When I stepped into parenting, I had the N.N.E.B and 9 years childcare in professional settings under my belt, so I thought I was sorted for parenting.
During my pregnancy I was bombarded with other people’s experiences and horror stories of pregnancy and birth. I sailed through, enjoyed the experience and had a relatively easy birth. Parenting was not quite the breeze I thought it would be. My son, as good a baby as he was by day, woke every hour for four months until I had to seek the advice from a book, and I got it together. The three next babies brought with them their own challenges. For baby #1 you have time and energy to give, baby two, life, baby three, life, baby four, life and time passes you by so quickly. No one warned me about post-natal depression and the impact that would have on bonding, parenting and decision-making skills.
When they are little the decisions are easier; choose the school, food, parenting, sporting activities and live your family life. One of the early hard decisions came in the form of debating whether to change schools to be closer to where I worked and lived. This was one of the first times I had considered the implications of my decisions on their future. What would happen for them if I made a mistake? This responsibility rattled me and made me anxious about the potential consequences, my mental health was good at this time but I remember the thought battles I had debating the pros and cons with myself and even feeling the guilt that would come if I got it wrong.
They were settled in school and doing well, could I really disrupt that and risk the potential of them not settling? Maybe they’d be bullied, not fit in, not get on with the teachers and all these potential problems which could ruin their experience of school to make my life easier. That is when it struck me that the decision couldn’t be made on that basis of making my life easier, I had to consider what was best for them. It was an eye opener, it made me really think about all future decisions and I suddenly realised what it meant to make decisions on their behalf, health, education, parenting, future and what a scary prospect that was.
Parenting wasn’t the only responsibility; parenting comes with a whole host of expectations, guilt, responsibilities and challenges and you can multiply these by the number of children you have and bang your world and life is full of making the right decisions for each child and each child is different with different needs, wants and desires. Add to this the battle with my depression-fuelled thoughts and at the same time supporting my son in his battle with anxiety. Feeling like a failure every day, not able to be the parent I wanted to be, not able to change how my mind was working and feeling out of control.
As they got older it became apparent that I had their whole development on my shoulders, there were days that I had to consider not only where they needed to be, what they were doing, timing everything but I was responsible for their skill development; social skill, language, cognitive, mental, emotional and physical skills, health, their decision making skills, their friendship and relationship skills, education decisions and personality.
I have had to be tough and fair and I’ve had to be challenged and made mistakes along the way. The depression for me reduced my ability to parent my children my way for a long time and the guilt was debilitating. At my worst, my children were 5, 8, 10 and 13 and the sense of responsibility of parenting was overwhelming. I never felt the decisions I made were good enough. I’ve since come the other side of depression and although the battle with depression is no longer, the self-development journey continues, and the parenting challenges are ongoing.
Understanding my emotional state and mental health was so important to me on this journey and learning to express my emotions was key. I had been struggling to manage my emotions which impacted my mental health and my thoughts. I had become negative without any way of taking control, but I am now able to slow down my thoughts and understand them without self-punishment and self-criticism. As a parent, it is often our belief that our children come first but you are the most important person in your own life and your children’s lives. If you don’t look after yourself, how will you be the parent you want to be? Who will step in to parent the same way you do if you can’t do it? So please look after yourself, it’s integral to you and your family’s wellbeing.