“Who am I?”
I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately, and all I seem to come up with is “a mom”. You see I’ve always known since I was little that I wanted to be a mom, it’s something I’ve never had a doubt about. It’s the reason I planned on having my oldest, but I guess somewhere along the way I kind of gypped myself. I never really gave myself time to figure out who I was first, like what my interests are. Being a mom is wonderful but I feel like it’s my only identity. My world revolves around my kids, if I’m not at work I’m doing stuff with them. There’s no in between, if we do stuff it’s something my kids seem to be into, or were going out to eat which always involves taking them.
Being constantly around the kids without a break occasionally make me scared that, I’m just shifting to “robot mom” mode… I don’t want to be in “robot mom” mode. Basically I see that as being so mentally and physically exhausted that you just do your parental responsibilities, you don’t enjoy the moments. It gets pretty confusing you seem to be annoyed or angry at everything, but at the same time you feel like you don’t care about anything. It’s almost as if your on autopilot and your emotions turn almost robotic. Maybe I’m confusing this with depression, I don’t really know at this point. I don’t want people to misunderstand, I do know that time apart from my kids can be healthy and beneficial for both my kids and I. I’m just not sure what I would like to do, I feel like I’m stuck in a rut. Every idea that comes to mind is things I can do with my kids, and I feel guilty when I spend time away from them. On another topic I don’t have any friends, I’ve got coworkers and “friends” on Facebook but none I can call up and hang out with. It’s been this way for years, I’ve tried to make friends but a lot of people without kids don’t understand that my kids come first. When I try to befriend other parents they usually fall into two categories;
1. There is a large age gap and we have nothing in common, most of the time they look forward to seeing my mom because they can relate to her.
2. I know not all young parents are like this but a lot of them feel, it’s alright to leave their kids alone with a sitter or their parents (the grandparents) for a whole weekend. Most of them want to go out to the clubs, or go crazy drinking.
It’s a struggle because I’ve never been into “partying”, even before I had kids I really just enjoyed hanging out at home with some people or just reading a book. If I did go to a bar I would have one drink, most of the time not even that.
As my New Year resolution I told myself this year, would be the year that I find out what I’m interested in doing. Stuff that I can do with other people or by myself that doesn’t involve my kids. So far my list is pretty short, I like to go out to the movies, and to read. Still I was thinking that there’s a couple of things I would be interested in learning how to do. I’ve just got to make time in my schedule between work and the kids and find the extra money. I’m not rushing myself, I know I’ve got time to figure it out. It’s just important that I take little steps every day towards figuring it out, because in the long run a happy mom is a happy life. 😛
Do you feel like you’ve lost your identity since you became a parent? What’s something you enjoying doing without your kid(s)?