An Open Letter to my Husband

So before I start, I want whoever reads this not to think that I am looking for some sort of sympathy or reprimand, just some way to vent. So here we go………..

Dear Husband, 

I am going to start by saying I do love you and I know that you think that I don’t appreciate when you do something, but take in to mind how you feel when that happens, think about what you want out of that situation  and keep it in your mind. 

Now lets being with how my life feels at this point. I have finally reached the point where I’m considering a divorce. I am thinking how life would be without you here. How would I cope with all three of them on my own? How would I feel seeing you with someone else? How would the kids feel? So thats where I am with that. Then there are the feelings of loneliness.  The times that I just can’t handle anything. The feelings of failure, like if I keep trying with you that you will somehow show me some sort of affection, not a reaction. I feel fed up, used up. Like there is no more of me left. I feel like I’m just an empty person, used only to keep the house. 

No longer can I enjoy my life. My time is no longer used for me, it is sucked up for you and the kids. I just don’t have anything in my life anymore, it kind of makes it seem like there is no point in being here at all. 

I seem to be at a sort of bad fork in the road. There seems to only be two decisions and neither seem to make me any happier or make things any better. I’m either on my own an sad, or not here at all. I just can’t seem to see another way. It seems really short sighted. But I really can’t. 

So dear husband what do you think? I’m guessing your in shock, as you would only think that I must be satisfied with being a permanent slave to you and the family, that I keep you at home and never let you do anything. Has it ever occurred to you that I’m in the same position? I can’t go anywhere or do anything, where I can’t take the kids. Even before then, when I would go to the gym, this became a problem for you. 

I feel like a prisoner. Like I have no place to be other than here. I know that my children do need me, that is not my point. My point is that you, as my  husband should not be expecting the same. 

So now I’m coming back to the point I made before. About how you feel that you should be overly praised and I should be overly pleased even with your small tasks. How upset you may get if you some how manage to do some hovering or wash up with me asking. This is normally where some over zealous thank you is required or you never touch it again. Now think about all the housework that needs doing, now if your doing one job and expect that reaction what should I receive in return for the other jobs that get done? 

Please remember this is supposed to be our home, yet that’s not how it is made to feel. This is supposed to be where we live events together, yet that’s not how it feels. We are not sharing a life together but a sentence that must be injured. I don’t k ow how to cope with this mix of feelings and needs that are always left to one side. 

I wish to just be me again. I wish to be seen as me not three kids and married. I want to believe that we love each other and want the same out of life, that we want to go forward together in this our journey to the end. 

I wish you would see things as I do. That for a day we could swap bodies. That I could so easily switch off from our children, that I could ignore them when they ask for things, that I could ignore you and the way you act after a bad day or when your sad. But that just is not me. For this, I feel that you take advantage. For this I feel so isolated and trapped in my own home. 

So  dear husband, remember that I am a person too. That I too need to feel loved and valued. That I too can have a hard day being home with the children. That I too can feel deflate when my hard work here is not seen. 

Please just remember that I’m me, not just your wife, not just their mummy, and not just that woman there. I’m me and I have feelings too.  

Play time

I always try and do my best to let my children play with whatever is available (Toy wise that is, I’m not letting them chase kids down the road with a carving knife).

When they where little my daughter owned a ball pit and, a mini piano, a car thing for her pram, toy mats, car mats, dolls, doll houses, water table, sand pit, you name it and I tried to make it happen. My son was the same, due mainly to the fact he had what she didn’t want or no longer used. Some toys where bought for the sole intention of being a joint thing, like they had a load of Happy Land toys (big thing in parent world). They loved it, for this reason I hadn’t parted ways with it so now the newest addition when she gets bigger can have it.

So when it came to play time they had loads. I have said before that we are lucky with out local facilities, we live near the beach and the woods, for a long time we lived on the sea front. Now we live near great parks and have huge fields to go and play in. But it seems that play time outside is just not a done thing much anymore. A lot of my daughters friends aren’t allowed to play outside without a parent watching their every move and many just don’t play out at all.

