Being a mother can be the source of opposite feelings. For one part it´s beautiful and rewarding, for another is really frustrating. Today I want to talk about the downside of how my experience has been lately.
My daughter is 3 years old and going through a heavy phase of resistance. We are having at least a month that she refuses to take a shower every single day, for instance. Some days I manage to convince her nicely to do it, some days my approach is not so nice.
She´s been saying no to so many things that´s simply driving me crazy. I counted the nos and yes and they´re in a rate of five nos to each yes. Even when I´m not asking anything, she says no.
It´s like a infantile mind game and in this game she wins, because I can´t cope with the excess of resistance going on every day and eventually I´ll break down and have a screaming attack or I´ll be harsh and make her do things not in a mindful way at all.
Staying with Luísa all the time is beautiful but to simply put it: it´s too much. It´s too much to ask for any mother to be balanced every single day when staying at home with their children alone.
When I talk about it to someone, they tell me to not feel guilty about my mixed fellings and that everyone goes through this. But I think this is just sad that I and other moms have to go through all of this practically on our own, because that´s the way things are.
My misery comes from the fact that I analyze things too much too. I can´t help thinking how the way our society is conducted by nuclear families is simply wrong. I don´t know how and when families started to be the way they are today, but for me nuclear families are wrong.
I think that like everything else that´s going on in this world right now, it was originated in an attempt to hold the private property. Keeping the possessions within the family instead of sharing everything in a community, the way it used to be.
It doesn´t make any sense that all the families are secluded in their homes, with everyone taking care of their families alone. By midday all the families cook lunch (or the stay at home moms at least) and we are so used to this that it looks the most natural thing to do. But I don´t think this is natural at all. I think it would make much more sense to gather a few families and share this kind of chore with each cooking for all in different days, so not every day everyone is cooking their own meals.
Gathering a few families to organize lunch is just one example of how more intelligently our time and resources could be spent (think of the waste with all the oven´s working at the same time for example), but this sharing could go to different activities, specially watching the children.
I think is just insane that I have to be with Luísa all the time by myself. I´m her playmate most of the day, I´m taking care of every single thing concerning Luísa, it´s like she is mine, meaning more than my daughter, but my possession. She is mine and I´m responsible for her physical and mental health and whatever goes wrong I´m the one to blame.
Obviously we both will go a bit mental after the excess of time together, with me alone taking all the nos and she hearing from me alone all the rules to follow. Looks like a recipe for delivering another spoiled person in the already huge mass of screwed up individuals that abound in our society.
It makes me sad to think that so many people are in the very same situation and we could unite and share the family work and make it so much more rich and fun.
Sure I can count on my family and friends for some help (not my blood family because they live far away, but the closest friends I consider family), but the way we carry this society we are simply not sharing much.
I can have someone to watch Luísa for me for a couple of hours and that´s it. I´ll ask for help when I need to work, but other than that, you know how this is, I will avoid asking for help just to have fun and exercise like if this was a less important necessity.
In our present sick society the only activity that we are conditioned to truly respect and do everything in our power to make happen is work in exchange for money.
And though I´ve been offering myself to other moms to count on me more often whenever they need, I see it´s a common tendency to not ask for help unless really needed (again, meaning for work matters), so the result is that nobody asks for much help and everyone takes care of their lives the more independently possible.
While in the past of human kind (and in some minor societies still today) people used to live in communities, the rule now is individualism. And this extends to family, considering each family as an individual.
We teach our kids to share everything with their blood brothers and sisters. But how about the other people? Aren´t we all brothers and sisters anyway? Why did we lose this connection?
This blood attachment we carry on is just sick to me. Don´t you as a mother or as a father feel like you have to watch all the kids that are in your sight anyway? And yet, the society is conducted in a way that even if you are willing to help, people won´t take your help. They will feel that they have to pay you back somehow or simply feel bad for accepting it.
By this help I mean simple things, like taking care of each other and not alleviating poverty, that´s another issue that I`m not discussing here.
So yeah, today I´m feeling really blue about all of this. More than going nuts with my too tight relationship with Luísa, I´m feeling really sad about how we are conducting this world. With the families separated from each other, everyone minding their own business the way we are used to.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This is so true! We’re just so used to it or hooked on our houses and privacy that nobody mentions it. You said it so well.
I couldn’t have imagined it before I had kids – nobody prepared me for how profoundly isolating being a stay at home mom would be.
Over 10,000 years, humans lived in large family groups, clans, tribes, or whatever, and now in the last few generations we live so isolated, ensconced in our own houses or apartments.
Playdates are wonderful salves, but I agree it’s just an unnatural setup to be one person alone all day with kids with no other playmates for them or adults to talk to for you. You are a strong woman being able to do it as a single mom (and keep your sanity)!
Yes Kelly, nobody is prepared for the isolation to come, something our civilized world created in the last generations. I don´t know how to overcome this, but I hope that we can make a change or our children will go through the same painful process.
And thanks for the compliment. All mothers are strong women, but indeed single moms have it tougher.
You make such great points here. On the weekends we find it’s so much easier to have a play date or go to the park. Not only is sharing the work of making a meal and cleaning up nice, the kids really enjoy being with their peers. I agree with everything you’ve said here!
I agree with you Erica, when you say that weekends are easier if it´s when you can be around more people. It´s too sad to count on weekends to have a more natural life, we are supposed to live fully every day.
Hi, Marilia. I am happy to read your article because it confirms for me the things I tell my friends in Togo. I am an American expat living for a bit more than 5 years by now in West Africa. It took me aback at first to see all the tiny children — in fact, children of all ages, running around everywhere. Often they band together for things like crossing the street, but for the most part you’ll easily see one or two or three walking or running along like they are going someplace important, no worries. Usually, completely unattended by any adult — except every older person around them is looking out for them, and if there is a problem someone will step forward to help manage the situation. It took me a lot longer to understand that here, unlike in the USA (I can’t speak to elsewhere) there is a functional community going on. It has a hierarchy of responsibility that is active and includes everyone at every age. Younger? You owe respect and help to the elder! Elder? You owe responsibility and help to the younger! Female? You owe respect and help to the men! Male? You owe respect and protection to the women! People refer to each other as brother, sister, papa, mama, auntie, uncle, etc. They don’t leave anyone behind. Me being white, I am an external element, but people will include me by default, usually, unless I break the flow myself, then they excuse my ignorant behavior as me being a stranger. I do understand that there are serious down sides (economic inequalities, sexism, child labor, etc. etc.), but from where I am I can see a lot of equally serious upsides that most Americans never understand, maybe because (this is how I think of it) the society I grew up in lost that functionality so long ago, nobody remembers how it used to work. So one of the things that got lost was the security of children and sanity of moms who live in an environment where everyone looks after everyone’s children. Thanks for your blog. I find it very interesting
-Meg
Hey Meg, I´m glad you like my blog
It´s very interesting to learn about this Togo comunity as you described it. I can see how you or any foreigner arriving there might be confused by the way they live, sharing the respect and responsibilities like that, I loved how they call each other by family member´s names, that´s the way to go.
I hope that in the near future we change some of our modern ways, they are making us numb to real human relationships outside our homes. I refuse to think that more generations to come will cope with this.