As a mum of two small children, I've been in that place many times. It's not even 10 am, and I feel like I'm done. I get frustrated that my husband can have uninterrupted conversations with other adults at work. Similarly, like you, there are times when I feel invisible or judged by society, especially when my children 'misbehave.
Yes perhaps that was it too I did feel judged. The ladies in the café laughed after, but you do still think gosh they must think I can’t control my kids! I mean, I can’t!!
When this type of situation happens to me I just want the floor to swallow me whole! My son today screamed in another kids face at the museum. Nothing happened prior to the scream where it could be reasonably understood and he resumed as though everything was completely fine right after. They're such confusing little things!
This is for me one of the most difficult aspects – parenting in public. I can't always work out what is a projection and what is reality but I hate the feeling of judging eyes watching on as I attempt to reason with my boys.
Yea and I know I always feel judged with every word I say after and I hate that feeling of being in ear shot.
Kids are kids and I know lots of people who have been there do understand so perhaps it’s not awful really, in that they are mostly probably not judging but it’s hard not to think it and feel it in the moment.
That made me laugh. I have written before about a third and I think this whole situation has put us both off tbh me being at home lol I don’t think we’d survive it.
Ooooof YES… I feel like the rage that comes to the surface is from somewhere so deep…. It’s sacred rage that tells us there is something inherently WRONG with the systems that are failing to support us. It’s never just about the thing in front of us. Even the fact there is only one space on the bus!! I feel the rage for you. And I hear you on the loneliness… we need to meet, we are so close really! Xxx
yes we absolutely should meet would be nice to do it without the kids (or mine anyway!) You are so right, it is a sign of a failing system. I agree on the buses one space although it is a large buggy so this is also an issue. It's funny older people tell me that even having a space on the bus for us is a new thing they always had to fold theirs. I mean - I would struggle now to do that with bags and things but it would be possible with the right buggy, but what about when you have a tiny baby and a toddler? People must have just not gone out! Absolutely ridiculous.
And I really have no idea… it seems crazy to think of… I don’t know how you manage it with a double buggy as I’m constantly crashing into doors and curbs with a single one!!! X
Just recently I found myself shouting, “Fine! I’ll walk in the f***ing road then!” when an idling car was blocking half the pavement making it impossible to get the pram through and the person inside just ignored me. I try not to swear in front of my child, but the mum rage on that morning was real.
Re: invisibility after becoming a mum, I have found that there are two extremes. Either people are extremely accommodating - cars in my area often flash me across the road when I’m waiting to cross with the pram, for example - or they treat you like you don’t exist.
And yes, I find the whole calling you by mum and not your name thing quite weird and irritating. When the health visitor came round at ~24 weeks for the first visit and did this I remember thinking, great, my baby hasn’t even been born yet and I’ve already lost my identity. I wonder if it’s because they see so many mums and babies it’s easier than remembering everyone’s names. Guess some people like it too. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah that makes sense its for ease but it is rude just don’t bother calling me anything rather than mum 😂
Ah yes totally relate to shouting at cars I do that and I really try not to but like you say it’s hard! It’s infuriating there is little to no consideration for access to lots of things for buggies and wheelchairs etc and something like roadworks can stop you going on. I had similar last week and ended up walking 10-15 mins out of my way to go round. All they had to do was make the pass they had for people a little wider!
I think sometimes we have reason to shout although my kids shout now and I think where do they get that from but similarly sometimes you got to have a voice and share feelings etc. 😂
The self-judgment is harsh for us moms. It’s been really hard to accept my new identity as mom because there are so many other things I want to do. It certainly doesn’t help that the hardest work of all is so looked down upon in today’s society. To be a feminist and to be at home with the kids seems mutually exclusive and I feel like a traitor to the cause of women’s liberation at the same time that I can’t deny my values where my family always comes first. The difference between having a job you don’t always like and having kids is that when you don’t like it there’s very little you can do to change it except wait for them to get older. You can’t quit. You can’t ask for a refund, lol. All you can do is wait and that feels so much like a trap. Thanks for sharing your exhaustion and anger and frustration on the page. I think it helps us all feel seen 🙂
Oh Ashley thank you, exactly I do sometimes just want to change my mind!! I too feel like I have betrayed the feminist cause, it wasn’t the grand plan but as you say we put our loved ones first, do the best thing for the kids etc. it’s hard! Thank you for your comment, I too feel better seen in reading the responses to this post.
