#9 Unearthing Motherhood

I realized it after giving birth to three children. I am not good with kids.

Perhaps raising three children born in consecutive years all by myself took a significant toll on me.
The period of being a 'site supervisor for life,' where I had to make sure they didn't die, was just too long. I suspect this feeling stems from that experience of being physically and mentally exhausted.

Did the days spent with mythree little monsterswho were 0, 2, and 3 years old heighten my aversion to children? Or maybe I was never good with them to begin with. That remains a mystery.

Now that my children are in elementary school, they require much less care.

The kind of chaos that used to make me want to scream 'Waaaaah!' is gone, and they even help me with chores now.

However, there is one thing I would never say to mothers in the world who are exhausted from raising toddlers.

'It's only for now, them being so clingy and calling for Mommy all the time...'

I will absolutely, positively never say that.

I don't think a day will ever come when I look back on those times and think, 'It was tough, but they were so cute.'

Because, let's face it, hard things are hard.

Even though I thought I was the type who liked children, the feeling of being bad at it once I actually had them feels similar to the sensation of turning a hobby into a career.
It's that feeling where you do a job because you love it, only to realize, 'Something isn't right.'

The burden on the heart here is the fact that 'you can quit a job, but you can't quit parenting for 18 years.'

To say that everyone can find that restriction 'endearing' is just not true.
At the very least, I have lived my life freely with my career at the center, so for me, it's not.

I often feel that parenting is a restriction.
I'll say it again: hard things are hard.

*

Almost every day, I grab my children's faces with both hands, pull them close, and 'sniff-sniff' the scent of their hair.

It started as a ritual to check if they had washed their hair properly when they began shampooing on their own.

It has continued to this day and has become a form of communication.

My fourth-grade son comes to show me his homework, and I 'sniff-sniff' his head.

My third-grade daughter comes to ask me to apply her eczema cream to her back, and I 'sniff-sniff' her head.

My first-grade daughter is sleeping, and I 'sniff-sniff' her head.

Oh, they just got out of the bath, but they smell like sweat. And after saying 'You smell like sweat,' I 'sniff-sniff' again.

If it were anyone else, I would absolutely hate it. Yet, I still do it—the sniff-sniff.

I have a personality that makes me think only about work.
For now, this is the only moment where I can excavate a little bit of my own motherhood.