mommy-relating love

Renske

xxx

Me and our little diva, Amiah (3)

Me and our little gentle giant, Leo (10 months)