Being a parent is hard. Anyone who has kids will tell you that parenting can put a strain on the rest of your life — your career, your friendships, and even your relationship.
Often, women take on the majority of the work when it comes to parenting. Sometimes it's because they stay home with the kids, but sometimes it's just because they take on most of the emotional labor.
Constance Hall is an Australian mommy blogger who writes about every aspect of motherhood — and she always keeps it real.
Recently, Constance addressed the idea that she and her "hands on" husband are "couple goals." Constance regularly gets messages about how it looks like she and her husband have the perfect relationship, so she took to Facebook to shut down that concept.
Although Constance and her husband love each other, their relationship definitely isn't perfect. In fact, Constance regularly finds herself taking on significantly more parenting work than her hubby — and she's sick of it.
Constance wrote on Facebook:
“I get so many messages on Instagram about how ‘hands on’ my husband is. And even people telling me that we are ‘couple goals’
"The truth is that having a baby has pushed my relationship to the absolute edge."
“I can handle upping my work load. I really can.
"But what I can’t handle is the unjust, unfair living arrangements that so commonly follow the birth of a baby.
"I’m not man bashing or airing my dirty laundry or doing any of the other ridiculous things that people say when someone speaks out in their truth against a system that greatly benefits one gender while driving another insane."
“The minute the baby came out, I became the ball and chain.
"Coming somewhere with me became a chore, holding the baby, a favour, we went from being inseparable our saying was 'where you go I go' to Christmas holidays with 2 trips apart already."
“I am lonely. I wake up with my baby at 6am and I’m in bed exhausted by 8pm. That’s the thing about babies, they take away all of your alone time and somehow leave you feeling incredibly lonely.”
“I am resentful. After doing so many loads of washing the other morning while his highness slept in for the 340th time this year I flooded the bathroom, mopped for half an hour, put the baby down, made myself some eggs, walked past the wet patch and slipped, smashing my plate and knees.”
“And I was not expecting to not be able to get up.
"I just lay there, covered in washing machine water. Furiously crying. So angry with where motherhood/wifehood has taken me."
“And I’m exhausted, so many night feeds, remembering to buy school stuff for next year, to bath all my kids, wash all the clothes, dishes, supermarket, take them out to tire them out, answer 5 thousand questions a day with a smile and keep this house looking relatively clean because someone walked into it the other day and laughed and said ‘don’t clean up for us.’ But the truth is I had, for hours.”
“Is this what equality looks like?
"You have a baby and you become insect repellent to husbands?"
“Women are now allowed to work for a sh*ttier wage and then come home and still squeeze in all the work we had to do in the 50s? Breast feed the baby and cook and would you like a free bl*w job with all of that entitlement sir?”
“So thank you for giving me some superficial gratification when telling me that we are couple goals but in the spirit of honesty, having a baby is one thing, sharing that baby is a completely different story.”
“Where there is love there is a way and there is no shortage of love in my marriage.
"We will grow and we will be ok."
“Because as my recently divorced male friend told me, ‘you think having a baby and wife is depressing.. until they leave you. And then you learn the meaning of depressing.’
"Love Con. A very 'hands on' mother."
Moms everywhere can relate to Constance's frustration. One woman wrote, "Spot on Constance! Women are expected to work like we dont have children and raise children like we dont have to work."
Every relationship is different, but everyone has their own problems and challenges. Thank goodness there are bloggers like Constance out there who keep it real!
