My kids want too much of me

On expectations of motherhood

Aug 31, 2024

Mothers are meant to be all giving and selfless but I worry sometimes that I am not that person. Good mothers are, I think, not me.

I never thought I was particularly the mothering type. I always thought I was too selfish and not particularly good with kids. I always imagined if I did have kids, they would be mostly in full-time nursery and not be relying on me for entertainment. I certainly never imagined I would call myself a stay at home mum, yet that is where I found myself after having my second son. I don’t know if it makes me a bad person or not, but I often feel like I am giving more than I really intended, yet for my children and the daily struggles we have, I constantly feel like I am never giving enough.

They always want more, more, more.

Recently, I was reading Maggie O’Farrell’s Marriage Portrait and I was taken back by the visual it conjured. In it, Lucrezia, as a young girl asks of the family wet nurse:

“Why do you have no teeth?” she asked instead.
… “Because,” she said, “somebody had to feed your mother and her sister and brothers, and every baby costs you a tooth. Sometimes two or three.”1

I enjoyed this tangible example of the sacrifices made in raising children. Likely it is more than teeth. We could lose teeth by losing calcium or hormone changes, whichever isn’t clear, but if not physical loss of teeth, it is widely accepted that dental health declines after pregnancy. Hormone changes develop and change the brain layout, motherhood changes how you think.

In motherhood, as Lucy Jones, explains in her brilliant book Matrescence, we go through so many physical, hormonal and neurological changes.

“Through the second half of the 2010s, the first landmark neuroscience studies had been published, showing just how drastically pregnancy and early motherhood alters the brain, as well as how looking after infants can change the brains of non-pregnant care-givers.”
Lucy Jones, Matrescence, 2024.

The demands on us from our babies continue long after pregnancy and the postpartum period and the changes in our bodies reflect that. I know myself that I am two dress sizes bigger than before having my first child, and that is just the physical body changes due to increases in the hormone relaxin, coupled with a distinct lack of time and energy for physical exercise and an increased intake of comfort foods. I keep thinking when will I get myself back?

“I hadn’t realised that it is unlikely that after pregnancy a woman will ever return to her pre-birth fitness. I didn’t know how profoundly pregnancy affects the body, from cardiac health to music-skeletal performance.”
Lucy Jones, Matrescence, 2024.

The sacrifices are also not limited to our physical selves. Many women give up work to look after their children, much like my own venture into mostly full-time mothering when I absolutely didn’t believe I was right for the job. Sometimes it is an active choice and sometimes it is one made by the absolutely eye-watering cost of childcare; it literally can cost to go back to work. Then there is the possibility of stalled careers and discrimination in work due to a parent’s (read: mother’s) need for flexibility.

There is an expectation when a child becomes more independent, when they can walk and talk and exist separately from their mother, that they don’t need her any more. We planned our second pregnancy with a two year age gap between the two children. My son, who was fast becoming his own little person at 18 months would surely be independent by the time his brother was born, but little did we know that two year olds have severe bouts of separation anxiety earning themselves the name of Terrible Twos and it doesn’t stop there.

Then there is the three-nager - read: even more emotional outbursts, and the incessant asking question stage of the four year old. Even in potty training when there is this distinct relief that there will be no more nappies to change, you are hit with the constant requests for the potty, the false alarms, the bum wiping, the trips up and down the stairs to empty the potty, sometimes at significant speed. A few weeks into potty training and I miss the simplicity of changing a nappy.

The intensity of motherhood in my experience doesn’t wane only morphs into a different shape. In each stage the nature of the dependency of my children changes, yet the intensity feels the same. It is relentless. It is unforgiving.

I am often frustrated by my children because I feel like we should be over this stage by now. They should be more independent and not need me as much anymore, yet I know they are still babies. My babies and I want to give them all that I have. Perhaps, I have reached my limit of what I am able to give.

The expectation I had of more independent toddlers is likely one created by the lack of honest reflection and sharing of stories in society - that lack of valuing childcare in the early years is a signifier of how we think it all gets a little easier - the ratios in childcare get higher and higher as they reach school age. But that expectation is unrealistic.

I had expected intensity in early motherhood, albeit perhaps not as intense as it was with the constant feeding, night wakings, trips to urgent care and the sheer burden of fresh responsibility, but I didn’t expect the intensity of motherhood to continue. By the time they were walking and using the potty, I expected my role to lessen.

Yet the sacrifices continue.

I am writing this all still in the trenches of early motherhood, really. My children are still both under 5 years old, and still I really have no clue what is coming next.

Some say that the teenage years are even more complex and tricky to navigate, others say the dependency of offspring can continue long into adulthood. They did, however, promise it would get easier. So when exactly does it get easier?

It is my children I am frustrated with when really it should be society. How the expectation that we have it all sorted as soon as the children are old enough to go into full time nursery is unrealistic. According to one study as many as 28% of two year olds had frequent night awakenings.2 The set up of the school day being out of sync with the traditional working day also means that we are destined to fail before we have even tried. Such sacrifices in parenting are not the fault of the children.

When I have one of those days where I have had enough of the kids, when we are frustrated with one another, I often wonder if I have created such unreasonable expectations of motherhood, that I am frustrated with them for being kids. Sometimes the moving of expectations helps deal with a situation. That sense of acceptance can come through once you know that it is how it is meant to be.

Children are meant to be annoying and continually asking questions and needing their bums and noses wiped, and long hugs when they are upset.

So instead of impatience in how my children aren’t growing up fast enough - I intend to be more compassionate both of them and myself. They are still dependent and they do still need me and that is okay. But similarly, I am not expected to let them go just yet, I am still close by, holding their hand and there for them when they need me. I probably always will be and whilst I might feel sometimes that I have given them enough already, that don’t have anything more to give, I will always give them more.

Do you ever feel like you have given your children too much?
Do you think society expects children to grow up too fast?

Come join me in the comments I would love to hear your stories.