BellaOnline Forums Family Moms Need support - I hate being a mom

What I hear in many of these posts is women that were lied to for years in the form of you are ENTITLED to have it all, and have no one in your way to stop you. When a child comes into the picture with that kind of programing your natural programmed response is selfish, because you have been taught to believe you are entitled to every little spoiled thing you want. There is a great mark of our society!
IT's a set up, and no child should have to endure that. Maybe if our society stopped thinking they were so darned entitled to things like constant social engagement, fast cars, constant sexual gratification, free food, free health insurance, someone else to pay for their existence... It's really the same foul attitude from the upper class to those that sit on porche and refuse to work, same selfishness.

To have gone through life giving of ourselves in some fashion and form, rather than always catering to our own selfishness-is this not what we need to pass on to the next generation. We can pursue 'having it all' but the pursuit alone will tax us incredibly. Your legacy is not your career and some home movies of travel to Nepal. who will care in 100 years? It's people that found cures for disease, stood up for civil rights, and overall change the world. You guys are raising those people. If they come out warped because you are whining about not climbing Everest with your lover, then you have saddled society with yet another warped individual.
It's just a season, it doesn't last all that long. NOBODY likes snotty noses and diaper rash, but it doesn't last. Trust me. It's gone in a flash. NObody kicks in the magic gene upon childbirth and just LOVES it when their child gets the runs and throws up. That is a fallacy as well. Why do so many people buy into this nonsense?
I had my first when I was nearly 19, and I did it alone. Didn't marry the daddy and carried on myself. It was hard and it sucked for a while. Tomorrow she is 18. This year she did dual enrollment at community college while in high school, she is headed into management before she reaches corporate age for it. We struggled through illness, child molestation, snotty noses, bad friends, bad grades and good ones, and you name it!
I am a better person for the journey. You dont' have time to be selfish, and to have someone rely on you is a priviledge not a burden.
Roll up your sleeves and get over yourself. You can travel with child, expose them to cultures and make them well rounded members of society. Teach them many cultures, languages and how to be a decent human. Show them your skills, hobbies and interests and help them pursue their own. Do something worthwhile, nobody's office career is indelibly marked on their headstone. How many lonely hardened and bitter old child haters died with anyone who gave a [censored]? We make our way in this world by who we affected, who we touched, who we loved, and what bitterness we had that screwed it all up. I dont' want to come to the end of my days carrying that around.
That might all sound a bit rough around the edges, but it is a form of child abuse to hate your offspring simply because they crimped your style. We don't need more wounded people walking around. I was one and I will be damned before I go on ruining people like my father tried to do.

I love this post. Good points Calligrapher, the whole point of me coming here is to look for mothers who enjoy their motherhood, and/or who has a strong mind to endure all difficuties for their children.

Children come to this world for a reason, and we're the chosen ones to raise them. I still don't like raising a child, but I have stopped whining from a while ago.

I had my daughter very young and often felt like I was missing out on things - when I would talk to my mother about it she basically shut me down with guilt. So, I sucked it up and went forward and by the time she was 4 it got better. It is very hard - you're supposed to feel maternal but it's just not there.

I loved her, and would have protected her like a mother bear, but we didn't bond until she was 4. Now she is the light of my life, I think because I had to mature myself. I even had a second one, but was 32 and wanted her very badly. Now I have horrible guilt at the feelings I had in the beginning with my older daughter, because I felt them right away with my second.

Try as hard as you can to show her affection. Protect her with your last breath if necessary. Get a mother's helper. Just my 2 cents.

HI - I have a seven month only girl. I am in the same situation where I completely dislike being a mother, regret my decision to keep her, and feel like its ruined my life. I talk constantly to the father about giving her up for adoption to my sister who has been trying for years, doing ivf and now pursuing adoption. I've talked to my friends who agree that for me having a baby was a big mistake. I am so depressed that I sleep hoping that me or she or both will disappear but realistically that is impossible. I am being treated for post-partum but basically I've made the biggest mistake of my life. Help!!

I know what you mean. I really don't like the parenting lifestyle and seriously regret having a child. It was an accident and myself and my partner struggled on what to do. I am not saying I don't love my child, but, it is a constant struggle every day.

Hi,

I am so sorry that you feel this way. I can see how it happens. I felt that way many times at various times of raising my children, but I went to counseling, which helped me a lot.

If you can find some time to carve out for yourself to pursue something that YOU want to do, that is the best thing to return to your job as a parent in a more refreshed way.

Please know that I am here to help and will be checking the forum more often to see how everyone is doing. You have my support and, I'm sure, the support of others who have felt the way that you do right now.

Please, please, please let me know how I can help you.

Jacqueline Geller
Moms Editor

Madness,

I think in your case it might be a very good idea to possibly go to a counselor with your sister and the father of your child.

This would give you the opportunity to discuss this optiont of adoption and all the ramifications of it.

It seems like it would be a good idea. Your sister dearly wants a child, this is already a baby who is blood related to her, and this way you will know that your child has a good upbringing.

And to all Mothers on this particular post;

If most Momsare honest, we all have at least 1 day where we feel this way.

I suffer from clinical depression and bi-polar, so I have more days than the average (I would guess) - but I know it is my body's chemistry working against me. I cannot trust my feelings all the time.

