(no subject)
It just takes such a toll. Motherhood. It's all day, every day. It's not that I don't like being a mother, I'm thankful I'm a mother, it's just so hard. Honestly, no one can tell you how hard motherhood is.
I constantly feel like a failure as a mother. Is it because I am not working and can just barely support my child and myself? Or is it because I wasn't able to breastfeed and got a lot of flack for it? Perhaps its because I'm a single mother.
In today's society, especially in my community, single mother pretty much means teen mother. A girl who decided to have sex before she 'should' (my views on sexual intercourse and age differ between situations) and the father just left. That's not my case. Even though that's not my case I still get treated with very little respect. Cashing in my government check every week at the bank got me more than enough looks, enough looks to make me start using the ATM and not dealing with people. Standing in line at the welfare office for 2 1/2 hours only to be told I need to stand in another line to be told that they don't think I can qualify for income assistance because i receive child support. If I want income assistance, I have to go through Mental Health and I won't be getting all that much. The one thing I have going for me is that Family Justice is free! So going to court shouldn't be financially straining.
Going back to the whole failure thing, really can't keep my thoughts straight, I feel that way because lately Mason has been such a crank. Well, things have been hard with him since the beginning. The father made me feel like a shitty mom ever since we found out we were pregnant. So right away I doubted my ability to parent. Then because of previous mental issues and post partum depression we had a hard time bonding. I did everything I could, I just never felt like he loved me. Loving him became hard because of everything I was difficult and I didn't feel like I was cut out for anything. I know I loved him, I just didn't like him all the time which every parent feels. I'm starting to see the defiance in him that I had as a child and even as an adult. We clash, so he doesn't like what I have to say. He would rather be around my parents and sometimes I feel like he loves my boyfriend more than he loves me. He smiles at me, and laughs with me but not as much as I need to feel like I'm his everything.
He has one parent. Me. He has a biological dad who doesn't want anything to do with either of us and my boyfriend who is stepping in as a father figure. I'm blessed to have him in my life to take over when the going gets rough and I need a break from feeding him or chasing him around. He is becoming 'Daddy' not because I asked but because he wanted too.
So, currently, Mason will have nothing to do with me. He won't eat, he has hardly slept in 2 days and he won't let me hold him. And I can't make him stop crying. I've done everything a mother can do and her son is completely miserable. In this moment, I feel like he hates me. I am by no means a horrible mother. I feed him and change his diaper. I play with him and give him snuggles. We have great bathtimes. He is generally a decently happy baby and I'm constantly told how good I'm doing.
But still, I fail.