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Fulfillment Faith

Your turn: I was jealous

Wow, ladies. I’m very impressed! I threw out what I thought was a very “angsty” post—which I thought could be (and would be) easily dismissed. But many of you took the time to write thoughtful, heartfelt and most of all helpful answers. Would I be presumptuous to say that they were written with concern, compassion and sympathy?

I’m just so impressed that I wanted to highlight many of the responses here. Now, I know that not everyone has struggled with feeling dissatisfied, burdened, inconvenienced or whatever you want to call it, but I was very relieved to have my suspicions confirmed—I’m not alone.

I acknowledged in my post that adjusting my expectations was one way of trying to deal with this. (Although I’m not very good at that all the time.) Robin had further advice: go specifically to kid-friendly places. As silly as this may sound, I actually usually do try to struggle through dinner in a sit-down restaurant with Hayden (on the infrequent occasions that we actually go out). I have learned through sad experience that this is a recipe for disaster. Robin points out the importance of lots of entertaining toys for tots in public. Let me add that you can never have enough toys. And nothing you offer a child who has developed a taste for soda will satisfy his desire until you share with him.

Madame M points out that realizing the importance of spending time with your children is another way to appreciate it more. She’s absolutely right. In ten years, are you going to remember snuggling with your children or that episode of CSI:? And what will they remember? Perspective doesn’t always make things easier, but it can make the right choice more obvious.

Lindsey, my friend of whom I was jealous, says that it’s important to remember—and even okay to acknowledge—that we, as moms, have needs and desires, too. That’s a problem that I deal with in this area, too. I get so tired of subjugating my needs to his—sometimes I just want to take a shower or read or knit or eat in peace. Eating, sleeping: pretty basic needs, I think. I’ve been known to think, “Okay, Hayden, you win. You win. You win—again. I am nothing; my physical needs mean nothing; you win. I am broken. Again.” (That was especially common when he was a year old and still not sleeping through the night.) It sounds pretty psycho in the light of day, but I still remember very keenly that feeling. I’m a mother now, but I still have wants and I still have needs—and thank you, Lindsey, for reminding me that it’s okay to recognize that!

Julie felt like she was going out on a limb to say that she just found it easier to parent older children. Lucy agreed with her. Even with my limited experience, I believe that there are certainly easier ages to parent (and those ages are due to personality and personal preferences for the parents and the children alike). I know some men who feel like they’re all thumbs around newborns (and go so far as to tell their friends that they don’t really like babies!). As much as I loved Hayden, I found the newborn/zero feedback/blob stage very challenging. He is so entertaining these days (he was a total ham for my extended family at dinner last night!)—and by the same token, so exhausting. He really is a good kid, though.

Bellevelma—yes, it does help to hear that time will help. I’ve got nothing but time. In fact, I think that was a prevailing theme throughout most of the comments: Robin and Bellevelma both said it outright, and I think that time is also a factor in being able to better parent older children, like Julie and Lucy said. There are two things that change with time: us and our children. Our children grow and mature and suddenly become more manageable (we all hope!) and presentable in public. We also grow and mature and earn more hard-won patience and parenting skills. Kinda cool how that works.

Offline, my mother also suggested reading scriptures about charity to help build my patience. (I tried reading scriptures about patience; it made me impatient :\ .) I really believe that being a mother is God’s will for me (and for most women), and that I’m doing the right thing by dedicating my life to my children, as hard as it is. In fact, I’ve come to believe that a major reason why we’re supposed to have children is because this life is the time for us to learn to be humble, to cease to be selfish, to soften our hearts, to give up our will for that of God—and I really feel that having children can teach me that, if I let it.

Thank you for all your responses. Really, you helped to lift my spirits.

5 replies on “Your turn: I was jealous”

One of my first posts was about this feeling that is so common to mothers. It’s called “I Signed Up For This” God gave me a really great perspective in the end. I was going to comment on your original post, but ran out of time. One of the most important things is to admit and work through these feelings, because we all have them!

those are really all great suggestions. I have been so behind on reading and was glad for the recap! 🙂

For me I seem to go in and out of phases with the kids. Sometimes I find the busier I am the less I take time to really enjoy them, revel in them… I’m busy thinking about all I want to or HAVE to get done and miss out on them in the meantime. The more time I make, or the more I let go of other things and make sure they are first in my life… the more I notice all the amazing things about them, the things they are learning, the way they put something together… and so on.

Hey, I am kind of late to this conversation, but I wanted to tell you that Katherine at Raising Five has two recent posts that speak to this discussion. Sorry – I don’t know how to make these clickable in comments, but if you go to http://raisingfive.blogspot.com/ and read her posts “Is it normal to be tired when raising a toddler?” and “Embrace the Place” I think you will find further encouragement!

Once again, thank you to everyone!

I’ll be sure to read those articles; thanks, Megan!

Whoa, how did I not discover this site sooner? I’m just now checking it out after you emailed me via my other site (suburbanCEO.com)…I wish I hadn’t waited so long!

Anyway, what a great topic. I think almost all of us feel that way — some of us more than others. 🙂 One of the things I’ve realized recently is how much personality type plays into it. E.g. I’m an introvert, don’t like a lot of noise, can’t stand chaos, etc. so many aspects of motherhood are going to be more challenging for me than for, say, my friends who are extroverted, have a high tolerance for chaos and noise, etc. It’s brought me a lot of peace to realize that, and has helped me not spend so much time comparing myself to mothers who have a totally different set of gifts than I do.

OK, going to go check out your archives now… 🙂

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