Next week it will be half a year since we got to our household a small little boy. The cutest and the most smiley creature you can imagine. Filling our days with warmth, smiles, surprises and love. He is amazing in every way. It is great to get again an option to see how the little baby is exploring the world, learning step by step more and more. But even with the most lovely kid and the most perfect partner, who hugs you a lot and tries to make you smile even in your bad moments, even when you have quite some time to work and not to forget that you are not only a mum, a milk container and a cleaning lady, but also an independent being who has brain, even then comes always the moment, when the tiredness overwhelms you.
When you feel desperate, tired, annoy by everything, upset and want to cry and give up. This is something, which is so much and so often overseen. We somehow think that parents are adults and they should manage when they get tired, that they should lift their head up and go on, manage this difficult part of their life with enthusiasm and smile, or maybe they can suffer, but they have to manage. And they have so much vacations and do so many cool things, they should be happy, right?
When you have a kid and it is tired and hungry, you totally expect that it will start crying and being annoying. You do not blame it; you most probably only blame yourself that you did not let the kid sleep enough and you try to fix that as quickly as possible. Why we think that there is any difference between kids and adults? There is not. Maybe adults will not cry, maybe they will try to keep their smile on, but most probably if you let them without rest, without sleep and without any free time, they will just become incredibly terrible. Then you will complain how much they changed and wonder where is the charming girl and optimistic boy which met each other.
This is the most challenging part of this thing called parenthood. No option to rest. Even when the baby sleeps, you can every second expect that it will start again crying, you cannot switch off and be just yourself. When you get some free time, you know, that the other parent is the one who loses another bit of his/her energy, you almost feel guilty for your private walk or even an hour to just stare to the wall. And you think you should manage.
The worst thing on all of this is that if you complain, then you complain to your partner – who is by that time most probably in the exact same state (or maybe worse). You start to blame him/her for any moment of free time, about all the things which are wrong. You feel bad and you do not know why and therefore you complain.
When you have a kid and it is tired, it most probably will start yelling at you, maybe even telling you that it hates you and how terrible you are, or some other things, which are not at all meant like that. They do not mean that the kid hates you, they just mean that there is something very annoying in its life, that it feels bad and it has no idea what is the problem and you are closest to it so it focuses it unhappiness to you. In the case that you see how tired the baby is, you do not take it personally, you just let the kid to sleep and the next day it again happily hugs you.
With parents, it is same. They blame each other, because they do not feel good, they are tired, overwhelmed and the other partner is simply closest…they know, it is irrational, but they cannot help each other. They both give all their energy every day for surviving. It does not mean, that they do not enjoy days, they do enjoy them, they enjoy all the time with the kid, with themselves, but after a week under the tent, they would just like to come home, watch TV, calmly work, read book, sleep two days in a row or just do nothing…but they cannot, after the week under the tent, they let kids to rest and they go and tidy up and make food, fix all the work troubles which appeared in between and try to go on. With every other day where the rest is missing, when they cannot switch off, their tiredness is getting worse and worse. And sleep itself does not help. Because the problem is not only a sleep (although sleeping always helps a lot), but resting. And if both parents do not get some rest for themselves and some time for them together, life is not fun anymore.
I do not know if there is any option to do anything with this. It is maybe just another complaint. Complaint that parents have it tough. Do not take it badly, they would not change, they most probably love their time with the baby, they enjoy most of the days as we do so much, but there is something that they are missing. Something, that challenges their relationship and happiness. So I just want to say that you should not take words and behavior of people who have at home small babies too seriously. They do not mean it bad, they are still those same great people as you got to know them, they are just tired, they are just missing their private moments, the option to rest and watch some silly YouTube video or stare to a wall without being checked or work for more then ten minutes in a row.
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