By Hannah Schenker
Love her or hate her (but seriously, we love her), Constance Hall has the guts to say it like it is. Parenting, that is. While we make a monumental effort do the absolute best for our kids, sometimes it is just plain hard. Constance Hall speaks to that – she talks openly about how difficult it can be to parent, while at the same time making it absolutely clear just how much she loves and adores her children.
So this post she made last week, in which she shares how a child therapist friend of hers reassured her that she is a good mum, hits us all in the feels. Because we can relate – we probably all feel at times like a fraud, not good enough, not doing enough, a ‘bad mum’. Yes, it would be great if we could all go around reassuring ourselves, and maybe some of us do. But sometimes it is really helpful to hear it from someone else, someone we trust.
You’re doing a good job.
Hall says, “Feeling like a total fraud I blurted, “I don’t feel like a good mum. The kids are driving me so crazy, I’m losing my temper and falling asleep at night wondering where I’m going got get the patients for another day”
But her friend, the therapist, responds perfectly:
“Babies cry, it’s how they communicate. Toddlers scream, children whinge and teenagers complain.
Then mums say the words ‘for fuck sake under their breath before every responding. It’s how we communicate.
But guess what Con? It’s better then silence.
A house full of screaming kids and fighting teenagers and a parent who’s being thrown every question and request is a healthy one to me.
It’s the silent children, the scared toddlers, the teenagers that don’t come home and the parents who aren’t in communication with their children that I worry about.
And kids don’t drive you crazy, you were crazy already. That’s why you had them.”
An honest response from a friend. Just like that, she felt like a good parent again – and you can too.
The post has struck a chord with her followers, as more than 169,000 people have shared the post. In the more than 20,000 comments, mothers are telling their own stories of feeling inadequate, and cheering each other on.