Oh Kylie! Don’t get me started on buses and double buggies, my current reality and often bane of my life. How on earth there is only space for one/max two is so ridiculous. Many-a-time I have had a bus pass me by/not let me on because the buggy bit is full…when you are standing there with tired babies and a desperation to get home, it is awful. And yes you do feel invisible. The tube is also no better, my nearest station has no lift!
As a mostly SAHM (constantly creating in the edges) I absolutely resonate with the invisibility. Despite being full to the brim, I often undermine my own experience, when asked what I do, the words that most often form are “just a mum”.
Katy Wheatley wrote an amazing post recently about her complicated relationship with her female body and whilst a lot resonated, there is a bit that she talks about her husband and children being praised at a wedding for doing speeches/poems etc and then being asked “and so what is it you do…?”, she didn’t say it but she thought “I wrote my husband’s speech and brought up children to be confident and creative enough to do these things”.
Also the loneliness (although never alone!!) thing resonates, it is a strange reality when the vast majority of my time is spent with highly emotional, often irrational, nonsensical (and of course magical!) beings. Anyway yes my identity has shifted in every way possible since having children in 2020 and 2022, it is something I am still very much unpicking and yet I feel the rage of being unseen and undervalued in wider society every day xx
It sounds like our realities are very very similar!
Where we used to live in london had like 3 train stations and one had lift but like you say getting a bus to the other two is hell we only visited for a day but I felt relieved we didn’t have to deal with that daily. And broken lifts!! Ahh!
Oh I think I might have missed that piece but I do subscribe I think she’s great. It’s such a good point isn’t it we do all the things to help them be great and the title SAHM doesn’t really cut it does it? There is so much more. I often joke I am house manager. I am so worried about me going back to work and people asking what I’ve been doing for 2 years, when like you say two living breathing human beings exist because of that time away.
Loved reading this + resonated completely. I’ve written before that “invisible” is the one word I’d choose to describe how I’ve most often felt in these years of early motherhood! I think it’s especially hard because our souls know it should be opposite - we’re doing the most sacred work caring for fresh new human beings, yet instead of being respected or revered, it feels like we become second-class citizens. It’s very hard to reconcile.
Thank you, Amber. I mean I think it’s nice even to hear from others that they think the work is worth doing and that it is a sacrifice, so to be honest even sharing this has lifted me 🙌🏻
@Kylie-Ann - I felt this one down to my toes. My son uses sign-language and does not have a lot of words and so it makes it public interactions trickier. He has a visible disability - Down syndrome - and I feel we teeter-totter between getting more of a “free pass” and extra judgment.
The hospital where he is often admitted has a lovely, peaceful chapel and a beautiful statue of the Madonna and child. I looked at her one night and said to her, “how different this place would be if they had put you in charge.”
Someone must have heard that because a few days later I was out with the girls for breakfast and another family paid our tab. I wept openly.
Thank you for putting your work out there, and I really do hope you and @Lauren Barber get together and then tell us about it. ❤️ wish I could be there! 🤗
Thank you for sharing Emily, that’s a good story. I know what you mean about feeling the free pass I think you get that with you ged children maybe as well, but when they are bigger and push like my eldest, esp because he’s very close to school age you get those looks!
Kylie-Ann - I know the looks! Also, we are really just animals protecting our space/stuff when it boils down to it...kids just don’t have the tools but do adults, really? Just look at social media...🤣
I am based in Cincinnati, Ohio. According to my license plate, Ohio is the heart of it all! It’s home and there is a lot to love about it - I have family close, there is a really supportive Down syndrome community, and we are home to the leading children’s hospital.
