The cruel irony of motherhood
Given tomorrow’s holiday, I thought it was the appropriate time to share this passage from a recent Huffington Post piece. Describing a Mother’s Day in which she had asked her husband and children for a day off, a mom wrote:
I slept late and played dead when I heard the kids calling for me. I took a shower by myself and without an audience, and I might have even had an uninterrupted bowel movement. I didn’t do any laundry, and I cooked nothing. Jeff took the kids out for several hours, and I had the house all to myself. It was wonderful — for about an hour. That’s how long it took before I started feeling like something was off, like I had lost a limb or something. Before I knew it, I was missing my kids. I longed for their hugs and slobbery kisses, and I hated the thought that they were out experiencing the world without me. I ended up calling Jeff and asking him to come back home.
You see, this is one of the cruel ironies of motherhood. Your kids make you so crazy that sometimes you want to run away, but then as soon as you get a clean break all you want is their company.
For those crazy-busy-and-sometimes-stressed-out mamas who love their kids dearly but often need a break (uh, like me), truer words have never been written!
-M