This is part of my Motherhood Musings video series, where I share random (and sometimes emotional) thoughts that pop into my head as I journey along this motherhood journey. To see other musings, click here.
Someone asked me the other day which phase of motherhood has been the hardest, and my first instinct was to immediately answer: when our second baby was born! Oooof I found those first few months of juggling two babies really hard. But the truth is, there have been several stages I’ve found especially challenging, and I thought it might be nice to share a few of them with you. Motherhood is a journey of ups and downs, right? Maybe you’re in a hard stage right now, and it might be comforting to know it does get easier. I always find it helpful to hear what other mothers have found hard — it makes my own hard feel more normal. So here are a few of mine...
Having our first two children 22 months apart. Something about that transition really knocked my socks off. I remember breastfeeding the baby and potty-training the 2-year-old — running urgently to the toilet to avoid accidents, trying to pull trousers down with one hand while the other held a nursing baby, thinking… somebody help me! please!! I used to count the minutes until Michael would come home from work, just so I could stop feeling so outnumbered. (Single mothers, I honestly don’t know how you do it!)
My sister just welcomed her second baby last month, and when I speak with her, I am reminded me of how intense those early years of parenting can be. She’s finding the transition of going from one to two children hard. Because it IS hard. You go from having to think about one child to suddenly having to split your focus between two. And it’s not just the practical stuff — feeding, bathing, loving on two little people — it’s also about nurturing their relationship with each other, helping them bond, and trying to create harmony. Not to mention the way it shifts the family dynamic and redistributes responsibilities between parents. It can be a bumpy transition.
Having our fifth baby was hard too. The pregnancy wasn’t planned, and it came as a bit of a shock. We had just spent a year travelling and felt so connected as a family. Life felt more spacious and in flow, and the idea of going back to the baby days again was hard to wrap our heads around, particularly for Michael. When Wilkie was born, I felt a sense of guilt that I was depriving my other kids of my attention, my brain felt so foggy, my body felt depleted and I worried I had pushed myself too far. I worried too about our marriage — we were so disconnected at that time. But… things got better between us, the fogginess cleared, and while it took longer than it did with the previous babies, I eventually felt like myself again.
Another phase I found difficult was when our eldest entered adolescence, around the age of 12 or 13. For the first time in my parenting journey, I remember feeling like I couldn’t say or do anything right. He suddenly became snarky and easily agitated and wanted to challenge everything I said. I could say anything and he’d find a way to disagree with me. It changed the dynamics at our dinner table and within our family in general — suddenly we had attitude to contend with. I think we all felt a bit like we were walking around on egg shells at that time. I felt sad for our second son, who was also losing his best friend and lifelong buddy, and I felt bad that the younger kids had to witness arguments within our family. It took me some time, but I learned to find compassion for him, I learned not to take things seriously, and I found a bit more patience (sometimes, not always). It didn’t help that we also had a toddler who was throwing tantrums at the same time. There were tantrums coming in all sorts of directions from the eldest and the youngest. Actually, if I’m really honest, I think that might have been the hardest phase of parenting so far.
