ARTICLE
Confession Time
– Claire’s Blog
If there was ever a moment when (without the deadliest judgement we all fear) I could confess all the deepest regrets I carry as a mom thus far, I would find it rather freeing to do so.
The day each child is born, no matter how long you laboured in child birth or in the adoption process, no matter how spent you are (physically or financially – or both), they give you a baby (if not two) in one arm and guilt in the other.
This guilt is identified by the sickening feeling a mom gets at the first sign of her own child neglect. So, your journey to nurturing both baby and guilt begins. If confession of sin can bring conscious relief – just the freedom of knowing someone else knows how bad you are, then surely momreglect (regret for all possible neglect) confessed could bring similar relief from the gut-wrenching internal judgement of that guilt. So here I go.
Nothing is my own anymore…
One of the things I love/hate about being a mom is that nothing is my own. For starters, my body is not my own anymore. I gave my body away when I fell pregnant and I got a new bigger version in return. The new bigger version got even bigger untileventually baby was born and phase two of my tranfiguration began.
This is when your body slowly becomes paralysed…
by a complex venom made up of oxytocin, maternal instinct and just plain cuteness, and the baby then feeds freely off your body at will, sipping the life from your veins. Every nutrient and every microbe of energy, you would
otherwise use to keep living, is transfused into the baby, leaving you with a body that is now not only big but also tired and saggy. Even though my best friend’s baby was adopted and never breast fed, her body stopped belonging to her the day baby arrived… especially her ears. Baby decided from day one
that mom’s ears were soothing to rub… all the time… with both hands. So, for
months (if not the first few years) my friend walked around with big, red, swollen ears.
I confess, I love chocolate…
There is one thing I love, like really, really
love and it is chocolate. Though I gave my body selflessly and without restraint in the nurturing act, I shall NEVER give my chocolate! I used to hide my chocolate in places impossible for toddlers and children to find. I would
connivingly leave all three toddlers unattended before the Holy Grail called TV and I would sneak off with stealth to the secret place and take a deep breath as I embraced the rush of sugar and cocoa through my withered veins. One, two or maybe three blocks would be all I had time for before I was overcome by guilt. Guilt was always the first to find me out! So, I’d rush back to the children feeling like I had left them in the wild to fend for themselves, with chocolate still on my breath. I would then blatantly lie and try to convince them that I just naturally smell so sweet.
I confess there is still more…
“At least that’s all you’re guilty for” you may say, but in reply I hang my head low and confess that there is still more. I have lost count of the number of times the tooth fairy missed the bus and couldn’t get to the shoe on time (I was broke), or the hours the babies spent mesmerised by the TV so I could just
have a bath, uninterrupted. I confess to forgetting a child at school; I confess to overdosing a child on medication because I was so tired I misread the instructions on the bottle. I confess to giving my baby Rescue drops to make them sleep and to buying premade baby food for the last baby because I didn’t have the energy to make it fresh. I confess to giving my baby watered down juice to try get him to stop breast feeding. I confess to sleeping through reading homework and deliberate delaying in fetching them from parties. I confess to giving them sweets as my last resort for peace and to losing my cool over Lego pieces not being shared. I confess to not washing my hair for ages and wearing the same drab but comfortable outfit for days, if not just staying in my pajamas for the entire day.
My confessions get worse, trust me…
I am not a saint! Were my instincts not functioning well I might be found eating my young, especially when they are 13 years old… the temptation is uge! Whatever the confession one has to make, I do recommend confessing it; perhaps even get perspective from a respected other. We don’t need to journey alone as mothers; we are all in this together and should make an effort to talk about our feelings, our struggles and not just our successes, without feeling guilty about it. I will leave you with this one thing I have learnt, in the words of my older sister, “Do whatever it takes to make sure the babies have a healthy, wellfunctioning mom, because they need you, and give everything to raise healthy, well-balanced, loved children because you need them.”
“Disclaimer: I by no means recommend
doing anything I have confessed to… you must make your own regrets!”
This article appeared in our January / February 2024 MOMSNOTES edition ~ You can read all our past issues Online Here!