I wrote an article for my Spirituality site called The 4 Stages of Love

It is geared towards marriage, but it can apply to the parent/child relationship, too.

We don't always feel like loving our child - or even liking them sometimes, we have to choose to love them. It is a concious effort that we have to make on some days. Especially those days when they discover that the poop in their diapers makes a great paint for the walls, or they just broke the heirloom vase that was handed down through 4 generations, or when we have the flu and are running a 102 degree fever oursleves- but we still have to take them to the doctor first.

"Mom" is a hard job, it is often thankless, overlooked, belittled, and if we complain it is "well, you were the one who wanted kids." It willbe worth it one day. One day this child will be an adult who will make a diference in someone else's life. He or she may not be a doctor or come up with the cure for cancer, she may be a social worker that saves a child from abuse, or a teacher that inspires the person that comes up with the cure for cancer. Or he may just be a really good husband that loves a woman who has never known love before.

Don't be so hard on yourselves for feeling the way you do, and don't give up on yourselves either. You may be stronger than you think.

I'm on page six of this thread and plan on reading the whole entire thing, but I wanted to stop and post first. I see myself here--versions of how I've felt.

I'm no therapist, but I think part of the problem with women who feel this way--that being a parent in the beginning can feel like you have a gray cloud following you everywhere--it's the isolation, the fact that you think you're THE only good mother who feels this way, which makes you think that perhaps you're not a good mom, when chances are that you're doing great as a mom--doubts, fears, warts and all.

Of course if you are experiencing thoughts of hurting yourself or anyone else you should seek professional help immediately.

One poster mentioned that she would yell at her child and then feel guilt. OMG, so many of us do this! I'd be willing to bet that women who wanted children for 10 years, had them, was happy to have them still have experienced saying (or yelling) something to their children that they didn't mean. Here's what you do if something unintentional slips out--you apologize. You say to the child "did you hear what I just said? What a horrible thing to say to anyone. I 'm so sorry. I didn't mean it." This teaches the child that we're all human, we all make mistakes and we all can recover. I read this in a positive discipline book and have had cause to use it from time to time.

I've also noticed another pattern in these posts. So far and I'm on page 6, no one whose youngest child is over 10 years old has this particular complaint where they globally hate being a mother. I'm starting to think that more mothers feel this way when children are young than who will openly admit it. Or it might be that parents forget how difficult it was in the beginning, how intensely all consuming it is. Posters are saying that the child eventually "grows" on you, but I have a feeling that it's also about acceptance and learning and the child growing away from you and being a little more independent that makes the difference.

When the baby is 9 months old or 3 years old or 5 years old you're still essentially a new mom with a huge learning curve in front of you. You're still fighting the idea, resisting it, resenting it. Oh and if you have a 5 year old and a 1 year old, you're still brand spanking new at parenting two kids. Even though you don't realize it and you can't see it, every day you're learning and accepting a little more and a little more and a little more until you are just like the thousands of other mothers who felt the exact same way you do and then guided their children through high school, college, etc.

I also hated being a mom. I'd say circa 2001-02 when I had a 1 year old and 3 year old was the worst year of my entire life. Breaks didn't help so much because I had to go back THERE, back home to that screaming, crying and needing place. I hated being home. I was always on call. There was never any rest.At one point I was also working two jobs while writing articles and short stories. We didn't have many people to help us.

So here's what I did, I stopped resisting (I still resist sometimes but not as much as before) and put up a white flag of surrender and threw myself into the parenting enterpise. I read parenting and self help books like water and applied the techniques to the raising of my children. I went through a rites of passage program, started to journal again, then I began to write self-help. Now I also write for a parenting magazine!

Also here's the great thing about babies--for me anyway--they become adults. My children are 8 and 10 and while I do experience the stress of being on the train afraid that I'll get stuck and won't get home in time to collect my children after school. And I still worry about school work, health and safety etc, but it's so much better now. And it's not a traumatic, dramatic 24/7 worry like when I was afraid of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

People used to tell me that I would miss them as babies, but trust me I don't. We went to Times Square in Manhattan over the holiday sans baby carriage, diapers, bottles etc. Me, my husband and our school aged kids. We had a blast. I wanted to get on my knees and Thank God in the middle of Times Square that all of that was behind me.

It is not "someone telling you it is a good idea". It is the whole society sending you messages since as early as you can remember. "It is the best thing that can happen to a woman", "it is a bond that compares to nothing", "kids give so much", "you can only understand such a joy if you have children", "it gives life a whole new meaning", "you will change your mind", "labor pains are forgotten as soon as you see his little face"... and so on and so forth. In my entire life (I am 38) I have only met one woman who was actively against having children. Look at TV shows around us, no matter how cool, all the girls want babies, (except Samantha from Sex and the city ;-)) it is the guys who are not mature enough for that. What I mean is, if you are hearing that even from loved ones since you are a teenager, you might end up thinking that something is wrong with you. How can it be that everybody takes for granted something I don't want at all? Am I so selfish? so immature? why do women find cool being pregnant and I think it is disgusting? Am I not woman enough? So like somebody above put it, some think it is a question of sucking it up and do it. After all you cannot be the only one having children and not loving it, right?