I couldn't agree more. Sharing real experiences good and bad is healthy. When I first became a mother, I was so angry at my own mom for brainwashing me that parenting was easy and so fulfilling. My experience with my first baby was quite difficult. I also benefit from venting and feel a sisterhood with other women who feel comfortable sharing their frusterations as well.

I agreed with you, and I am that friend who will admit wanting to beat my kids to a pulp (often).

BUT, and this is a BIG BUT, it is also one of the most fun things that I do. They are fricking funny, bright and down right loveable.

So I think that we should share our frustrations, but the good too!

Sorry to piss all over the pity party.

MK xo

I like to hear the good when it's sincere, but there is something so freeing about hearing people bitch about parenting. Especially when we live in a culture where that is considered too harsh and taboo. It helped my childbirth experience so much to know it was going to hurt like a mother, then I could just get on with doing it without worrying whether something was wrong with me. Same goes for parenting, I suppose.

I empathize with your sentiment that being a mom can be frustrating and overwhelming, and welcome open communication about the “dark side” of motherhood without fear of being judged, but I take issue with a couple of your statements. I’ll focus on the most disturbing of these statements, which is, “Why do so many moms act shocked when a mom drowns her tots in the bathtub…”

I’m assuming (hoping) you intended this to be funny…but I’m having trouble seeing the humor in it. Such an act is distressing, heartbreaking, and unimaginable. And even more disheartening is the reality that stories like these are all too prevalent in today’s headlines. Upon hearing a story about a mother (or father, for that matter) taking the lives of her (or his) children, your true response wouldn’t be, “What’s the big deal? Motherhood is hard.”

The appropriate reaction to such an event is shock, and to reference it in such a cavalier way, as you do, is offensive and irresponsible. To compare such a gruesome act to the everyday inconveniences and frustrations felt by mothers everywhere is like comparing apples and squirrels. Many of us have moments of frustration where we need to take a deep breath to keep the stress of the moment from overwhelming us, but we would lay down our lives for our children. It is our natural instinct to protect them from harm, not inflict it upon them.

So while I agree with your notion that we should strive to support one another in facing the challenges presented by motherhood, we should be careful not to make light of such horrific acts (that, unfortunately, are all too real).

crabs, i love you and your style of writing. i, too was disgusted by the hoards and hoards of mommy sites out there when i had my first child. until i found you. i even joined one of those online mommy communities, but then stopped visiting because i grew tired of the constant chatter about the JOYS of motherhood. you inspired me to start my own blog - simple and sporadic as it is.

and i am not offended or disgusted by anything you write.

xoxo,
matteroffactmommy

cpettit, I gotta take issue with your comment. Maybe you never have an ugly or violent thought towards your child, but I do. And I'd rather sort those thoughts out with a community of like-minded people than alone.

You may not enjoy grim humor, but I find it a lifeline that helps prevent me from taking all of the crap of parenting too seriously. Those people who got lost in a pit of despair and did horrible things to their kids may not have done so if they'd had some like-minded friends to complain to and laugh with.

I understand why you didn't think crabmommy's comment was funny. But I think it's horrible to make loving moms and dads who have enraged thoughts feel like monsters rather than the thinking, feeling, loving, pissed off human beings that they are. We should let some air in on these ugly thoughts that we all have towards our children rather than put them in a closet.

Just a thought.

Oh what a joy you are to me crabmommy! I thought I was prepared...I never was the type who thought it was all roses...I was one of the last of my friends to have a child, I focused on my career for many years. And then I had my own little bambino and the world as I knew it (in good and bad ways) was gone. I called my girlfriends in tears and THEN they told me stories of locking themselves in the bathroom and going for walks and swearing they were not going home....I couldn't beleive this valuable information was kept from me. There is added pressure because I am a psychotherapist who works with children, surely my child would be perfect right? What I don't think people tell you about is the resentment. Like you said, it is a given for me to love my child as much as I do. It's the ferocious kind of love you can not explain until it happens to you. But there are times I resent him for it, like he made me feel something that I wish for just moments of the day I could abandon so that I didn't feel guilty about making a decision to, oh, I don't know take him to daycare on my day off for an hour so I can get my brows waxed! I resent him because I love him so much that rather than listen to him cry and just crank up my favorite song on the radio, I miss my song to sing endless rounds of patty cake, which always brings a smile. I didn't get to blow dry my hair because he was bored this morning and wanted to play with me....hence me looing like a schlump at work today. These are just examples of feeling resentful because you make a choice out of love that usually means yet another sacrifice on something that was once just part of your day (like having time to pee alone!) I was prepared to love my child, but I wasn't prepared for resenting him sometimes because I love him and care about him so much. And you are very right, I NEED moms who I can talk to that way....I have yet to find one! Thanks crabmommy for filling a void! Crabbysnaps to you!

