“Exhausted doesn’t fully describe this photo. I was sneaking in a nap while healing from 2 types of births: Baby A vaginal, Baby B cesarean. My body was working non-freaking-stop to make all the milk for these boys. People ask, ‘How do you do it with 4 kids?’ I shrug and respond, ‘Moms always figure it out.’ Even when we have no clue how, we make it work. We’ve got a drive within us that is unstoppable. The funny thing is, I’d do it all over again.”
“My abuser was a man I not only looked up to, but trusted completely. He was a lieutenant in the local sheriff’s department, a trusted family friend, and my Boy Scout Master. As I sat in my prison cell I had a visit, for the second time, from that internal voice: ‘You are going to be a motivational speaker.'”
“Hey mama, did you get up last night? Was it once, 3 times, 20? Just know you’re not alone and there are many mamas up at 3 a.m. yawning, just like you.”
“Pinterest Pam is shoving her perfectly-staged lemonade stand in our face. Even when we don’t mean to compare, we do. Society tells us to suck it up, work full time, be the perfect mother, work out daily, prepare a home-cooked meal every night, and keep our husbands happy. And if you fail at any of those things, you’re a crappy mother. Instead of talking about it, we try to do more. Well, mamas, I’m calling BS.”
“Getting a third child dressed: A Batman cape and swim diaper are perfectly acceptable for Christmas Eve brunch. Hurry up and get dressed, we’re late.”
“I slumped down into that grey, padded chair and I thought to myself, ‘These people think we have it all together. We walk in here with our Sunday best on, hair done and a fake smile across our faces, and they have NO CLUE the gates of hell that have unleashed on us the last two days.”
“You smell like sweat and tears for days at a time. You don’t get breaks. You lock yourself in the bathroom and scream into a towel while crying because you need a second to breathe, all while a child is banging on the door to get in. You forget what it means or feels like to be an individual. I was one of those people who judged SAHM’s. But I get it now. We are lonely and alone.”
“I can still remember her sitting in the white vinyl rocker next to the refrigerator, a wrinkled moisturizer-soaked hand on her forehead, shoulders slumped, trying to figure out how to raise a teenager long after she’d intended to raise a teenager. She sacrificed a lot by taking in her troubled, slightly drug addicted, disgruntled, often absent from class, foul mouthed, rebellious grandson.”
Kylee thinks she’s participating in a family photo shoot. In reality, she’s about to receive her dream come true, courtesy of her mother’s boyfriend.
“I see your posts, momma. ‘I never get to sleep in, but my man always does.’ ‘I’m so tired of never having help.’ ‘I wish I could be as carefree as my husband.’ The right man will step up and do whatever needs to be done to help out his family. You shouldn’t have to beg.”