Thanks again for your time to comment and respond, and for this piece.
Kylie I feel your frustration so profoundly here: what a testament to your writing. I also remember the exhaustion of the double buggy stage. And I still can live or die by buses and their timeliness (or not). Love the space you’ve made here xx
Oh Kylie-Ann, I felt every word of this. I think most moms have been there, in some way. There's an annual holiday parade where I live and it seems like the entire town, plus all the surrounding ones, come out to watch. I remember viscerally when I gave up trying to push my stroller around crowds of people who didn't care about the mom with a howling baby. I was politely shouting "excuse me, pardon me," and yet, everyone ignored me. I gave up hard, smashing into crowds, running over feet. I was a woman on a mission. I never went back. Now I laugh at the memory - just watch what a crazy lady with a stroller is willing to do!
I lost my identity entirely after my first. It took about 4 years for me to notice and I started doing something about it.
It was at that moment I realised how beneficial it was to co parent that I was allowed time to myself, by myself and not feel guilty.
I would miss her every moment before that and reluctant to spend time apart but I also knew I needed to be 100% for her to get the best of me and me not burn out and feel overwhelmed and miserable by life happening around me.
I’m pregnant now and beginning to lose my identity already. I am so lonely. I hear from nobody and see nobody as I wfh. Nobody asks how I am or the baby.
I wonder sometimes if I just have stupidly high expectations of people lol x
I think you definitely value that alone time away from kids but at first it feels strange doesn’t it, and you don’t know what to do with it or how to be without the kids.
I think there are just endless identity shifts we go through throughout motherhood and with a new pregnancy it probably feels like you are starting it all again. ❤️
Oh. Yes. Your writing is strong and this resonates deeply. I am not intending to promote myself here but felt it worthy to share that, at the age of 56 with grown children, I still seem invisible or at the very least undefined. Please know that you are “so much more”.
I swear to you it gets much better. I had so many similar feelings when mine were tiny. I also balked always at the midwives and their "Mum" chats. If you have a medical procedure, the professional can always just about get your actual name. Why is it so different in maternal care?Glad to have found your writing. Our Substack and podcast is about anger-one guest you might enjoy is Minna Rubin who wrote the brilliant "Mom Rage". x
All of this is so true. My kids are older now (4 and 6), so some things feel easier but it’s a strange transition phase. I want them to be more independent because they aren’t babies but there are still so many things they need or want me to do for them. I feel close to being able to spread my wings a little but it’s too soon and I’m pushing against the boundary.
Hope is on the horizon, that’s great to hear, Katie thank you! I did test out not hanging out as close to them (nervously) yesterday and it was good, some days when I can get away with it. Hopefully we’ll get there too!
Such a great post Kylie-Ann and it resonated deeply with me. Having that anger about so many things, almost not knowing what its even about and no-one to direct it to. Or feeling like no-one even cares that you are angry. So important to talk about this because there's so many layers to it, like you mention - that feeling of being invisible and feeling like society doesn't value mothers full stop. Feeling like I'm invisible and like no-one is listening to me at home is a huge trigger of mum rage for me. It's that feeling of being underappreciated, undervalued and just flat out ignored that brings on the rage. Thank you for talking about this ❤️
As a mum of two small children, I've been in that place many times. It's not even 10 am, and I feel like I'm done. I get frustrated that my husband can have uninterrupted conversations with other adults at work. Similarly, like you, there are times when I feel invisible or judged by society, especially when my children 'misbehave.
Yes perhaps that was it too I did feel judged. The ladies in the café laughed after, but you do still think gosh they must think I can’t control my kids! I mean, I can’t!!
It’s really hard not to feel judged I think 😂
When this type of situation happens to me I just want the floor to swallow me whole! My son today screamed in another kids face at the museum. Nothing happened prior to the scream where it could be reasonably understood and he resumed as though everything was completely fine right after. They're such confusing little things!
This is for me one of the most difficult aspects – parenting in public. I can't always work out what is a projection and what is reality but I hate the feeling of judging eyes watching on as I attempt to reason with my boys.
