Mark 15 Weeks

The other day, I was telling my mum about how intense the days are. “I remem­ber!” she replied. “When the three of you were lit­tle, I used to look for­ward to putting you to bed to finally get some ‘me’ time and relax.”

She paused for a sec­ond and quickly added: “I loved you, of course, and you were great kids! It’s just that… you know.”

“I know you love us,” I replied. “There is noth­ing wrong with need­ing ‘me’ time. I feel the same with Mark. Some­time, I just need to be alone.”

I have a great rela­tion­ship with my par­ents and my fam­ily in gen­eral. We were (and still are!) loved and my par­ent raised three happy and healthy kids. I’m lucky, really. I mean, I’m sure our fam­ily is dys­func­tional on some level—every sin­gle fam­ily is—but I never doubted my par­ents’ love for us and they are always here when we need it.

So why does my mother, almost 30 years after giv­ing birth to me, still seems to feel bad about need­ing some ‘me’ time when we were young? Why does she need to sound apologetic?

God­damn guilt. That’s what it is.

I know where she comes from now. I feel the same.

Some days, Mark is inex­plic­a­bly cranky, needy or fussy and I can’t help feel­ing like a fail­ure. If I snap or can’t fix what­ever is wrong in a timely man­ner, I even down­grade myself to the “pretty shitty human being” level.

“Surely, other moth­ers have things under con­trol,” I sigh. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t devote all my time to him and just put my own needs aside, you know, for the next twenty years or so?”

This kind of think­ing is usu­ally fol­lowed by big sobs and an over­whelm­ing feel­ing that 1) I just can’t take it any­more 2) I’m a com­plete fail­ure as a mother and as a per­son 3) I’m doing every­thing wrong.

I’m a mother and I chose to be. I shouldn’t need to pee, eat, sleep, wax my legs, go out for a cof­fee or enjoy a hug with Feng. I shouldn’t need to relax alone and I cer­tainly shouldn’t com­plain about hav­ing to hold Mark and cud­dle with him. I should be entirely devoted to this lit­tle 65-centimeter long crea­ture. Because, as the world likes to remind me, “they grow up sooo fast…!” and “soon he won’t be need­ing mommy anymore!”

Will Mark remem­ber the day when, exhausted and stressed, I didn’t burp him well and he had hic­cup for twenty min­utes? Will he blame me for speed­ing up yet another feed­ing because I hadn’t had diner yet and was hun­gry? Will he develop an unhealthy rela­tion­ship with clothes shop­ping because I didn’t change yet another milk-stained pyjama fast enough? Will he be a sociopath because I didn’t smile back enough to him the nights I was tired? Will he resent me because I handed him to Feng to be able to get some work done?

I told Feng about the gigan­tic glar­ing red “FAIL” but­ton in my head that blinks each time I feel I didn’t do enough.

He said I was crazy. “Why are you being so hard on your­self?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I wish I could… be a bet­ter mother. A bet­ter part­ner. A bet­ter person.”

“He’s fine! We are doing fine! Look, he is smiling.”

Damn kid was grin­ning. It made me cry even louder. I felt guilty for feel­ing guilty.

Why do we, women, feel guilty all the time?

I can see plenty of women around me bury­ing their head in shame when they really shouldn’t. Those who left unhealthy rela­tion­ships and yet blame them­selves for not being “good enough” when the guy was clearly a huge jerk. Those who are feel­ing the pres­sure to con­ceive and feel guilty because it doesn’t hap­pen fast enough or eas­ily enough. Those who man­age to have a career and a fam­ily and yet think they aren’t doing enough even though they are Wonderwomen.

To each and every sin­gle one of them, I want to say “good job! You are a great per­son and I admire you.” But some­how, a lot of women don’t hear the praise and focus on the neg­a­tive, the “should have” “could have”.

Why are we being so hard on ourselves?

I don’t know. I wish we could shake off the ever-present guilt feel­ing and hug each other. Because really, we are doing the best we can—and we are doing pretty damn good.