I really appreciate you discussing this crab mom. I live on a street with dozens of children, and it's a wonderful thing particularly for the kids, and it's great for us mom's too, but like any "small town" environment can fell a bit like a fish bowl. I remember when my second son was born feeling really self conscious about the chaos surrounding me (in my own home) and the feelings of despair I often felt at never being able to "catch up" with my daily life. People would smile to me and say, "enjoy this now, it all goes so fast!" and I would feel like a complete disaster because it was all such a blur and I knew I would never remember this time accurately because I couldn't even remember the previous week. As my boys got a little older ( and they're not even so old now) I started to catch my breath a bit, but they just keep getting busier and zanier. Every day I hear terrible things come out of my mouth, both that I thought I would never say and new things I never thought to imagine before having kids. But, I know I'm a good mother, because my kids laugh every day, and are generally well adjusted decent human beings. Nobody prepares you for the range of emotions, or maybe it's something you can't hear until you're in it... my childless friends give me that all knowing look of how it will be different for them when I try and give them a heads up.
Despite however many shocked replies you'll receive for addressing it, I know exactly what you mean by it being no surprise that mothers drown their children etc. The other thing we're unwilling to address in our society is how much despair people live under. How much mental illness, how much poverty, how little support so many people have. If I, a high functioning, healthy, well educated mother living relatively comfortably in an abundantly affluent area, can find myself flying into a rage for the seemingly innocuous offenses my children commit, I cannot honestly fault a woman living without enough support emotionally or financially,with no seeming end in site, for cracking under the enormous weight of parenting. What I grew to recognize in my own neighborhood, is the most seemingly together mom's were the ones who also had the most support. The rest of us do the best we can with what we've got. We're certainly privileged to have the luxury to write and read about one another. We need to judge less and support more and recognize the circumstances that would drive a woman to harm her children. Thank you for opening up an honest forum that allows us to acknowledge one another both for our strengths and our weaknesses.

Reading your blogs always makes me think, "Thank God, I'm not alone!"
While I'm not a fan of violence (!!!), I've never questioned how or why a mom loses her patience to the point that it harms her child. I can totally understand how that happens. Yes, it's horrific, but maybe it's a result of the pressures we (as a society) place on ourselves.

As a mother of a two-year-old, and a baby due in March, I constantly struggle with guilt...I'm not the mom on the Juicy Juice commercials, or the mom crawling on the floor with her toddler in the Fisher Price ads. It's just nice to know it's ok not to be that mom, even though we too often hear and see otherwise.

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I have to say a great big sincere and goopy thank you to all of you who wrote your stories and such impassioned ones at that. Wow! Never has any Crabmom post elicited quite such intense reactions. I guess I should mention moms drowning tots more often [*weak, terrified laughter*].

I am obviously in good company here in that along with zaneymama, smartbear, matteroffactmommy, anonymom, lizbeth and co. I believe it is vital to vent and vent honestly about the dark side of being a mom and thereby to validate and share the load we mothers often feel we cannot share with others. If not with each other, then whom can we crab with?

I think it is healthy to say the unsayable and think the unthinkable. And saying is not doing. Petitmom, I am sorry you found my analogy off-color, but I have to stand by it: I never meant to imply that I endorse the harming of children. I mean, duh, really. That said, I can feel some empathy with desperate moms who do desperate things. Of course I do. Why wouldn't I feel compassion for such a person? After all I am a woman with a great hubby, healthy and delightful child, nice blogjob, and (oddly enough) no real depression and EVEN SO I crab my pants off on a daily basis! So I can only imagine the horrors of someone who goes mad with it all: the truly strapped mom, the single or miserably married mom, the truly desperate and depressed mom who finds it all too much and has feels she can't hang on. I cannot truly imagine what it might be like to be in such a person's shoes, but I sure as heck can try. So I simply meant that when I hear these stories I feel compassion as well as horror. I did mean the comment ironically. But I meant it all the same. But I am sorry if I offended you.

MommyKnows, you are my great friend [violins! violin!] and people, get thee to her website for she offers scrumptious goodies and for FREE every month and she is just a fab Canadian lady! I agree, MK, we need blogs that also bring levity to the scene and I fully appreciate all lightness, fun, and celebration of motherhood when it is original, thought-provoking and/or just plain silly. But only if it's fresh material, man, not a self-indulgent diary of someone's boring bloody mom-life. Who's got time to read that? And why should they? So when people start bragging or speaking in those mommy platitudes about smelling the roses (or the diapers) because "it all goes by in the blink of an eye"...to those moms I say, BLOG OFF! Morons. I mean, Mormons. Sorry, I meant, MOMrons. :)

pettimom,
On second thought (and second read) I do think my phrasing was a little off there. "Why do so many moms act shocked when someone drowns her kids..." etc. is a sloppy way of putting it: I meant to address the idea that moms should be the first people to understand when other moms go off the deep end. But of course, it's shocking even so. Not to put too fine a point on it...but I can see why that line might offend. And while the Crabmom loves to offend, even she has a line.

