I snapped at my children. Resented daily pickup. But I was there when he needed me, and my perception of myself completely changed
I still can’t pinpoint when it happened, but it felt as though my child lost the ability to communicate overnight.
Of course, that is not what happened, and he never lost the ability to communicate. But it felt as though he did at the time. And even with the benefit of hindsight, it felt like he went from a chatty three-year-old to being unable to get a sentence out. “W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-what c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-can I-I-I-I-I-I-I” and then silence as he gave up trying and just looked up at me.
I often joke my parenting approach is one of benign neglect, and that I lack any instinct at all. I still do lean into that caricature at times (“I will have to do a few minutes of parenting this weekend,” I recently texted the family group chat in mock horror). This joke originated when I first became a mother more than eight years ago. I perpetuated this idea that my children were not the centre of my world and therefore I was somehow different from other mothers.
Privately I thought I was more ambivalent about motherhood than I anticipated. It turns out I had mistaken what maternal ambivalence was.
