There are lots of things that nobody ever tells you about having kids. Many new mothers resent the lack of warnings and wander around their homes with a mewing infant in arms, dressed in a spew-spattered dressing-gown and resentfully bewailing that they weren’t forewarned.

Some new mums make up conspiracy theories about existing parents begrudging the freedom childless couples enjoy and assume parents deliberately withhold information, so as to trick others into joining their frazzled ranks. I don’t buy that.

My theory is that the people with kids simply don’t have the time to tell the people without them everything. On days when their child has slept, eaten and cooed appropriately they wear a glazed expression akin to a Stepford wife and murmur, “It’s wonderful”. But they fail to offer any real insight into the wonderfulness.

On days when babies have refused to sleep, toddlers have peed on carpets and broken neighbours’ china, when schoolchildren have sworn, spat or simply refused to acknowledge any rules or guidelines, parents shake their weary heads and mutter, “It changes everything, you’ll see”.

But, as most days mums really don’t have time to run a comb through their hair, they cannot be expected to carve out the hours required to fully brief expectant parents about the exact nature and extent of that life change.

Indeed, no one warns you that for about five years after giving birth, finding time to go to the bathroom alone will rank among life’s greatest luxuries. No one tells you that reliable babysitters are like gold dust. Or that you will dutifully run up and sown stairs thirty times a night to nurse a child with a fever, although you are the sort of woman who would struggle to drag themselves to a step class, even one run by George Clooney.

Being a mother means a life of contradictions. No one tells you that children have tiny foibles. A little bop or way of handling a watering can that will reduce you to tears of happiness.

No one tells you that you will vanish. That you’ve never been more important. That you will feel sticky, scruffy and be used as a human trampoline, but that your arms will feel empty if you ever do escape to the shops or an office. You would die for them. You live for them. They take up every moment of your conscious and unconscious mind and more than that… 

Source: “Young wives’ tales” by Adele Parks

I remember the first sentence what I said my mother from hospital over the phone, after I gave birth:”I can understand that you gave a birth to my brother, you didn’t know how much it hurts, because it’s your first baby, but why you decided to gave a birth to me after that, I can not understand!”  

My son is 15 years old and he is in puberty. His hormones are totally out of any balance :) He is doing stupid things, he is not the same child any more! His father getting crazy with him, calling me every week and ask for help. Well, I can not help much from the distance, but I am trying…

Now I am thinking, maybe he has to come and live with me. It’s not the best solution if you know that we are living on the boat, but I think that I (together with my Man) can take care about him much easier. Maybe I have more nerves to handle that “low-adolescent“… I am his Mother

I don’t say that I am the perfect mother, I know some much better than me. Sometimes I think that I am the worst mother on the planet and a sense of guilt is killing me. “Maybe I could spend more time with him instead I spent that time in office running for a carrier”… “Maybe I could say to him more often that I love him, or to show him that I love him so much”…Maybe that, maybe this… all the time the same questions, conclusions, answers… especially when we are so far away from each other, like now. I see him twice per year, he spend his holidays with us on the boat. It’s not possible more because the school. Great that Skype exist, so we can talk often… Anyway, I went through hell of judgmental attitude from other people, when I decided to live a new life and left my son with his father (that was also my son’s wish, and he adore all kind of gadgets what his father buying him all the time, especially in this age that is more important…). I run through that too. I am thinking: “Ok, remember yourself when you were in his age, you also were addicted to those kinds of things, your friends and boyfriend was more important than your parents…” 

So, I would add to this part of the book also:

We are always asking ourselves are we good enough for our children and to our children? Are we doing good things for them? Do we really know what is best for them? Could we do more? Less? 

On the other hand, sometimes I think and I feel as a best mother on the planet, especially when my son says that to me . Then I forget all my doubts about good motherhood…