I am over thirteen months into being a mother of two and there are no words for how hard it is. Since using words is my entire job description that is serious indeed. In those thirteen months I have not had one good nights sleep and my bones feel like they are eighty. Yet I am constantly told by people to ‘enjoy every moment’. As if I am some kind of monster if every moment with my children is not complete joy. Now I love my children more than anything else in this world, (Well, tied with my husband), but pretending parenting is nothing but sweetness and light does no one any favours.

At the moment my daughter is making it hard to write this post because she is doing an adorable peek a boo game and smiling at me, but earlier today she screamed for hours and I could do nothing to comfort her. She is teething and it is one of the hardest things ever. In truth, an unbelievable amount of pressure is put on parents, and on mothers in particular. The standard to be a good mother is one so high you would need a seat on a spacecraft just to reach it. So I write this piece in defiance of the standards that are impossible high, and for all of the people who tell me to ‘just enjoy it’ when I am having a bad day. I mean, when they are doing something they hate, going to the dentist for example, do I tell them to enjoy it because life is short? No, I don’t. Telling sleep-deprived, exhausted parents that they are lucky and to just be happy does no one any favours. Especially as some of them might have post-natal depression. Putting pressure on people to be happy, instead of acknowledging how hard parenting is, just creates unhappiness and pressure for people who are already under a huge amount of pressure.

To be fair I do remind myself that my childrens littleness will go in a flash and I should enjoy it as much as I can. But I am a human being for FFS. Not a robot that can take every crappy moment with a smile. I do not enjoy it when my children are in pain and I cannot comfort them. I do not enjoy the endless sleepless nights and the SAS-like torture of it. I do to like it when my children squabble. I also do not love wiping bottoms, cleaning, tidying or all of the accidental head-butts and scratches. Nor do I enjoy dealing with tantrums, or even a myriad of other domestic crap. And that is okay. It really is.