Yea and I know I always feel judged with every word I say after and I hate that feeling of being in ear shot.
Kids are kids and I know lots of people who have been there do understand so perhaps it’s not awful really, in that they are mostly probably not judging but it’s hard not to think it and feel it in the moment.
Thank you so much for reading
Hang in there Kylie, you’re doing an amazing job, it gets easier from here!
You’re at the coalface now with 2 toddlers, but unless you’re planning on a third things will only improve. 👏😘
Amazing thanks Kate!
That made me laugh. I have written before about a third and I think this whole situation has put us both off tbh me being at home lol I don’t think we’d survive it.
I know a couple of couples who’ve had three, and it’s a whole other ball game when they outnumber you! 😂
As a mom of three - the third a surprise - this is a yes!!!!! But then they also kind of rely on each other / have to figure things out in a way!
Ooooof YES… I feel like the rage that comes to the surface is from somewhere so deep…. It’s sacred rage that tells us there is something inherently WRONG with the systems that are failing to support us. It’s never just about the thing in front of us. Even the fact there is only one space on the bus!! I feel the rage for you. And I hear you on the loneliness… we need to meet, we are so close really! Xxx
yes we absolutely should meet would be nice to do it without the kids (or mine anyway!) You are so right, it is a sign of a failing system. I agree on the buses one space although it is a large buggy so this is also an issue. It's funny older people tell me that even having a space on the bus for us is a new thing they always had to fold theirs. I mean - I would struggle now to do that with bags and things but it would be possible with the right buggy, but what about when you have a tiny baby and a toddler? People must have just not gone out! Absolutely ridiculous.
Drop me an email and we can organise. Lauren@laurenbarber.co
And I really have no idea… it seems crazy to think of… I don’t know how you manage it with a double buggy as I’m constantly crashing into doors and curbs with a single one!!! X
Kylie, I am feel so much of this deeply. Wonderful piece.
Thank you, Kathryn.
Ah yes.
Just recently I found myself shouting, “Fine! I’ll walk in the f***ing road then!” when an idling car was blocking half the pavement making it impossible to get the pram through and the person inside just ignored me. I try not to swear in front of my child, but the mum rage on that morning was real.
Re: invisibility after becoming a mum, I have found that there are two extremes. Either people are extremely accommodating - cars in my area often flash me across the road when I’m waiting to cross with the pram, for example - or they treat you like you don’t exist.
And yes, I find the whole calling you by mum and not your name thing quite weird and irritating. When the health visitor came round at ~24 weeks for the first visit and did this I remember thinking, great, my baby hasn’t even been born yet and I’ve already lost my identity. I wonder if it’s because they see so many mums and babies it’s easier than remembering everyone’s names. Guess some people like it too. 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah that makes sense its for ease but it is rude just don’t bother calling me anything rather than mum 😂
Ah yes totally relate to shouting at cars I do that and I really try not to but like you say it’s hard! It’s infuriating there is little to no consideration for access to lots of things for buggies and wheelchairs etc and something like roadworks can stop you going on. I had similar last week and ended up walking 10-15 mins out of my way to go round. All they had to do was make the pass they had for people a little wider!
I think sometimes we have reason to shout although my kids shout now and I think where do they get that from but similarly sometimes you got to have a voice and share feelings etc. 😂
The self-judgment is harsh for us moms. It’s been really hard to accept my new identity as mom because there are so many other things I want to do. It certainly doesn’t help that the hardest work of all is so looked down upon in today’s society. To be a feminist and to be at home with the kids seems mutually exclusive and I feel like a traitor to the cause of women’s liberation at the same time that I can’t deny my values where my family always comes first. The difference between having a job you don’t always like and having kids is that when you don’t like it there’s very little you can do to change it except wait for them to get older. You can’t quit. You can’t ask for a refund, lol. All you can do is wait and that feels so much like a trap. Thanks for sharing your exhaustion and anger and frustration on the page. I think it helps us all feel seen 🙂
Oh Ashley thank you, exactly I do sometimes just want to change my mind!! I too feel like I have betrayed the feminist cause, it wasn’t the grand plan but as you say we put our loved ones first, do the best thing for the kids etc. it’s hard! Thank you for your comment, I too feel better seen in reading the responses to this post.
