The Things You Can't Take Back

“Parents should fill their child’s bucket of self-esteem so high that when the world pokes holes in it, it will never drain dry.”


Sometimes when I read other people’s devastatingly brutally honest blogs about how they can’t do this “motherhood thing” and how there are days they really just want to abandon their children, I often wonder if they’ve ever stopped to think about how it will affect their children years from now when they stumble upon their mother’s blog. Because once it’s out there on the internet, it’s out there, folks. You can’t take it back.

I have an extraordinarily strong personality and can handle most things thrown in my path, but I really don’t know that I could recover from finding my mother’s writings about how she really just wanted to leave me in my crib for my father to find and run away from it all. I think that would be permanently crippling to my self-esteem.

I know some moms have a really hard time with PPD and such. And I really don’t have a problem with the complete honesty, but must they be so brutal about it? God forbid those children actually find their mother’s blog before they’re old enough to understand PPD and other forms of depression.

Maybe I’m just a victim of backwards thinking and it’s actually therapeutic for these moms to write such horrible and selfish things about their children. You know the old saying, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything?” Yeah. Personally, I think there are some things that are better left unsaid.

I’ve found it’s really easy to cause hurt but it’s damned near impossible to heal that hurt. It takes a long time to undo damage done in a moment of thoughtlessness.

Maybe I’m just not that selfish. Again, maybe I have an incredibly bizarre way of looking at things but I believe to the core of my being that there is no room for selfishness in motherhood. No, that doesn’t mean not to take time to yourself; it means you stop worrying about being so damned self-centered and put your focus on things that truly matter.

Becoming a mother doesn’t make you lose who you are, it makes you a better you.

You don’t just have some annoying kid that you have to feed and make sure he doesn’t roll off the bed or run into the street; you have in your hands a little person to raise and steer in the right direction. You have an individual in which you need to instill values, hopes and ambitions. A tiny, fragile ego has been entrusted to you, which you must foster and encourage. And you only have a precious few years to get it right the first time. There are no “do-overs” when it comes to raising children.

Maybe that’s the real problem- the idea of being responsible for raising a productive member of society is too daunting and overwhelming for some people. If that’s the case, some should have thought long and hard about bringing a child into the world if they didn’t think they could handle being a parent.

It makes me wonder if they thought they were getting a baby doll when they decided to have a child.

Perhaps I just always wanted to be a mom so terribly that I have honestly never considered abandoning my children or thought of them as a burden. No, I’ve never known the desperation that comes with PPD but I am extremely familiar (from personal experience) with other forms of depression and chemical imbalances.

From the moment I could carry a baby doll into church, I’ve always known I’d be a mom, one way or another. Whether biologically, through adoption, or by marrying a man with kids, I’ve always, always, always (did I say always?) known I’d be a mom. I’m just one of those people who were meant to be a mother.

I consider my children the greatest gift ever given to me. They make me want to be a better person. Not for me, for them. They’re the absolute best thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I might have to eat my words when they become teenagers but I’ll still never have any regrets about becoming a mother. I think children should be loved completely and unconditionally, without prejudices or judgments. I feel sorry for kids who aren’t.