To the Moms Who Don't Want to Mom Today

Anytime I post a complaint or express frustration on social media about parenting, multiple people (notably childless) tell me that if I don’t like parenting I shouldn’t have had kids. The problem with this sentiment is that no one knows if parenting is life giving or life draining for them until they actually have living, breathing children depending on them for their very existence. And just because there are days and moments when I don’t feel like parenting doesn’t mean I wish I never had kids. Only parents know the true roller coaster we face day in and day out, laughing with our kids one moment, and then suffocating as a child physically smothers us with their body the next. Even as I write this, I am begging my son to get off of my wife who is desperately looking for just 5 minutes alone on the couch to disassociate for a moment.

Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash

There are some parents who live for the chaos. They love being needed, and it seems like they rarely face any sort of breaking point or exhaustion. For the rest of us, we definitely have good days and fun moments, but the greatest parenting gift you can give us is the opportunity to not be a parent for a day.

Time away from kids and responsibilities is the perfect gift for almost any parent on their birthday or Mother’s and Father’s Day. It’s funny, but for the first 12 or so years of the life of a child, the best gift a parent can get is time away from that child. Depending on what holiday or whose birthday it is, one parent is usually fighting off feral children trying to beat down the door of the bedroom where the other parent is hiding to avoid the reality of parenting for an afternoon. But as those children creep into adulthood, the roles reverse. The teenagers want to be anywhere but in the presence of their parents, and the best gift the parent can imagine is when everyone can align their schedules to spend two hours in the same room together. We go from being desperate for some personal space, to begging our kids to go to dinner with us on our birthday.

But this doesn’t mean a mom should feel bad about not wanting to mom on Mother’s Day. Or a dad who longs to ditch his entire family for a few hours on his birthday has no reason to feel guilty. And if anyone tries to tell you “one day you’re going to miss how much these kids want to be with you,” feel free to tell them to shut up. Knowing that we will one day miss our children will not make us feel less overwhelmed and oppressed by their constant presence today. Don’t feel guilty for wanting a break because parenting is the only thing in life you can’t simply quit when it gets too hard or isn’t fun anymore. But with some help from your partner, family, or trustworthy baby sitter, you could pretend for a few hours that there aren’t people who would literally die without your care.

One day you will have to beg your kids to watch a movie with you, but today, they won’t let you poop alone. Taking time to have some space between you and them is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, you’ve more than earned it.