The first time I said it out loud, I was alone in the bathroom at home.
It was early evening?the witching hour?and nothing about parenting my two kids, ages eight and four, was going remotely well. But it was more than just a rough night; it was a stark and deeply unpleasant sense that there had been many nights like this and there would be many more to come. In that moment of fluorescent-lit honesty, I finally admitted it, choking back tears: ?I hate this.?
The second time, I was talking with a mom after school drop-off, moaning about some particularly frustrating phase that one of our then-toddlers was going through. We weren?t particularly close, but somehow I felt like she was a kindred spirit. ?Sometimes I really don?t like parenting,? I confided. ?I love my kids. But parenting" Most of what it actually involves" I don?t think I like it.? I braced for possible judgment. But instead" ?Oh my God, me too! I?m so glad you told me that. I thought I was a monster.?
Over the past few years, in more and more conversations with other moms at drop-off and pickup, in Facebook groups and chat rooms, this spiky truth?that parenting is something that many women struggle to enjoy, or at least find themselves loathing a decent percentage of the time?has been seeping out.
There was the thirtysomething woman at a party a few years ago who confessed to me (the wine had definitely loosened her lips) that she sometimes thought she?d be a better ?cool aunt? to her kids than...