My child drives me nuts. Am I a bad parent?

In our culture, the topic of the parent-child relationship is presented exclusively from a positive point of view. If we look at the wonderful pictures and videos on Instagram, we will always see happy moms-bloggers smiling at their babies. And the babies are so cute: they wave their hands and listen to their parents. In general, there is an illusion that you can live happily, never be sad, never get angry, never get tired, keep up with everything, etc., etc.

For example, here is a mother of four in a checkered apron. She is glowing and making dumplings for her family. Her happy children are next to her, helping her with the food preparations. Such a pretty picture! And you – you feel exhausted and just want to lock yourself in the bathroom and stay there for the next half a year. Disappointing thoughts come to your head: is there something wrong with me? Am I a bad parent? ☹

What do most of us think about what a parent should be like? Probably, something like this will come to your mind: kind, patient, and wise… And what do we know about children? They bring joy, smiles, and happiness… In both categories, our understanding resembles pink cotton candy. The reality is very different from this!

Marion speaks about her experience: “When I remember the first two years of Jordi’s life – it just seems like a non-ending nightmare. He was a nervous and restless child. He cried a lot and almost couldn’t sleep – he wanted me to be next to him all the time. My weight dropped to 90 pounds and I was not getting enough sleep. I didn’t even have time to eat! My husband was working long hours, and my parents lived far away – there was nobody who could help me. My mother-in-law used to visit us once a month for a couple of hours and lecture me about the mess in the house, the unwashed laundry, and the fact that Jordi has eczema (don’t you know how to feed a child?). And in general: “Why such a sour face? You have a son – you should be happy!”

Our critical society asserts the unacceptance of certain “wrong” feelings: you cannot be sad or tired from interacting with your baby. And if you dare to admit that your baby sometimes drives you nuts – you are bound to be condemned to “what kind of mother are you?”.

Meanwhile, the reality is such that having all kinds of different feelings is absolutely NORMAL. The most important thing is what you do with these feelings.

When you have a child, it means that the following things happen to you:

–  you feel”tired” because the baby takes the lion’s share of your time and energy

– you are sad because you are human

– irritation, because it is quite normal to be annoyed with “mum-mum-mum”, noise, whims, etc.

Therefore, even though parenting brings a lot of joy, it also brings anxiety, fears, fatigue, and regular reminders about your imperfections, which you need to learn to cope with.

Psychologist D. Winnicott in 1965 introduced a wonderful and even healing concept – “a good enough mother.” It contains the idea of ​​a non-idealized view of the maternal function. Since then, this idea has served as an antidote to the unrealistic desire to become a “perfect” mother, which is popular with many people and can cause psychological exhaustion, self-blame (and accusations from others), and other unpleasant consequences.

It is perfectly normal to have difficulties in parenting. Well, could it be any other way? By recognizing this we allow ourselves to live and not bury different feelings inside ourselves, including negative ones. And – attention! – we have the right to do so!

Parenting is hard and everyone has different experiences. And one more thing – it doesn’t make us super-human. Fortunately, we remain real and live people. And real and live people can sometimes experience anger, irritation, the lack of desire to play with the child, and dreams about having ice cream in solitude.

When we accept that we get a chance to find and experience the joys and hardships of parenting to the fullest. We understand that both of these experiences are absolutely normal.