To me this seems like scare mongering. Too many people are told that the person next door is going to murder them in some brutal way, personally I don’t think that programs on T.V. are helping at all!! We get so terrified by what we hear, what the news tell us is happening to out children. That there are pedophiles everywhere and that children are being murdered by boyfriends and girlfriends, that nursery staff are taking inappropriate pictures of our kids and selling it for money. Even getting sick, if they end up in hospital nurses will kill them off and bring them back for some sort of gratification. We get so worried about what could happen and don’t focus on what is not happening, and that is their life. They are sat in-front of screens for hours a day or their only company being adults or siblings. At what point do we stop being scared and start thinking that they are ok? When they go to secondary school? where their friends tell them to go on this site and they end up being groomed? or they leave school and get beaten up by a group of kids who film it just for a laugh? Or maybe when they are 18 legally an adult (in the UK, unless that person has a disability then it can be 21)? So now they can drive and crash their own car, or go out drinking and fall into a river/ sea and drown. Maybe when they have a family of their own, so late 20’s early 30’s? So they can get on a plane and crash or go on holiday and be shot down my terrorists?

If you want to be scared for your child then you best be prepared for a life of being scared. Nothing is safe, but life is not meant to be. As a society we like to add danger to our activities so that we can be seen as fearless, the ultimate goal in life, No Fear! This is un-achievable because there is always an element of fear about something in our lives. But that is OK. And its OK to let your child take risks. It helps build their sense of decision making and risk factor building. It helps them to learn what is safe and what is not. What hurts and what doesn’t. These are valuable skills as an adult so that they too can go on and assess what is safe and not for their child and themselves. Making them scared to go outside their own door means they miss out on a world of things. All those lovely people that they will miss out on meeting just because mummy or daddy says its too scary. Letting your child take these risks for themselves helps your relationship too. It shows you trust them, that you believe that they are able to be sensible and make the right choice. This helps make a child feel valued and they start to belief in themselves. They start to think that they really can do it for themselves. It helps build some independence, it also helps them to take responsibility for their own actions. They start to really see cause and effect. They can start to see hoe they fit in this world and how they can interact with many different people as well as teaching tolerance for difference. Children love to see your pride and so letting them have that little bit more freedom can really make them feel better about themselves.

Now lets really talk about play. And how parents are responsible for their child actions too.

I love letting my children play, and their is nothing better then letting them free and watching them make a little friend to play with for the duration of our time, wherever it may be. The social skills that they learn while playing with new friends, while they learn about others boundaries and what another person see’s as OK may not be the same for someone else. They start to learn the basics for how to build a good strong, stable relationship, and as an added bonus it often makes them really tired. Did someone say lie-in?

Playing is a huge part of children’s lives, so why is it being driven out by technology? For every five minutes I get my two outside playing they spend another 2 on their devices. Don’t get my wrong I think its fantastic, learning so much about how things work and the technology behind it is fantastic. They will also grow up understanding so much about the technology in this world that only those after them will have such and easy time with it, but this does not replace a person. And technology is stealing that time away from people becoming a harmonious community. We will stop getting to know people face to face and soon touch typing will become a desired trite. I don’t like it at all.

I don’t like that taking my kids Wii away is more of a punishment them grounding them. I don’t like that it is expected of them now to know how to use tablets and technology just because a large portion of society have access to these things. This is not true of all tho. Some families just can’t afford it and so these luxuries and making the economic divide more obvious. This makes our children feel selfconsious, leading them to think about how they must from now on have these things, apply pressure to families that already have finacial problems.

I want my children’s play to be fun. To  ensure care free. To be memories that they take with them forever. Summer’s spent getting a dirty tan rather than catching up on YouTube videos. I love kids playing outside. I love that it makes a community. All these children coming together, making parents have to talk to their nabiours. It’s just not a very done thing. We don’t like having this type of childhood anymore. We see this as sort of weird now. Kids just sit around texting, not actually talking to the person sat right next to them.

If I child does not go out how do they ever learn to ride a bike? How to play catch? They learn more than those few minutes st school. They also mix with a variety of aged, abilities and social background. I love that. That’s what makes our country so great. Diversity. Another great thing to take forward, tolerance, acceptance and empathy. 

Summer’s should be filled with laughing kids throwing eater bombs, squinting water pistol and the smells of a BBQ. Winters laughter and snowmen.  Play is a great tool for learning and developing. Let them go outside.  Let them fall out with friends, get cut knees, come home late. It’s a part of growing up, a right almost to be naughty and bend the rules. Kids need outside play, not just a screen to be discrete by. Everything has its place and time. Soon enough they will be inside most of the time , chatting to friends online. Let them be outside in the sun and rain while they can. 

