My Lowest Parenting Moment

Yesterday was probably my lowest parenting moment. Allow me to share my guilt and shame with you, then explain why I’m refusing to sweep it into my closet (or under the rug).

Disclaimer: This didn't all happen yesterday. I wrote this blog post and then sat on it, ironically, not wanting to share my guilt and shame (lol). Well, here I am now, and it's all in black and white (or perhaps green and apricot for you). May it encourage you to be real.

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Yesterday, I was all set up at the Word Festival Local Author's Fair at Geelong Library. It was a brilliant event full of wonderful people, but my head was foggy and thumpy from all of the tears I cried beforehand.

My boot was open and I was packing the car for the Local Author's Fair, trying to make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything. I get nervous and anxious before an event and I was stressing about things like where I was going to park, transporting my stuff to and from the car, whether my buggy was going to fit under the provided table, if my Square was fully charged, and how many books to take. It was in this moment, that one of my daughters had a request. The request doesn't really matter, it could have been anything, my headspace set me up to fail.

"Can I have x?" she asks.

"No," I say.

"Why?"

"Because."

"But x, y, z."

"No, because a, b, c."

"I don't understand," she says.

"I'm stressed and anxious right now,” I explain. “It’s too late to be organising this now. I'm getting ready to go. Please just give me some space, let me get organised, and we can work something else out."

"But I don't understand, why can't you just x?"

"Because y. Please just leave me alone."

You see how this is going? Well, continue it. It plays out the way your mind would have it. She keeps asking and I keep getting angrier until I'm crying, and still she's asking, and I'm fleeing down the hallway trying to get away and she's pursuing me, trying to stop me, and I get to my bedroom and I'm trying to close the door, and she's trying to push through, and I'm trying to close her out so that I can slide down onto the floor against the door so that I can breathe and cry and she's in my face and pushing through and I'm pushing the door closed trying to get away and there's noise and and I can't get away and she pulls out of the door and I close it and now she's crying and yelling, "You broke my arm!" and my heart is thumping and I can't breathe and I'm shaking and I'm wailing and I'm too scared to move and see her arm at an odd angle and needing to explain to someone that I did that to my child and now she's scared of me and she's not safe with me and my children aren't safe with me and I've failed them. I've failed. I've hurt my child and I've failed and lost and nothing will ever be the same again.

I ask another child to check on Broken Arm Girl but she has closed herself in her room and is sitting behind the door and there's something ironic about that fact. Wobbly and still wailing, I knock and shakily ask my daughter if I can come in. I'm scared to see her arm. I'm scared to see the fear on her face. But she lets me in, and she's holding her arm and I'm asking if I can look at it and she tells me it's fine and I don't believe her. She's lying because she can see me crying and that's what abused children do, right? But, she shows me, and her arm looks normal. There's no bone poking through flesh, no lumps or purple bruises or big red marks.

"Where did I hurt you?" I ask.

"Here, but it's okay."

"You're just saying that. It hurts, doesn't it?" Because it could still be broken. It could be fractured. It could still swell up. She could still need xrays and be in a cast and be incapacitated. But she gestures to a spot and if I examine it closely I can see that it is ever so slightly red. And I'm still sobbing, but now I'm begging for forgiveness. "I didn't mean to hurt you," I say.

"I know," she says, now with tears in her own.

She was okay, but I was not okay, because there was 'That Moment' when I thought that I had seriously injured my child.

I drove to the author event feeling sick and wiping away stray tears, then I spent the next 3 hours smiling, chatting and pretending that the morning hadn't been one of the worst that I ever remember.

Since ‘The Event’, I've been praying that ‘The Moment’ would be life-changing. That it would be ‘The Moment’ that took me from angry, reactive, yelling mum to calm, gentle, patient mum. And, maybe it has produced some change in me; it’s too early to tell, but I still feel like me, and that's kind of disappointing.

My daughter's arm is fine. She doesn't hate me. I don't think that I've scarred her for life. My children aren't scared of me, and there is no D.H.S. knocking on my door (thankfully). I am humbled and exhausted, and the Local Author's Fair just kind of faded into the background of life.

I wrote a book about these moments. The moments that you can't breathe and you need space and you can't get away. The moments that your child is in your face and you'd rather be anyone or anything other than the mother that you are. This book is called Other Than Mother.

Other Than Mother: Relatable family life fiction about the overwhelmingly suffocating moments of motherhood.

Why do I write about this stuff? Why would I write this blog post, overshare, and expose all of my shame? Shouldn't some things be kept private?

I share because I know that there are so many mothers out there walking in their own clouds of guilt and shame, feeling so broken and alone, feeling like they've failed, feeling like they can't breathe and they can't get away. I want them to know that they are not alone.

Parenting is oh so hard. Every time I have ever spoken about Other Than Mother, and the suffocating and overwhelming nature of parenting, I am met with understanding, not judgement. I am met with eyes that are filled with stories of their own, just like this one.

Twice now, I have heard women say, “Oh, I should buy this book for so-and-so,” but then choose not to because they are worried that so-and-so might get offended. My heart hurts for these women. The women who would feel offended if their friends bought them a book about a struggling mother. They need to know that it’s okay to feel the way that they do, without drowning in shame.

I wrote a poem called 'Necklaces'. It's about pulling our skeletons out of the closet and sharing to heal and to help others. This is why I wrote Other Than Mother, and this is why I'm writing this blog post.

Other Than Mother is a work of fiction, but it's also my love letter to mothers. A letter that says, 'I see you, I understand, and I care.'

So, let me wear my necklace of bones, and let me encourage you to wear your own.

I see you.

I understand.

I care.

Much love,

Marey x

P.S. Find Other Than Mother on Amazon. Available as an ebook and paperback.