Who Are These Short People and What Are They Doing In My House?

Welcome to Why Mothers Eat Their Young. My own small refuge from my partner, my kids, and a society that gasps and forms little O's with their mouths when I express how unsatisfying, unfulfilling, and unpleasant it can be to be a mother.  

Now, stop holding your breath, and pooping your pants. I'm not suggesting I don't love my kids. I do. I'm sick with love for my kids. When they're sleeping. It's just the rest of the time we live in a culture that enforces, and reinforces, that these little nose-miners, no matter how big or small, should be our all-in-all. We hear, see, and are regularly spoon-fed, the message that we won't be complete until we have a child, and then we can't be complete unless we accept that everything we had, or dreamt of, or needed is now secondary.

We must be the Sun that all these other people orbit around. Well, honey, my gravity is getting a little weak and starting to sag.

Do I sound like I'm whining? Perhaps. And perhaps, some of you want to say, "Oh shut your cake-hole! You made your bed, now lay in it." Well, I'm laying in it. In fact, I'm smothered in it. I just want my clear, small voice to be bellowed into the din--we don't always love being mothers. 

Occasionally, okay, sometimes more than occasionally, I want to eat my young (and me, a vegetarian). There. I said it. And I didn't spontaneously combust.