I already had three of my four children and was on the verge of a breakdown. Years ago, I dragged myself through the emotional turmoil and lost myself in the physical and mental overload that the life of a “warrior-mother-who-can-do-everything” imposes on us. I felt like I was just surviving motherhood and not experiencing this experience as I wanted to and, in my opinion, should. The feeling was exactly this: of surviving the days.
I remember the moment that I consider a watershed moment as if it were today. It was a normal day: my husband worked away, the children studied in the afternoon and I spent the morning alone with them, having to manage the fights, the crying, the frustrations… And, of course, taking care of the house-food-washed clothes.
On that day of enough, Lucas, Levi and Letícia had spent the morning in euphoria, running, playing and fighting (nothing unusual in a house with three healthy children, thank God), and I felt my anxiety escalate over the hours.
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As much as I knew rationally that my children weren’t doing anything big, emotionally I was becoming increasingly shaken. Screaming and fighting are a trigger for me and with each interaction I had to make to break up an argument, I felt more powerless to continue being respectful towards the children.
I knew I was close to my limit that day. That’s when, suddenly, I heard a noise and then a cry of despair and a scream of “mother, it’s bleeding”. I dropped everything I was doing in the kitchen and ran out to see what had happened.
When I arrived in the hallway, I saw Levi with a fine-toothed comb in his hand and his face bleeding, with the teeth of the comb practically tattooed in the shape of blood. He was running in the hallway with one of his brothers when they ran into each other head on, the comb hit him square in the mouth, doing damage.
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When I saw that scene, I lost all the remaining strength I had left. But instead of exploding and saying something like “didn’t I tell you to stop running?”, I simply broke down.
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I hugged Levi tightly and started crying profusely, while I apologized to him several times for not being there sooner, for not having seen that he was running with a sharp object in his hands, as I was too busy making lunch. He was there without really understanding my reaction.
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Such a strong feeling of hopelessness invaded me, mixed with a feeling of incapacity and insufficiency for not having been able to prevent that incident and spare my very young son from that injury. No matter how hard I tried and dedicated myself, I felt incapable of taking care of my children, physically and emotionally.
It was at that moment that I heard a “click” in my head and I thought: “I can’t live like this anymore, I have to do something or I’m going to freak out, and I’m going to freak out my children along with it.” It was the first time in years that I could see, clear as water, that I had to take action. There was no point in continuing to wait for my husband to do ‘x’ or ‘y’.
It wasn’t the children who had to change their behavior, it was I who needed to learn how to deal with their behavior, which is the normal behavior of healthy, developing children.
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On my journey of self-knowledge, I learned to forgive this Laura who, with the best of intentions, gave her everything to her children, but precisely because of that, she had nothing left for herself.
Today, I welcome this Laura who still didn’t know that a mother can only give her child what overflows within her. I am also grateful to Laura for not giving up trying and for having managed to learn from all this pain a lesson that transformed her life forever and made her such a better mother for her children, including the youngest Luísa, who arrived soon after.
From this search, a project was born to improve the mental health of other mothers. Then I wrote the book Take Care to Take Care (click to buy) with this same objective, to encourage self-care, inspire with lightness and build a shield against burnout materno.
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My wish is that all mothers understand that real motherhood is not this idealized world, in which we have to manage everything, give ourselves to the extreme and forget about ourselves.
To hug your children you need to be empowered, a goal that we can only achieve when we put ourselves first and face the mission without the intention of becoming superheroes. Maternal burnout almost took away the joy of being a mother.
*Laura Schwengber is the mother of Lucas, Levi, Letícia and Luísa. Married to Leandro for 18 years, she has a degree in Journalism, author of the book Cuide-se Pra Cuidar (Hanoi Editora) and creator of CLAM – Maternal Self-Care Reading Club.
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