Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

Whilst attending a regular networking event recently, I had a great chat with two women both of whom had children as I have. We swapped stories as mine are coming towards their teenage years and quite soon I’ll inevitably be dealing with hormones, unacceptable demands and bad moods!

What interested me was that we all agreed how tough it can be sometimes and that each of us had known friends who when pregnant all expected it to be easy to have children, a doddle to bring them up and that as soon as their baby popped out they would be the mother who could still manage to swim 30 lengths a day whilst her baby slept peacefully on the poolside. What a shock we thought they’d get when reality hits home. So much so that I regularly see clients who are still struggling with the shock of being a parent and their child that has digestive problems, sleep difficulties or tantrums the like of which they cannot fathom.

It all amounts to a very difficult time indeed and not all of us manage this transition or ever quite come to accept the massive shift that having children creates in our lives. We are not all ‘earth mothers’ as I call them and for some the shock is so difficult that they suffer terrible guilt and pain at the change in their lives. I wanted to write a book about it at one stage; a personal account of how necessary it might be to be told the truth about having children and that it isn’t unacceptable or wrong to say you don’t want to be a parent. Rather it might be an act of courage not selfishness. The only problem is I wonder if I’d be able to market it as no-one wants to admit to the issue! What do you think, I’d love to hear from you?