Why motherhood is hard

This post is directed toward people who don’t understand why motherhood is hard. It’s not intended for mothers. In fact, if you’re a mom, feel free just to skip down to the comments and tell me why motherhood is hard for you, or why motherhood is worth it to you. And then the next time somebody sneers at you for being a mother (especially one who stays at home), or wonders what it is you do all day, you can send them this!

Motherhood is a unique challenge. Lots and lots of other jobs have some of the same responsibilities, but there is no other job that asks as much as motherhood.

You are completely and totally responsible for pretty much everything your child will learn. It starts from the time they are born and ends never. You don’t have a 9 to 5, you don’t get a lunch hour, there are no breaks—your child can and will call on you any time. At the beginning especially, you can’t say no. Sometimes it seems like they have a special little “Mommy time” detector that goes off as soon as you sit down, pour milk on your cereal, or doze off.

A baby’s only way to communicate a need is to cry. A baby’s cries automatically cause a stress reflex (even in men—the sound of a crying baby is used to keep prisoners from sleeping to break them down for interrogation. In a torture situation).

At the beginning, a baby’s most minimum need is to eat every three hours, day or night, bare minimum. Sometimes they need to eat every hour. Just about every time they eat, they poop. Fairly regularly, they’ll also spit up. The best part isn’t the constant changing and laundry—it’s that for the first month, you get just about no positive feedback from the baby whatsoever. (My theory is that babies are cute as a defense mechanism.)

As they grow, they do finally start smiling and cooing. And soon they’re crawling and walking. And then they require constant supervision. The minute you turn your back, they do the thing that you’ve been training them not to all day/week/month, and hurt themselves. Forget that laundry. Forget that dinner. Forget those other family members. It’s a 100% all-your-attention-all-the-time task.

And as they get older, things get harder. The older they are, the more they get into. They need more than constant supervision. They want to know everything. They ask questions and talk and talk and talk constantly. Every interaction, you have to teach them something. Ten minutes later, you’ll be teaching it again, of course. And three more times tomorrow. And the day after that.

And suddenly one day, you have to have them ready to go out in the world for school. You have to try to teach them to behave in class, not to hit other kids, to share, to be polite, to listen to the teacher. And this is their first test of whether you’ve totally fallen down on the job as a parent. (The answer: probably not. All the kids are that bad or worse.) You have to instill character in them—usually through weeks, months or years of doling out the same punishment for the same crime, with no visible effect.

Oh, and that no visible effect thing? Applies to everything. They constantly make messes, usually faster than we can clean them. The moment we finish doing something, they start trying to undo it, intentionally or not.

And as they get older, there are more and more opportunities to make mistakes—bigger and bigger mistakes. The job of motherhood may not be as physically demanding (except for the driving), but it becomes more emotionally demanding. The range of things your child needs grows exponentially. They go from needing food, diapers and clothes to needing emotional support or independence, boundaries or freedom to fail, rules or rewards.

Every child needs something different to motivate them, to help them, to make them stop. Every child needs a different balance of the room to grow on their own and the structure to —and guess who has to figure to that balance. (Oh, and they still need the food and clothes.) And the older they get, the bigger the potential consequences of their decisions. (Hello, controlling thousands of pounds of metal at lethal speeds!)

Above all, they need you constantly. From the time they’re born until they leave your home (and probably beyond), they need as much of your love, attention and support as you can give—and then some. No matter how much you give and how much you shower them with affection and attention, they could take, and often demand, more. (Until they turn 13 and, while they still need you, they also need you to drop them off down the block from the school—no, don’t kiss—UGH!!!!)

The knowledge that they need is always somewhere in your conscious, whether they’re in your arms or across the country. But the moment you step away—even for absolutely necessary tasks like eating or using the bathroom—you appreciate it all too keenly. You feel guilty for taking time to catch up on all the sleep you’ve missed caring for them. You feel guilty for reading a book instead of staring into your infant’s eyes. You feel guilty for leaving the kids with a sitter, even though if you stayed in that house one more minute you were going to have to lock yourself in your room and cover your ears.

And most of all, you’re constantly assaulted with the fear or even knowledge that you’re doing something wrong. Maybe everything. If you were doing something right, wouldn’t things be easier? Wouldn’t the kids be behaving better? Wouldn’t they be making better choices? There’s seldom anyone there to reassure you who’s been down the exact path with the exact circumstances—and even then, they can’t see the future.

How is motherhood hard for you? How is it worth it?