It’s no question that motherhood is hard but throw a pandemic in the equation and it just went from a 10 to a 3000.
This post is super vulnerable, but I hope it lets other struggling mamas out there know they are not alone.
When Covid-19 was officially announced as a pandemic, I honestly didn’t understand the severity of it. If anything, I was happy to be able to work from home and be with my son all day. He was 9 months at the time and hadn’t started walking yet, so I was glad to get the chance to witness his first steps myself instead of having daycare teachers tell me about it.
The first month of quarantine was like a vacation on a private island- minus the 90 degree weather, the crystal clear water and the pina coladas. Being the home body that I am, I had no issue staying home. I also hated going into the office every day from 8-5 and always dreamt of working remote.
A month into quarantine and my job started cutting hours (I was working in the food industry with restaurants so you can imagine how that impacted us) and sadly cut my hours in half.
I immediately tried applying for partial unemployment online, but wasn’t allowed to because I still had a claim open…. that claim was for my maternity leave last summer. And of course since everyone was trying to file for unemployment, it was near impossible to get through to an agent over the phone. Thankfully Sebastian wasn’t in day care, so that was a huge expense we were able to avoid- working part time didn’t completely stress us out.
The stress only started to build after a few weeks of working part time, still not getting through to unemployment and not knowing whats going on with work. Whenever I asked my manager or senior staff, no one knew what to expect.
Life at home started to get stressful as well. There were talks of my boyfriends company being shut down, the house was always a mess because we were home all day every day, and my son was transitioning to toddlerhood. Cooking became stressful because not only did I have to decide what to make for dinner, but for breakfast and lunch, and every time we put the news on the pandemic was just getting worse.
Mom guilt started kicking in shortly after. Is my son developing at the right pace? Should I be doing more with him? Is he having too much screen time? How do I balance my part time job, look for another job, maintain the house chores, cook and do the activities Sebastian would be doing at daycare? Even if I miraculously have time to do all of these things, what about ME? How do I make time for self care?
Just when I thought I was going through it, God really said “but make her really go through it.”
By July I was laid off from work, my boyfriend was also laid off, my dog unexpectedly got cancer and needed to be put down and we were going through other personal issues.
At this point I completely stopped taking care of my self. Working out was the last thing on my mind, sitting down to enjoy a healthy meal seemed impossible and everyday started to look the same: clean the house, cook, tend to my 1 year old.
Sebastian was getting to be a handful but he’s an energetic & curious toddler boy so I expected this phase in his life to be like this. He loves to open all the drawers/cabinets he could get to and empty them out. Some days he was an excellent eater and other days he would wipe all the food on his try on the floor. Tantrums were mandatory whenever he didn’t get things before he even asked for them and nap time seemed to be getting shorter each day that passed.
Meanwhile dishes were in the sink for longer, laundry sits in the dryer for AT LEAST 6 days and the only time I get to cleaning the bathroom is when our glass shower stall turns into a frosted glass….. when it’s supposed to be a clear glass (ew).
I kept myself from sharing how I really felt to anyone because I thought this was just the beauty of motherhood. That self care didn’t exist when you have a little one because it was selfish. The time spent working out or doing my nails or reading a book could have been spent cleaning, organizing or doing crafts with Sebastian.
I had this mentality from July up until about a week ago. The past 5 months I’ve been so stressed, unmotivated and borderline depressed, but a week ago I met another mom for the first time and had a conversation with her that completely changed my mindset.
She was a mother of two with her youngest being a little older than Sebastian. We talked about this pandemic and the fear of our kids going to school but not wanting our kids’ education being impacted negatively by not going back to classrooms (that’s a whole other blog post in itself).
I may be hesitant to talk to friends about the struggles of motherhood but somehow I was able to tell this stranger ALL the struggles of being a mom during a pandemic. When the words “omg I go through the same thing” came out of this womans mouth, I can’t even begin to describe the sense of relief I felt. I’m not alone.
Whenever I “vented” to a friend about my struggles, the typical response was either they’re sorry I’m going through something like that or that they’ve heard about these struggles before. But hearing someone say they go through the same struggles as you just hit differently.
This feeling of mom guilt is self made- we allow ourselves to feel it. It’s completely normal, but it can be avoided with the right mindset.
This stranger opened up to me and told me she used to have the worst mom guilt ever. She was depressed, felt like she never was doing enough, couldn’t find motivation to take care of herself and it all started to affect not only her mental health but her relationship as well. This hit me because, well, SAME.
We talked about how she was able to escape that mindset and how it has changed everything in her life for the better. She was confident and happy with her appearance and her health, her relationship was thriving and her children were still happy and doing well.
I wanted that. I wanted to feel that happiness she was feeling but I knew if I wanted to get to that I needed to change now.
Motherhood is hard, but it doesn’t have to be.
I started waking up a little earlier to work out, I started meal prepping so I’d spend less time cooking and more time sitting down to enjoy a meal with my family, and I started getting organized with the things I needed to do in my day by making to do lists. I’d cross items off one by one and if I didn’t get to something that day there was always the next day.
I started to accept the fact that sometimes laundry takes a few days to do, that it’s ok if the dishes are in the sink overnight and that it won’t be the end of the world if Sebastian is watching tv all afternoon just so I can get some work done.
A quote that I came across that has stuck to me since is “your kids don’t want a perfect mom, they want a happy one” and that is 1000% true. We kill ourselves to be this “perfect” mom by being the maid, the teacher, the chef and forgetting who we really are.
Self care is important, especially as a mom with a lot on her plate. This post is for all the hard working moms; whether you’re a stay at home mom juggling babies, household chores, and cooking or a working mom trying to find the balance between work life and mommy life- you are not alone. It’s ok to put yourself first. It gets better.
The past few months I’ve done a lot of self-growth and plan on sharing it in future blog posts to help others. Subscribe to my newsletter if you want to be notified when I post. Share this post with a mama you think may benefit from it. Take time out of your day to do something you love. Stay healthy and wear a mask.
Xoxo
A no longer struggling mom
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