Confession: I Don’t Want to be Mommy

Ok sisters, I am about to get really, actually real here. I cannot sugar coat. I cannot paste on one more smile. Join me, won’t you?

Today, in this moment, in this season of parenting, I cannot. I don’t know if it’s their ages or me and my new-found freedom in being a single woman trying on so many new things for size—but tonight, I realized that I do not like being “Mommy”. Not right now.

My littlest is currently in his bed screaming that he wants his “Mommyyyyy!!!” and I just wished out loud that that person wasn’t me. I daydream that some softer, sweeter Julie Andrews version of Mommy will walk through the front door and tell me to go take a nap while she handles everything. Further—I don’t really like this mean mommy version of me, but she seems to be who’s showing up these days. And today, I realized, I just don’t wanna.

We’re on week three of me single parenting them with no weekends with Dad. I took them camping at a festival—in a tent—where it rained every single night. I did the 4th of July long weekend (why was it like 17 days this year?) We’ve been to the water park, the pool, movies, parks, embarked on car trips, had 456 baths, I’ve refereed 800 fights and if I step on one more Lego piece I am throwing them all away.

Friends, I practically waltzed out of daycare this morning and all but bribed them to be in bed within two hours of returning home. Did I mention this is not my best season?

I remember when they were teeny and all I did was lay around and stare at them, nursing their fat little baby faces and nuzzling their downy, buttery heads. It didn’t matter that their Dad was mostly MIA, or that I was shouldering way more than my share of the burden—they were my sweet little babies and I could not get enough. I was so proud to go out with them in public; people would ooh and ahh over their kissable cheeks and long, thick lashes.

I Don’t Want to be Mommy Today

Now? I am apologizing with my eyes, pleading silently for help (or booze) as they wrestle, run and swing through life like tiny Tarzans just released back to their jungle home. People tell me that they are so delicious, sweet and just at “that age” but ugh, when does “that age” end? I know there’s gotta be a light at the end of this long and painful tunnel; I’ve been in others before. I got through sleepless nights, cracked nipples, a newborn and a two-year-old, and the big one: the day their Dad moved out.

We got through all of that, so I know I can do this.

I think I got lulled by the false safety of two potty-trained kids who mostly entertain themselves, eat real food, and can take the school bus. I thought I was DONE with hard (I know, cute, right?) And for the most part, they are so good; they’re so funny, sweet, incredible, strange and brilliant. I know this, I do.

I just want to be me

But, honestly? Today, I want to just be me. I want to run away and drink margaritas on a beach with a certain hot tattooed man-friend of mine. I want to be able to just say yes, instead of “oh but I have the kids that weekend” or “huh, think I could get a sitter?”

I want to say goodnight to them and have it be done that one time. No tears. I want to not feel low-lying rage bubbling just beneath the surface every time someone says “Mommmyyyyyy?” from the other room needing a drink, snack, their butt wiped, or to tell me about a booger.

I just don’t want to be Mommy.

I might sound like a whiny jerk here. But in this game of never-ending parenting as your best self to grow small world peacemakers who will someday cure cancer and sing “Free to be You and Me” over organic quinoa in their communal dorms where mommy might actually also just GO LIVE WITH THEM TOO cause it seems to be the slippery slope we are all expected to live upon—I cannot.

I have to tell the truth. And the truth is, right here, right now, today: I don’t want to be Mommy. I want this season to pass. I want to wake up on the other side of it. I want to want them again. I said it. It doesn’t feel good, but it feels free to say it out loud.