Why Do I Hate Motherhood? 3 Simple Reasons and Easy Solutions

~ Melanie

Have you ever asked yourself why you hate motherhood? Have you ever been desperately seeking a way to start to enjoy your motherhood?

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Hating motherhood is a common theme in our society today. Scroll through social media and you’ll see all the posts about being exhausted, burned out and women just not wanting to be mothers anymore. It’s a lot of work, especially today.

But, to understand why you hate motherhood, we really have to define motherhood and differentiate it from parenting.

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What is Motherhood?

Motherhood is the relationship you have with your children. It’s the connections you make and have with your kids.

All the other crap that comes with it that feels impossible to keep up with (laundry, mental load, school projects, sports games and practices, etc) is NOT motherhood. These are things that are required as a parent, not as a mother.

These are tasks that someone else can do. Do you know what someone else can’t do? Connect with your child, spend quality time with your child, build up YOUR relationship with your child, etc.

With that being said, we can now dive into why you may hate motherhood.

Is it normal to hate motherhood?

I don’t care what other blogs, professionals or mothers say – yes, it is normal to go through phases of hating motherhood.

You are not alone. I repeat, you are not alone. As someone who has 4 children (a set of twins) and spends a ton of time (sometimes way too much) in Facebook groups, I know for a fact that you are not the only one that feels this way.

The reason you hate motherhood

Since we correctly identified the definition of motherhood and parenting above, Let’s talk about why you may hate motherhood.

If you still feel like motherhood is terrible, even after defining it correctly, it may be because you’re simply doing too much and your extra tasks (that could be done by someone else) are taking up too much space and energy.

There is too much on your plate

Think about it: let’s say you’re sitting on the floor with your toddler, about to destroy a Paw Patrol coloring book with a brand new box of markers. But, just past your child’s head is the pile of laundry you “should have” folded 3 days ago.

How in the world are you supposed to enjoy that connection time (ie, motherhood) with your sweet toddler when your partner’s clean undies are staring you down? You simply cannot.

Society’s expectations of mothers and motherhood just sucks

Society expects us to give up any and everything for our sweet precious babes. And while we would jump in front of a moving vehicle for them without a second though, we are allowed to put ourselves and our happiness first, within reason.

This puts an obnoxious amount of pressure on us, and that pressure is unnecessary.

We aren’t putting ourselves first in motherhood

Turn off that guilt voice in your head (we all have an inner bitchy mom in our head that has got to go most of the time) and spend some time on yourself. It really is a lot easier than you think and it may require you to give up some control.

Putting yourself first allows you to recharged and energized and ready to take on the hardest parts of motherhood and caregiving.

Learn about daily self-care here!

Once you figure out how to truly take care of yourself (ie, self-care), you will start to be able to see the joyful parts of motherhood and parenting.

Grab my self-care assessment freebie to figure out how to do self-care effectively!

You feel alone

This is especially true for stay-at-home moms. Typically, our partners are “allowed” to leave to go to work “for a break.” We are at home doing the same thing, day in and day out. This can make anyone feel like their life is just sucky.

How do you start to enjoy your motherhood?

Ahh, the solution. Everyone wants a solution to a problem and here we are.

Stop trying to do everything

Even though we defined motherhood as the relationship between you and your child, we need to talk about how to simplify parenting so you can enjoy your motherhood.

Start by writing down all of your tasks that you do on a daily basis. This sounds like a huge undertaking but I promise, it will be worth it in the end.

First, you’re going to remove everything off of your list that doesn’t serve you or your family. The things you’re doing because social media or your mother in law told you to do.

Next, decide what can be handed off to your partner. For me, this was a lot of things but one specifically was having him cook one night a week. Sounds simple but on Sundays, the last thing I wanted to do was cook again. It’s a nice break for me and he started a new hobby – smoking meats!

Third, decide what you can hire out. Some of these services (laundry, cleaning, scheduling appointments), aren’t as expensive as you may think.

Finally, what can you give to your kids? This may require you to readjust your standards a bit but remember, as long as it’s done, it’s done.

Tell society to kick rocks

Truly. As we said before, their definition of motherhood and what we “should” and “shouldn’t” be doing is shit. You don’t need to listen to that.

A great way to accomplish this is by surrounding yourself with people who don’t feed into that. Surround yourself with people who have the same goals as you regarding motherhood and parenting.

Stop following social media accounts that make you feel bad about yourself and/or your parenting. Start following accounts that align with your thoughts and goals. Find some that help you connect with your kids!

Tell the inner motherhood bitch to get lost

Look, sometimes the inner judgey bitch is necessary. Sometimes we DO need to be knocked down a peg. But most of the time, she’s stupid and unhelpful.

Tell her to get lost when she’s telling you not to schedule that girls’ night so you can get away. She needs to take vacation if you’re going to learn how to enjoy your motherhood.

Reach out to friends

Sometimes, we lose touch with friends for a reason and sometimes we don’t. Reach out to a friend and tell them the way you’re feeling. You may be surprised to hear that other women are feeling the same way you are.

Next Steps

Reach out to a friend as an accountability partner. Make goals for each other and follow up with them. What are you going to hand off? When are you going to schedule that girls’ night? How are you going to keep the guilt at bay?

Unfollow all your hate follows on social media. You don’t need those people in your face.

Download my self-care habit assessment and figure out what area you need to focus on to better your self-care routine.

Resources for helping you enjoy your motherhood

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