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My Biggest Mommy Regrets

Every mother has regrets and among my group of friends we occasionally bring up our various regrets.

At the top there is:

Nursing
Baby nursing is tricky business. I regret not nursing my first, but he couldn’t latch properly 90% of the time thanks to being tongue tied. I regret not nursing my second – that might have worked, but I didn’t have the support or the internal reserves to nurse him around the clock with a needy toddler at home and a business to run.

One friend regrets not being able to nurse more than few months before her milk supply dried up. Another friend regrets having so much milk nursing was uncomfortable for her and the baby so she stops. Others who nurse successfully regret having to pump instead of feeding at the breast and so on. In my perfect world, I would have been able to nurse both boys wonderfully – I loved it for the week or so it worked out with both.

Quickly followed by:

Working
The working mother bears more burdens than a non-working mother can imagine. I know – I’ve done them both. There are crosses to bear on each side, of course. When I was home with my boys, half of my brain was completely unstimulated and I got edgy a lot.

When I went back to teaching after a year, my brain was completely fried and I literally survive Monday to Friday only to clean up on the weekends and do it all over again. My boys come first, but there are so many things I’d love to be able to do that simply never get done – like vacuuming and dishes. I’m waiting on the cleaning elves to show up any day now.

Of course, I’m not typical on either front. My SAHM experience was actually a WAHM experience as I dealt with a newborn/infant and a toddler/preschooler all day long and immediately sat down to work every night – beginning four days after my second C-section. Teaching just took the place of the daytime childcare (in a sense, you can argue I now care for 85 children instead of two, but I digress.)

The Ideal
I think everyone has a different ideal for their particular version of Mommyhood. At school today two teachers were dreaming of soap operas and shopping for housing knick-knacks. My dream? To enjoy just one successful business from 9-2 while the boys at are preschool and spend all other daytime moments with my children. My evenings would be full of good movies, good books and an hour on the treadmill or elliptical. It’s a dream that I might be able to bring to fruition next year. Only time will tell.

February 19th, 2009 Posted by Rebecca | Notes from a Real Freelancing Mom | 3 comments