Like many Mothers the day their babies are born are the best days of their lives. When Theodore arrived I felt a sudden feeling of responsibility, the exact moment he was plonked on my chest I knew I had to care and protect this tiny little boy with all of my might. Just the feeling of that alone is massively overwhelming, whether its your first baby or fifth I don’t think that initial feeling ever fades.
Within all this, we get a little lost. We firstly loose a little of ourselves in the mist of the little ones arrival, everyone is gathered around to meet the new baby and you kind of get pushed to the side. All the fuss you received in your pregnancy has gone out the window, you feel and most likely look awful (I was white as a ghost for weeks) and basically you just feel shit.
The fog clears and a couple weeks sludge by. You realise you’ve been living in a world of feed, change, sleep repeat and have gone a *tad* stir crazy. You can’t remember the last time you did something for yourself, the last time you weren’t living in 3 hour intervals. Everyone tells you that you’re a mum now, and you’ve just got to get used to it.
Well you’re more than just a mother.
You’re so much more than that. You’re yourself before anything else, an incredible woman. And it’s totally okay to remember that. It’s totally okay to put yourself first sometimes and it’s totally okay to treat yourself. Deciding to buy something for yourself rather than another (unnecessary) item of clothing for your child its totally ok and you should never feel guilty for that.
People seem to forget that us Mother’s have dreams and aspirations of our own. Yes we love caring for our children but that isn’t all we love doing. We loved so much before our children and we still love just as much now. Our lives take a back burner for a while, and although that is absolutely fine, we would one day like to be able to pick it all back up again, without feeling guilty.
Being a work-at-home-mum I usually just get labelled as ‘just a mum’. No one really knows what work goes on in the life of a blogger because not many people understand it. I spend his nap times and my evenings typing away, reaching out to companies and brands to try keep a steady income.
We all do so much with very little in return. Many of us work, care for children and some how keep a house up to a reasonable standard, yet we still get labelled. We still hear “oh yeah she’s just a mum”. You bloody what? I can’t express how deeply hurtful those few words can be, how awful it is to feel inadequate on a daily bases.
I’ve become so tired of hearing that ‘all I do’ is look after Theodore. When I reality I know I do so much more than that, and I am so much more than just a Mother.