Money

There is never a time in life when money is not a problem if you are on a low income. This  is only amplified when you start having children.

There are many people that believe one should only start having children when you are financially able to. Now that is great but is this time of low wage pay and high cost of living when are you actual  able to pay for a child?

Lets look at the way people live and see if it is conducive to have a child. So the average person in the UK on a basic wage working full time (37.5 hours) will get £1161 a month, this will normally lets say be to incomes so now we have a total of .£2322. Now most people will try to own their own home before having children so lets say their mortgage payments of around £450 a month so your left with £1872. Now your utilities (gas, water electric) are gunna be around £120. Then your internet and T.V. package £30, then phone contracts most being around £35 so for both that £70. Then your car. Now more and more people have cars on fiance as its just a better way to have a car. so that £135 a month. then food. Now I know two people don’t spend what I do as my sister and her husband are very good with money. so that £40 a week. A large portion of UK under 30’s have credit debt, so we shall say another £40 on credit debt, this can be cards, store cards, any sort of overdue account. No that leave the average couple with a lot of floating around cash. £1374 a month. That’s just basics tho. So that’s not those one off payments of car insurance, home insurance for that house you bought, travel costs, clothes even. That is just your average person getting by on basics.  Counter those in and you get a lot less. But lets go with the above figure. So now the average childcare cost for a child under two is £700 a month. Now you have £647. Now your shopping goes up by another £20 a week, because of baby milk and nappies. Ok So we have just of £500 a month. So this needs to pay for you both to travel around £25 a week so now we are down to £300 a month. Now your car needs and MOT or tax or the baby needs clothes or you need clothes or you want to go on holiday. In real life people are not left with any. This little payments creep up and before you know it you have no money left.

So now you are waiting, waiting till you become the big time earner. Now this doesn’t happen everyday, not everyone can be the big one. Someone has to take the poorly paid jobs. So if we can now except that there is also no perfect time or age in your life then we ought to be able to except that not everyone can be a huge earner. That’s where we get a problem because there is a lot to be said for those earning a lot, they also tend to be at work a lot. Now this means they often end up being the ones that only have one child. Now with this growing world one is probably enough.

That’s a happy thought but in the 230 babies die from SIDS (Suden Infant Death Syndrome) every year. Not all parents can go on to have more . There are also those that are infertile and cant have children, so its just fees able that in your whole life time one child would be enough. We need children for lots of things, for one they keep a lot of jobs open, they also grow up to take a lot of those low earning jobs so that we can move up the chain, so children are needed.

So in the UK 4 million people around 30% are living in poverty . Now this is less for those with out children, this is around 22%. Now that’s 52% of the UK living in poverty. So if we are to keep to a notion that you shouldn’t have kids till you can pay, I have a feeling that we may end up with a lot less people. So even less money for those vital resources that we live for in the UK (NHS, Fire, Police, Elderly care, School). We shouldn’t keep waiting for things to be right, that being said I know that money is always a contentious issue, for anyone of any age, and just because your children get older does not mean your money is safer. My poor mother regularly bails me out.

The main reason I want to talk about money, is because of the pretense we set our families with. Now one must never be seen to be struggling. One must never be seen to be asking for help and for this reason many parents put themselves into alot of debut. So this brings me to the real reason I want to talk about money. Why are we making parents life’s hard by making them feel their children have to be ‘involved’.  They have to go to this class and that. They must attend this trip and that, because if you don’t pay and they don’t go everyone will know they are poor. This violates a very strict rule of never letting it show. I would, on behalf of all the bigger families who don’t earn enough, no matter how much we work (before I went on maternity i was doing 45 hour weeks to save up money), please stop making my child feel that I am the worst person ever because I don’t have Scrooge McDucks bank account.

Life is hard enough bring children into this world without me having to make it more ‘fulfilled’. When I was a child I never went to dance, or horse ridding. I never went to so fancy drama group or singing class. I never had expensive music lesson for some exotic instrument, we had cheep discounted one thought to us by the music teacher. I went to things like ST Johns, I paid £1 a week and learnt some great first aid and got to play games with my friends. When I moved in with my dad I used to go to a local youth club with one of my best friends, it was 50p, so i got another 50p for sweets. Now I’m spending £12 a week for my eldest two to swim, my daughter does dance and my son did do football (my bank account is very happy that he didn’t like it for long, he wants to do Rugby, he can’t till he is seven).