Oh Kylie! Don’t get me started on buses and double buggies, my current reality and often bane of my life. How on earth there is only space for one/max two is so ridiculous. Many-a-time I have had a bus pass me by/not let me on because the buggy bit is full…when you are standing there with tired babies and a desperation to get home, it is awful. And yes you do feel invisible. The tube is also no better, my nearest station has no lift!
As a mostly SAHM (constantly creating in the edges) I absolutely resonate with the invisibility. Despite being full to the brim, I often undermine my own experience, when asked what I do, the words that most often form are “just a mum”.
Katy Wheatley wrote an amazing post recently about her complicated relationship with her female body and whilst a lot resonated, there is a bit that she talks about her husband and children being praised at a wedding for doing speeches/poems etc and then being asked “and so what is it you do…?”, she didn’t say it but she thought “I wrote my husband’s speech and brought up children to be confident and creative enough to do these things”.
Also the loneliness (although never alone!!) thing resonates, it is a strange reality when the vast majority of my time is spent with highly emotional, often irrational, nonsensical (and of course magical!) beings. Anyway yes my identity has shifted in every way possible since having children in 2020 and 2022, it is something I am still very much unpicking and yet I feel the rage of being unseen and undervalued in wider society every day xx
It sounds like our realities are very very similar!
Where we used to live in london had like 3 train stations and one had lift but like you say getting a bus to the other two is hell we only visited for a day but I felt relieved we didn’t have to deal with that daily. And broken lifts!! Ahh!
Oh I think I might have missed that piece but I do subscribe I think she’s great. It’s such a good point isn’t it we do all the things to help them be great and the title SAHM doesn’t really cut it does it? There is so much more. I often joke I am house manager. I am so worried about me going back to work and people asking what I’ve been doing for 2 years, when like you say two living breathing human beings exist because of that time away.
Gosh SAHM just needs a big rebrand doesn’t it?? 😂
Solidarity to you, Lyndsey. 🙌🏻❤️
Broken lifts…!! Completely agree re the SAHM rebrand, SO needed! Love to you xx
Loved reading this + resonated completely. I’ve written before that “invisible” is the one word I’d choose to describe how I’ve most often felt in these years of early motherhood! I think it’s especially hard because our souls know it should be opposite - we’re doing the most sacred work caring for fresh new human beings, yet instead of being respected or revered, it feels like we become second-class citizens. It’s very hard to reconcile.
Thank you, Amber. I mean I think it’s nice even to hear from others that they think the work is worth doing and that it is a sacrifice, so to be honest even sharing this has lifted me 🙌🏻
@Kylie-Ann - I felt this one down to my toes. My son uses sign-language and does not have a lot of words and so it makes it public interactions trickier. He has a visible disability - Down syndrome - and I feel we teeter-totter between getting more of a “free pass” and extra judgment.
The hospital where he is often admitted has a lovely, peaceful chapel and a beautiful statue of the Madonna and child. I looked at her one night and said to her, “how different this place would be if they had put you in charge.”
Someone must have heard that because a few days later I was out with the girls for breakfast and another family paid our tab. I wept openly.
Thank you for putting your work out there, and I really do hope you and @Lauren Barber get together and then tell us about it. ❤️ wish I could be there! 🤗
Thank you for sharing Emily, that’s a good story. I know what you mean about feeling the free pass I think you get that with you ged children maybe as well, but when they are bigger and push like my eldest, esp because he’s very close to school age you get those looks!
Where are you based Emily are you in the US?
