Author Kat Caravellaon seven reasons being a mum is hard

By Kat Caravella

You know sometimes my brain just explodes after reading certain things on the internet.

Opinion pieces, we call them. Kind of like the one I’m writing now. So sorry if your brain explodes but I’ll try and prevent that from happening, okay?

So. Onto the cause of said brain explosion:

Don’t click! Don’t click! Don’t click!

So if you did not click (good willpower btw) you missed this terrific headline:

“Being a mum is not hard. Stop pretending it is.”

Did your brain explode simply just reading that solitary line?

The author (who really is quite fearless for writing such a post, so, er, um, kudos?) practically bases her whole argument around life could be worse and that noisy and exhausting children aren’t hard.

But I’m here to tell you, aspiring baby-makers, don’t let this kind of outrage-inducing clickbait fool you. Being a Mum is bloody hard. Not always, but sometimes. It’s magnificent and amazing and all the wonderful things but it’s also heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. And hard.

Here are seven reasons why.

1. The obvious: You don’t get a sick day. Ever. Babies and kids need to be fed and parents need to work. So if you feel like you’re dying and there’s no one able to help you with your kids, you best believe your arse needs to be moved to the kitchen to feed those humans. Even if you have to stop for a vomit on the way.

2. You can’t take away your child’s pain. They could be in hospital dehydrated from a mystery illness or suffering from chronic croup and they can barely breathe. When they are seriously sick, you worry and you panic and you want to make them better with every inch of your being. You can’t sleep during the night nor do you want to because you’ve migrated them to your bed so you can hear every breath to make sure they are okay. (I write more about this in a recent post, here)

3. You can’t take away your child’s pain. Maybe other kids don’t want to play with them, maybe they leave them out or they say really hurtful things and your beautiful child doesn’t understand why and you can’t explain it to them, either. (I seriously just want to tell my kids that the rude kids are stupid arseholes and who wants friends like them anyway. I don’t but that doesn’t stop me wanting to #SorryNotSorry)

4. Sure, you’ve had come cruisey kids and for you, being a mum hasn’t been too hard. Why don’t you tell that to mums with Special Needs children or mums that suffer greatly from Post Natal Depression. Or mums who are in a violent relationship and distraught and scared but still need to be on their A-Game as mums.

5. Mums are always last on the list of priority. Want some “you” time but there is not an ounce of time left for Mamma on the schedule? Too bad. Mamma will have to wait. And you know how they say a bit of you time is good for the soul? Well if there isn’t any time, there isn’t any time, so the soul will have to get a ticket and wait in line.

6. The worry doesn’t ever end. From leaving your child for the first time at Daycare to letting them go out with their friends alone, there is always an element of worry. I suspect the worry will continue until I die.

7. So if those reasons above didn’t convince you, let this one (pretend MOM is spelt MUM):



To be clear

There are variables of hard. Yes, being a desperate refugee trying to seek asylum is hard. And if you suffer from cancer, of course that’s also hard.

But let’s not compete about who’s got a more difficult life as a mum or what’s hard or what’s not. That’s just getting on your soapbox and trying to diminish the plight of others.

And for the record: I LOVE being a mum. But sometimes, it’s hard.

Originally published at http://mammasvida.com.au, reposted with permission.