Please someone tell me that all these people born in the 70’s who’s only real entertainment was playing outside and going to the school disco as so poor in charector? Tell me that they feel their childhood was not for-filling enough? I’m telling you now what you will be told. This is a load of crap. Yet we still think that pushing Little Johny to play the Cello will make him super smart and therefore he will go on to be a billionaire. The only thing that child is learning is that he hates you for pushing him to do something that he doesn’t want to do and he would rather be outside playing in the street with his friends. Mud, grass and sand are free. Use them, these things will actually enrich your child’s life. Learning how to massage your baby is only draining your bank and will not help when you have three year old having a tantrum in the middle of ASDA because you wont buy him that new superhero toy.

Money does not make a childhood, memories do. Taking them to the beach, taking them to the park does. Letting them ride their bike really fast down the road having a race with their friends, that what they will remember. The fun stuff. The free stuff. Some of my best memories as a child are of playing with my Dad in the field. Just play catch. Riding bikes along the canal. Why are we making their lives so busy? I don’t like being that stressed about getting them here and there. Getting this costume and that, so why should they? Have a limit. Let them pick the activity, find ones with free taster sessions or ones that let you pay weekly so that you can just stop when the fun stops.

www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk/

www.nhs.uk/Livewell

Try some of these for tips. There is loads to do out there for free. Stop wasting money that is not needed. And most of all stop making me feel like I have to spend all of my money on them! They enjoy the simple things far more than those that I would have to spend a lot of money on. I love my children and I will always put their needs above mine (haven’t had a hair cut in 6 months). Their enjoyment and excitement towards live is what I live for. I love seeing there faces light up when we go to the beach. The hours of fun that they have at the park, especially if we take a picnic. We are lucky we also live near the beach and the wood, We also have a local water park (doesn’t have flumes or anything but it has a splash zone and a park). They love it. All of it ( I’m the one that’s not keen on sand and the mud on their clothes but hey).

What I’m trying to say is yes money is important, we have seen the stuff one has to pay for but just remember it does not make the child. My mother was extremely poor when I was a child. I never remember feeling it. My dad worked two jobs when I lived with him, but it was some of the best years of my life. Don’t feel the pressure people put on you to have the most expensive and to always buy new. Some things are better second hand as they are cheep and not used that often.

You onlt get one chance with your child. Don’t spend it in work. Live. Live with them. No matter your age or bank account size.

 

PND (Postnatal Depression)

When it comes to PND I have previous experience.  This is something I went through before with my eldest daughter. It was bad. I tried committing suicide, I drove iraticly as I hoped to die in a car crash (did have one). But I got through it. With more scares on my body, added to those placed there when I was suicidal in school, I got through it. It was not easy and I spent more time crying and feeling worthless while holding my baby than any mum ever should. I also started having a really bad lifestyle, one that it is only on reflection that I know it was because of the depression.

I did not get it with my son, I always joked and said it was because I didn’t have time. I was too busy to be so self involved. This what I always said. In my head I knew it was silly, I knew it was just my way of trying to cover up how awful I was in many ways, but the fact still remains that I didn’t get it.  Maybe it was just simpler. My eldest was contented with simpler things, I only had to provide food for the two of us, and the bay milk was bought by their dad each week as child support. Now it’s not that simple.

I have not been diagnosed with having PND this time but, a big but, I know the warning signs. I have trodden this vicious path before. I have slipped down this road of self hate, this trail of feeling pointless and not needed. This time tho there is another added edge. The in capability.

This is all where I think to my self that I have put myself here and that I should be able to cope. That I some how should not be feeling thai way as I have wanted to keep all three of my children. This is where I start to feel a failure. Because I can’t cope. I just can’t do it on my own. My kids can sometimes put themselves in dangerous situations and I just don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know how to react. There is no book entitled “how not to lose your s**t”. I have tried reading books on toddler behaviour when my eldest daughter played up when I had my son. I tried every parenting experts tips and it never works for long. So I feel like the worst pedant ever because I can’t even handed my own kids.

