Becoming A Young Mother Does Not Make Me A Failure

I have a standout moment in my life where I’m lying on what was my old bed in the spare room of my parent’s house. It’s about 8pm and to my left, my two year old boy is trying to fall asleep. A little lower than that, my daughter who is about 5 months old is curling up to go asleep. I’m trying to wrap my arms around both of them, the room is freezing (that part of the house isn’t heated very well) and I feel like a total failure. I’ve just had major surgery on my lung and am recuperating at my parents house, with my two children and I’m so tired and broken.

I’m 24 years old.

I didn’t intend on being a young mother. The plan was to go to college and end up in the States, ideally New York, most likely in something academic, and then have a fabulous career at something wonderfully literary while living in a beautiful New York townhouse. That was the dream and I was on my way, I graduated at 20 with my degree and had my Masters by 21. But around that time I met my American in a completely different way and in what is an entirely other story, I got married 4 months before I turned 22, in Ireland, with some of my family disapproving and some of my friends not being there.

By the October of that year I had my first child. My little girl followed after, as did an illness, a surgery, unemployment & moving in with my parents for 6 weeks because my husband had to work away from us and I couldn’t physically pick up my newborn daughter. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

The moment of distress on the bed trying to fall asleep with my two, very tiny, very dependent children stands out in my mind because I have never felt more vulnerable and more unsure of how to do anything or what I was doing in my life than at that moment. My ribs had been prized apart in my surgery so I couldn’t lift my daughter as the pain was too much. How could I care for her? My 2 year old was being carried through the chaos of our (so far) very short marriage and total lack of knowledge of how to be a mother.
How could I possibly give him what he needed? How could I possibly give them what they needed when I had no idea what I was doing, still getting to know my husband, no idea how to mother, couldn’t even look after myself. I have never felt so alone and utterly helpless as I did that evening, lying there, watching them fall asleep, oblivious to what was going on. If memories had colors, this one is an icy blue. The frame is frozen in my mind — I felt completely hopeless. I felt like I had failed.

So what happened? Because here I am, 8 years later with a third child ( a total head case who is definitely the one most likely to be incarcerated in the family), working full time in an industry I love( and never expected to break into) no longer feeling like I’m completely out of my depth at motherhood. There was no defining moment that helped me feel like I knew what I was doing but I think I started to settle in my identity when my kids started school and I came to meet other mothers, properly, for the first time. Women who had the same fears, same worries, same stories of mommy failures and forgetting teacher notes for school or the nappy bag when going on a trip or other horror stories that made you think God not only am I not alone maybe I’m not actually the worst either! Maybe it was also sitting through nights of high temperatures, being able to recognize what needs a visit to the GP and what doesn’t, surviving chicken pox, hand foot and mouth, minor child-hood surgeries and not so minor ones with all children intact. Maybe it’s time? That great healer.

I realized also that, for me, I had attributed my insecurity in motherhood to my age and the suddenness of becoming a mother. That becoming a mother at 22 was something I had been ashamed of, not following the academic path I could have taken, high achiever as I used to be. I realized this worry, this insecurity in motherhood is in reality a universal thing however; the fear and unknown in becoming a mother, regardless of what age you were or your circumstance. It took a few years but when that hit home and I realized that just because my plans had changed and my story had altered that it didn’t mean I was a failure, then slowly came my sense of identity and self acceptance as ‘mother’. I found comfort in the community of other mothers I met and I realized that with time and hard work the other things I wanted to achieve with my life could still happen while still loving and caring for these amazing little people.

I gave myself a break. In fact I think being a mother is the vocation I was always meant to have. Its certainly what’s given me more meaning & happiness than anything else.