...and this, CRABMOMMY, is what keeps us coming back for more!

You will always have more people who understand you than are offended, so long as they are honest with themselves.

i love your blog and totally relate. we need a voice of honesty out there. please keep doing what you're doing!

Dear Crab - Thank you for being my Soulmate! Your blog makes me feel less alone in the world. My world is filled with perfect stay-at-home moms, which as a part-time working mom (outside the home), I often encounter.

I cannot tell you how much unwarranted advice I receive at the park for anything that I do (or don't do), or the number of gasps and worried expressions that I get from people when I express my displeasure with being a mom. These people are supposed to be my friends, so I have decided to clean house and make myself VERY VERY BUSY with other things. Alas, most of my best mommy friends are "virtual" friends, but at least I do not have to go home from playdates feeling sad because my so-called friends insulted my parenting style once again, or because my son doesn't eat Brussel sprouts.

I agree that momming is God-awful, I am dieing for a release from it - be it temporarily, but a release still. (So much so that my son was sick with a stomach flu this week, I actually enjoyed the peace and quiet - except for the batchroom wretching.)

Keep on keeping on, CrabMommy!!! I talk about this stuff on my own blog (parttimemommy.com) and would love to know what you think.

You make some good points, Crab Mom. Listen, I can vent with the best of them, but my approach is that if you don't laugh about it, you'll cry. So I'll whine & moan, but then try to see the humor in the situation. Writing about it on my own blog (diaryofanewmom.blogspot.com) helps, especially the comments from other moms. I don't trust the Miss Mary Sunshine moms, but I get tired of the ones who do nothing but complain, too. There's definitely a middle ground.

Welcome, new crabby moms. And indeed, Mom2Miles, humor is as vital as the venting itself. With regard to blogs, if it isn't downright funny or downright dark -- and preferably both at the same time -- I don't want to read it, and I certainly don't want to write it.

I vote for keeping the crabbiness. I am a member of a momboard and find plenty of moms that write on and on about the joys of mommying. I am one of those moms who NEVER wanted children and was surprised with the one I have. I feel the shocked looks when I complain and feel obligated to end my tirades with the typical, "but I love my kid" comments. Bleh. I NEED your blog, Crabmommy. Keep the crabiness.

Thanks angelica, megan and all crabby moms. You make me feel good to be bad! Also, just to clarify that while I crab a lot online and in my writings about motherhood, like anyone else who is a mom I enjoy the fabulous parts of it and treasure the treasure-y parts. That said, I feel those are private things, to be shared with family and friends, perhaps, but certainly not online. Unless it's really funny, I see no reason whatever to share any sort of lighthearted/happy/successful parenting moment with my readers. Good writing needs conflict. Which so many parent bloggers seem to forget when they post about what little Quinn did at school today or what the doctor said about her verbal skills. To sum up, I have my happy mom side too. But unless there's something genuinely funny in there, I don't see any reason to share it. So I won't. Promise.

Yeah. I feel like I have to be upbeat, even on my blog. The problem with being honest is that it gets so divisive so fast. Know what I mean? You say what you really think and then your readers jump all up your ass. And heaven forbid you write an honest comment about how a post affected you, and then you have the blogger's readers jumping over each other to criticize you. I hate sanctimommies. I hate them. Because I know that it is not possible to not have had one single moment of non-joy during motherhood.

love this! i feel so connected with anyone else who is not going to make me feel like shit because i sometimes run and hide from my toddler and not because im trying to play hide n seek! i think it is when we all start being honest about the diffculties that the hilarity ensues... perhaps if everyone vented we wouldn't have people tossing children off a bridge or warming them in a microwave! i have sworn off mushy blogging for good!

Hey Crabmommy, just wanted to let you know that you are in good company in your acknowledgement of the need to be brutally honest about our motherhood. I happened to be skimming through Anna Quindlen's new collection of columns, "Loud and Clear," when I read one from July 2001 entitled, "Playing God on No Sleep." She mentioned Andrea Yates in quite the same context that you did - and that there is this strange and unhealthy vibe out there that we all need to be wonderfully happy mothers. Anyway, just thought you might like to know that you're right up there with the Pulitzer Prize winners. (Maybe you already are one, since we don't know your true identity...) Thanks again for your refreshing point of view!

Sapphira! No Pulitzer--but thank you!