The biggest feeling of hatred come from failing to be able to breastfeed my new baby for more than 4 weeks. We managed 4 weeks before I got really bad mastitis and had a very bad fever (that’s a whole other story). After that I really struggled, and with no support from my husband, my mother ( who hates breastfeeding) telling me I can now have my life back, it just made me feel unable to even provide for her. It seemed to me and still does that I was not providing even on a basic level. I was not longer feeding her, I was no longer the sole person she needed and I miss that bond. I only managed four weeks on something I wanted to do up untill six months. It really has mad me feel inadaquet. I almost have looked at it as and inevitable. I only managed six weeks with my first as I had to go back to collage. My son had a posterior tongue tie and so found it impossible to feed, not just from me but from a bottle and solids.  Now i had an opportunity to do it, to really push and use my amazing milk supply (always had loads before, even donated some), but this just never happened. There wasn’t loads, it was hard and I could never to seem to feed for long enough as I always had someone else to look after. I have done research into PND after breastfeeding and found that it happens, the drop in hormones makes you feel depressed but i have never found anything to suggest its as long lasting as I have been experiencing it.

I think there are many people out there that can help, that I can talk to, but from previous experience there is not much they will do for me. I found last time it was lonley, I spoke to a few people and they listened, refereed me to someone else and the this became a cycle. I felt like a broken tape. Playing the same message over and over hoping to be heard, only to be told it was mild and it would pass. The suicidalness did but i turned to something else instead, i went from self harming by cutting to self harm of a different sense. I turned to drinking. It didn’t last long, about six months. But in those six months I went through a lot, I got shown the dark side of a life i could have ended up having just by becoming and alcoholic.

Unlike my 18 year olds that I was drinking with, I was not the purely to have a good time. I also had resposabilities. I had a baby waiting at home and a job that I had to do. I made it work. I lived like two different people. One who was a mummy at collage, getting good grades to go to university, working to pay for my baby and all her needs. Then there was this 18 year old. The girl who couldn’t see past a black fog of stupidity and emotionalness. These two spent little time together. And one rarely thought about the others life. I would drink every night, and I spend a large part of my week partying. Meeting new men, doing stupid things, living very close to a live I didn’t want my daughter to know about. I was doing this alone. My daughter farther (my now husband) didn’t have much to do with us as we split not long after her birth. He was unfaithful through my pregnancy. I couldn’t handle it so we split. For six months. Then it was like a light-bulb moment. My daughter was doing more, I was going to university, I had worked hard to get to where I was and I was finally about to begin the career of my dreams. And so I just stopped. I stopped drinking all the time, joined the gym. Worked hard at university, I got back together with my daughters farther. We where making life work. It just seemed to stop. The fog just passed. I could see that I was not useless and a horrible mother, I had a purpose, to show my daughter that no matter what you keep putting one foot in-front of the other and you work hard. Eventually you shall be rewarded.

Now though, I know that nothing is going to change. I will go back to work, I will continue to do all the things my kids need  and I will continue to be the girl no-one notices. The one you walk past because she has too many kids, the one you stare at because she can’t keep them together. I’m the woman who is having a bad day, everyday. I’m that woman that you see on T.V and scream at her to leave her husband because not only is he not there for her he is not there for anyone but himself. I know all this, yet I know somehow it is all my fault. That my husband wont touch me because I don’t look like used to. My body it not the same, it has been through three pregnancies and each one has taken something from my looks. Each one adding its own dark ring around my eyes. For the icing on with very deflated, bulging, stretched cake, through all this stress I have started to lose my hair. This not the normal port baby hair loss this as now you can see bald patches. If I where my husband i wouldn’t want me either. I can’t leave him, I can’t do it on my own. Even if he doesn’t have much to do with them, he is still there. A little back up for when I can’t take anymore and I just need to leave for a second. Almost like that teddy that you should throw away because it is old, smelly and you have out grown it, but you also know that when things where bad it was there and your not sure if it went away  that things would ever be OK.

Its not all doom and gloom. I have realized I need to get help. That I can’t keep living on this tension wire of wishing I was dead but worrying what would happen to my kids. I have found some information, people to talk to and I’m sure that I will get through this. I’m sure that there will be an end. I will get through the fog. I just need to find my torch. That thing that makes it a little easier to deal with. That time will come. I will get back to me, having a baby is no easy feet and it defiantly is not easy when you are always on your own. But I will get there.

Please visit these sites for support:

www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Postnataldepression

www.mind.org.uk