How to enjoy motherhood… when you didn’t really want to be a mom to begin with…?
I had my daughter when I was in high school, I wasn’t able to get an abortion because my mom didn’t want to sign the papers (where I’m from you have to have a parental consent to get an abortion as a minor)
The reason why I mentioning my backstory is because I feel like this is a major part on why I don’t really enjoy motherhood as much, because I simply didn’t even want to become a mom to begin with, but basically had to. Years later, I have my daughter and majority of the moments are good, but I feel like a good portion of the time, It’s really hard to connect with my daughter and actually enjoy motherhood. I’ve been trying a lot of things like today. I decided to take her to the mall to have a mommy and me day, she enjoyed it, but it was really hard to feel any happiness emotions during the experience. I kinda just felt numb and a little bit bored… which makes me really sad. And not only that, but even just the typical things that toddlers go through tamper tantrums, not listening to the word no and other things, which I have been prepared for and even read up on parenting books about it, but it’s still hard to not get frustrated with her and not lose my mind every time she does a bad thing, it makes the motherhood experience even more unenjoyable than it already was.
I do have a support system, thankfully, from my fiancé and also from family, but even with this, I find it so hard to try to actually enjoy motherhood and not feel bored and all all the time when hanging out with my daughter. She is 22 months old, so I’m hoping it will get better as she’s older, but I really just want some advice, words of encouragement, and something that will at least help me be a little bit more optimistic and enjoy being a mom, because I truly do love my kid. And I obviously can’t go back in the past from when I had my daughter, so I’m trying not to dwell on that so much and focus on the present.