And then there’s the guilt of children...

not the children themselves, but what I am or am not doing for them and with them.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It’s lunchtime and I’m craving Minimalist Baker’s kale salad, but I can’t justify using the few minutes of quiet kid-free time that I have to throw it together so I’m eating chocolate covered almonds instead.

Kai, my almost-one-year-old, has been sleeping for an hour and he could be up any minute. Loren, my almost-two-and-a-half-year-old is at daycare because Mommy occasionally needs a break from two kids, and I just mopped the kitchen/dining room floors for the first time.

Let me clarify, the floors have been cleaned before, most recently by a cleaning service that charged us $450 to clean our house, so that’s when I decided the solution to not spending an absurd amount of money to clean a house that will only stay clean for, oh, a solid 48 hours, was to buy a mop.

A cup of chai is steeping in the kitchen and the cats are climbing on the furniture I’ve piled onto the rug while the floors dry. Duplos, baby dolls, and books are strewn about, two loads of laundry sit at my feet waiting to be folded, and another load spins out in the washing machine.

It has been a productive morning and yet, somehow, when the day is over I’ll almost certainly feel like I’ve *done nothing* because there’s a vicious cycle that plays out in my head from time to time. If I clean and get house things done, I’ll regret not doing anything for me, but if I choose to do something for me (yoga, take a nap, sit down with a book and read) then the neglected state of a compounding mess will set me off.

And then there’s the guilt of children—not the children themselves, but what I am or am not doing for them and with them—how often I’m playing with them, actually being present with them, losing my patience with them, etc. If I’m shipping Loren off to daycare then I feel guilty he’s not at “P” is for Puppy Story Time with me and Kai, but if I keep him home then I’m signing up for simultaneous meltdowns from both children, and well, I need more sleep than I’m currently getting to deal with that in a calm and collected way every single day of the week.

I’m tired. I’m prone to heart palpitations, chocolate, red wine, and brainless TV. I prefer someone else clean my house at this point in my life, but spend too much time bitching about the price and scrutinizing the easy-to-miss places of the house once they’ve left.

I’m highly critical, occasionally crass, and a real doom-and-gloom kinda gal—a champion “this is the end” thinker. On the rare occasion that my husband and I go out together—that thing we did before kids—I spend the first 10 or 15 minutes of every car ride micromanaging Jim’s driving to ensure we don’t make orphans. If that’s not a dead giveaway, I’m a “PTSD poster child,” my therapist’s words, not mine.

Hi, my name is Chelsea Keat, and this is my Substack, Mommy Say F*ck.

Welcome to the space where, once a week, I’ll talk about mom life, mental health, and what it’s like as an outsider who occasionally says f*ck in a conservative Midwest town.

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