Kylie-Ann - I know the looks! Also, we are really just animals protecting our space/stuff when it boils down to it...kids just don’t have the tools but do adults, really? Just look at social media...🤣
I am based in Cincinnati, Ohio. According to my license plate, Ohio is the heart of it all! It’s home and there is a lot to love about it - I have family close, there is a really supportive Down syndrome community, and we are home to the leading children’s hospital.
Thanks again for your time to comment and respond, and for this piece.
Kylie I feel your frustration so profoundly here: what a testament to your writing. I also remember the exhaustion of the double buggy stage. And I still can live or die by buses and their timeliness (or not). Love the space you’ve made here xx
The double buggy is testing for sure! 😂 thank you so much for reading Laura and for your kind words.
Oh Kylie-Ann, I felt every word of this. I think most moms have been there, in some way. There's an annual holiday parade where I live and it seems like the entire town, plus all the surrounding ones, come out to watch. I remember viscerally when I gave up trying to push my stroller around crowds of people who didn't care about the mom with a howling baby. I was politely shouting "excuse me, pardon me," and yet, everyone ignored me. I gave up hard, smashing into crowds, running over feet. I was a woman on a mission. I never went back. Now I laugh at the memory - just watch what a crazy lady with a stroller is willing to do!
Oh yes we have had that experience. Way too stressful! Funny thinking of all the toes we have run over ha Thanks for reading.
I lost my identity entirely after my first. It took about 4 years for me to notice and I started doing something about it.
It was at that moment I realised how beneficial it was to co parent that I was allowed time to myself, by myself and not feel guilty.
I would miss her every moment before that and reluctant to spend time apart but I also knew I needed to be 100% for her to get the best of me and me not burn out and feel overwhelmed and miserable by life happening around me.
I’m pregnant now and beginning to lose my identity already. I am so lonely. I hear from nobody and see nobody as I wfh. Nobody asks how I am or the baby.
I wonder sometimes if I just have stupidly high expectations of people lol x
It is hard I found pregnancy quite lonely too.
I think you definitely value that alone time away from kids but at first it feels strange doesn’t it, and you don’t know what to do with it or how to be without the kids.
I think there are just endless identity shifts we go through throughout motherhood and with a new pregnancy it probably feels like you are starting it all again. ❤️
Oh. Yes. Your writing is strong and this resonates deeply. I am not intending to promote myself here but felt it worthy to share that, at the age of 56 with grown children, I still seem invisible or at the very least undefined. Please know that you are “so much more”.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kathydasgupta/p/so-youre-a-cheerleader?r=1m94hp&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thanks Kathy will definitely have a read! I love it when people share articles that are relevant to the discussion all very welcome here!
I swear to you it gets much better. I had so many similar feelings when mine were tiny. I also balked always at the midwives and their "Mum" chats. If you have a medical procedure, the professional can always just about get your actual name. Why is it so different in maternal care?Glad to have found your writing. Our Substack and podcast is about anger-one guest you might enjoy is Minna Rubin who wrote the brilliant "Mom Rage". x
It is lazy isn’t it?!
Oh yes this sounds fab! I’ll check yours out this sounds right up my street. Thank you!
All of this is so true. My kids are older now (4 and 6), so some things feel easier but it’s a strange transition phase. I want them to be more independent because they aren’t babies but there are still so many things they need or want me to do for them. I feel close to being able to spread my wings a little but it’s too soon and I’m pushing against the boundary.
Hope is on the horizon, that’s great to hear, Katie thank you! I did test out not hanging out as close to them (nervously) yesterday and it was good, some days when I can get away with it. Hopefully we’ll get there too!
Such a great post Kylie-Ann and it resonated deeply with me. Having that anger about so many things, almost not knowing what its even about and no-one to direct it to. Or feeling like no-one even cares that you are angry. So important to talk about this because there's so many layers to it, like you mention - that feeling of being invisible and feeling like society doesn't value mothers full stop. Feeling like I'm invisible and like no-one is listening to me at home is a huge trigger of mum rage for me. It's that feeling of being underappreciated, undervalued and just flat out ignored that brings on the rage. Thank you for talking about this ❤️
Thank you, Jenna. ❤️