Not all mothers want to be mothers

I’m not sure where I am with this, but I know I didn’t think it would be this.

I watch some mothers with four kids and I’m genuinely in awe. They move through the world with the energy of adolescence, like they’ve cracked some internal code. They seem expansive, buoyant, almost fuelled by the chaos. That is not me.

I read something the other day that said if you’re not an extrovert, parenting might not be for you. And it landed. I used to think I was an extrovert. Before kids. I was swiftly sucker punched into introvert territory once they arrived.

I am stressed. My patience runs thin much faster than I’d like to admit. I feel permanently behind on something, usually myself. The noise in my mind never really quietens, hello mental load. My nervous system feels wired. And yes, I know I’m perimenopausal. And yes, I am “looking after myself”, including loving hot yoga three or four times a week.

My husband does a lot. This is not a story about being unsupported or invisible. He is present, capable, and involved. And still, I find myself thinking, very plainly, what is this shit?

I love my children. That part is not in question. What feels harder to say is that loving them has not automatically translated into loving motherhood. At least not in the way it’s often described. Not with the ease or fulfilment I thought might arrive once I got the hang of it. I don’t have the hang of it.

I grew up imagining myself as a mother of many. I romanticised this role. And yet, I feel caught off guard by how relentless it is. How little space there is to be undefined. How much of myself feels permanently spoken for. Who am I? I feel like I know who I am, but also, who am I?

When people talk about motherhood as instinctual or natural, I feel a kind of distance open up inside me. Not because I don’t know how to care, but because I don’t recognise myself in that narrative. My experience feels more like endurance mixed with fierce love, threaded through with a constant low level questioning of who I am becoming in the process, and whether I want another child. Honestly, what the fuck.

I also notice how little space there is to say this without being misunderstood. As though naming difficulty is the same as regret. As though saying this is not what I imagined is a failure of gratitude. As though wanting something different, or even just wanting to name the difference, is somehow disloyal to the children you adore.

I don’t want to be rescued from this feeling. I don’t want it reframed or silver lined. I just want it to be allowed to exist. I want other mums to read this and say, yeah, this fucking sucks sometimes, and my kid is an absolute menace today, and I still love them.

Maybe this is a season. Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe it’s the age of my kids, the country I’m in, or the way modern motherhood is structured. Maybe it’s all of it.

What I do know is that there are many mothers walking around carrying versions of this thought quietly, assuming they are the only ones. Assuming that if motherhood doesn’t feel like home, a warm apple pie, then something must be wrong with them.

I think not all mothers want to be mothers in the way we were told they would. And many of them are still showing up, loving deeply, doing the work, and holding far more complexity than we give them credit for.

Maybe that’s motherhood.

I’m somewhere inside that truth right now. Not resolved. Not polished.

And that feels like a start today.