Well, this has been a fun fortnight.
Dentist appointments, car services, accountants, doctors, deadlines and rainy days have bundled themselves into a happy little care package and landed slap-bang in the middle of an already frustrating month. With it: a suffocating parachute of guilt blanketing my life.
Because of the weather and the baby, my two year old had three indoor-days this week.
He is now genuinely excited by the prospect of popping out to get some milk.
At one point I managed to get the baby to nap in his cot and attempted to make some sort of progress with the mess-covered kitchen, when my two year old appeared at my side, quietly asking me to ‘play?’ and I felt so much heartbreaking guilt I vowed to just ignore the mess and do something fun. Within ten minutes I felt horrible for subjecting him to such poor living conditions.
My house is absolutely covered in toys and almost-dry clothes that will probably remain in that state until summer arrives, and the kitchen is beyond salvation. I’m aware of a long overdue blog post, and assignment (or two), my baby has reached a point where he just does. not. want. to be put down any more, and each evening, when my partner comes home from work, I just want to sit in silence.
Cue the guilt.
It creeps into everything, and I know I’m not alone.
I could hire a cleaner, but then I’d feel guilt about the money. What could I buy the boys with that amount? Of course, I can’t just buy their love, that’s terrible.. they really want my attention. I can’t clean and pay them attention at the same time, and I can’t involve them; that’s child labour. Ugh I’ll get a cleaner.
When you become a parent, someone should give you a pat on the back and say: ‘Congratulations! You’ll never sleep again, and there’s a strong chance you will feel guilty about every choice you make from this day forth. Good luck!’. That way at least you’d be kind-of prepared.
Whether or not you work, breastfeed, study, bake from scratch, use flashcards, ban screen-time, discipline calmly, only ever buy organic paleo vegan gluten-free unicorn kissed food: someone will disagree with your choice, and you will doubt yourself.
Or is that just me?
I don’t know. Maybe I should just suck it up and remember how lucky I am to have such minor issues in my life right now.
Aaand cue the guilt..
Catsby: outnumbered 
Well said! I felt the same when mine were younger…actually I still feel guilty. I work too much, I get cranky at kids for being kids because I’m tired from working all day (mostly working with other kids) but that is not their fault. Yup messy house- I’ve hired a cleaner but once a fortnight- just to take the edge off- lol. I figure it will reduce my stress levels and mean the time I do have I can spend with my kids. Parenthood is a huge guilt trip, there is no doubt, but the trick I reckon is to try hard not to focus on the negative things that happen. It can be really hard, esspecially when you have one of ‘those’ days. But Always looking for even that little bit of good, like your kids smiling, or snuggles, or oh it’s sunny- yay! It really helps. But also remeber- IT IS OK TO ASK FOR HELP!! See I have a theory that say 60 years ago, a lot more families had well family around. As we travel more, find love in new countries, or jobs that take us away, more and more familes have no family around to help them. But this is when friends become like family, and we must support each other any way we can. But I know the hardest part is asking for help- as we feel we should be able to do it. But coming back to my comment before- we dont have family around to help and this makes a WORLD of difference. Hugs! x
LikeLike
What a beautiful comment 😊. I think that’s it.. life has changed and with it, the family dynamic. I feel so bad for my boys (and me) for them not having family close enough, or even willing enough, to help out, but they have a great circle of friends in place of that. 💙
LikeLike