Summer is close, mama. The kids are getting antsy, you can feel the sunshine (when the wind doesn’t bring clouds), and all you can think about was when you could relax outside without your little one calling for you to ask for a book or to wipe a bottom—or your teenager rolling their eyes and turning their music up louder. In the craziness, you have the thought of ‘I miss when I could do this without them’. Of course, the initial thought that follows is that of guilt and shame. How could you think that? They’re your kids, you made the choice to have them and you’re obviously just tired, right?
Mama, it’s okay to miss the before times.
Society likes to tell us that we have to keep putting our kids ahead of us: make sure they’re fed, groomed, and asleep before you can read a book. Why would you go on vacation, you’re abandoning your children (even though your capable partner has absolutely everything under control and can do the same without people commenting).
Let me be someone to tell you that society is conditioned to judge. There is nothing wrong with wanting your five minutes of peace in the bathroom despite little hands reaching under the door like a horror movie. You are not a bad person for longing for a glass of wine, or a candy bar, or whatever other vice you might have while pregnant or with your kids. Missing the freedom you had before being a mom (and I’ll be the first to say that there was a certain freedom to the ‘before times’) is okay; it’s a season of life that you stepped away from to raise your perfect little gremlins.
Take a moment and pause. Feel the breeze on your face, listen to the birds, and breathe. You are perfect. It doesn’t matter that you miss being able to go to a restaurant and eat in peace, or that you have cleaned the kitchen three times already and haven’t had a chance to sit. The kids you are raising, no matter how you came to have them in your life, aren’t going to judge you for missing things that you used to have; it’s a time in your life that had to be left behind, just like your kids will one day move out and you’ll have to leave the days of changing diapers behind you, too.
