When You Feel Like a Failure: Befriending Your Sense of Inadequacy
Sometimes I don’t feel called to motherhood.
That’s not something we’re really allowed to say, but it’s true—both for me and for many moms with whom I’ve spoken.
A couple of weeks ago, my husband had a zoom meeting right through dinnertime, so it was just me with my three girls, ages 5, 3, and 3 months. I decided to make dinner super easy by just re-heating some leftover pizza, so I didn’t have to cook. I let the older two watch a show in the family room until it was almost time to eat. Sounds totally doable, right?
It begins well. The baby is sleeping and the girls are entertained, so I sit and enjoy the quiet for a few minutes, probably scrolling facebook, you know, as you do when you have a million other things that need doing. And then just a few more minutes. Hearing some mild fighting from the girls, I glance at the clock and realize it’s way past their normal dinnertime and stand to get myself into action.
Just then, the baby wakes up and needs to nurse, and as I get her out of the crib, my other two come tromping up the stairs, whining that they are hungry. I ask them to say it again in a normal voice and then ask if they can wait a few minutes while I feed the baby. The five-year-old flops on the floor, flailing, and says she’s just toooo hungry to wait. So turn I away so she doesn’t seem my eye roll and get out the pizza. I pop it in the microwave for a few seconds, all the while holding the baby with one arm. I’m hoping she’ll wait to nurse until I can get the girls settled with food in front of them.
When I take the pizza out, it has that limp texture of microwaved bread and is barely lukewarm. Being the caring mother that I am, I decide to broil it for just a few minutes to get the cheese nice and melty and the crust a bit more firm. I put the baby down on her play mat, and she immediately starts fussing. When I ask the girls to talk to her so I can make their dinner, there’s more whining and flopping. Same when I ask them to get plates. I put the pizza on a tray and into the oven on a low broil and set the timer for four minutes, then rush back over to the baby to shove some toys into her view and shush her before grabbing plates and carrots (with ketchup, of course) for the girls, then back to the baby who’s really starting to wail. The girls are still flopping and fussing, despite my requests for them to stop and just sit at the table for two minutes until I can get them their food.
Then the three-year-old asks, “Mom, what’s that smell?” Just then the timer goes off, and I run to the oven to pull out the pizza, now burnt to a lovely dark brown. To the racket of three crying, fussing, whining children, I add some choice curse words, hands to my head, beyond frustrated on so. many. levels. There is no way I will be able to get them to eat this. I should have set them timer for two minutes. I shouldn’t have bothered broiling at all. I probably should give up and walk out and leave this job to someone much more capable and patient and perfect than I.
“Well,” I yell above the fray, “the pizza is ruined. So I have no idea what to feed you. And I need to feed the baby, so you’re just going to have to wait!” The girls look stricken.
I pick up my screaming infant and sit down to nurse her, trying desperately to calm down enough for my milk to flow and to block out the wails of my other two children. Then, the younger pushes the older with her feet on the bench where they’re sitting. The older yells for her to stop. The younger screams in her face. The older pushes the younger off the bench. Ear-splitting screams erupt.
“No, ma’am!” I yell at the older one. “Get downstairs, now!” The child bursts into tears and goes, and I can hear her sobbing and screaming as I try to comfort the other one from her fall, still holding the nursing baby with one hand. My husband is on a zoom call in a downstairs room, and momentarily I hear him open his door and shout, “What is going on? Go upstairs!” With the other two clinging to me, all I can do is yell, “It’s a time out!” Which he probably can’t hear.
Long story short, it was a disaster.
Eventually I found some chicken nuggets in the freezer and managed to heat them without burning them and got them in front of my girls. While they finally ate, I stood over the counter and stuffed all four pieces of burnt pizza into my mouth with one hand while the baby watched from my hip. Not surprisingly, this did not make me feel better but only added digestive distress to my list of discomforts.
Suffice it to say, I was not winning at motherhood right then. And I really, really didn’t like my children.
~
That was one of the more intense instances, but it was by no means an isolated incident, and that special mix of frustration, resentment, shame, and despair was no stranger.
I feel, sometimes, like motherhood is just way too hard, like I’m not cut out for it, like I just don’t have the je ne sais quoi that makes other women so natural and joyous and fulfilled in motherhood. Mostly, that’s a lot of BS that my self-doubting, I-must-be-defective enneagram 4 mind is throwing at me, but knowing that doesn’t make it much easier.
I can pass entire days without really enjoying my children, spending inordinate amounts of energy trying (and failing) to get them to leave me the eff alone so that I can have a moment of peace to work toward one of my goals or take a quiet shower or just sit in the stillness and remember who I am apart from all of that madness, wishing them away, not forever—I do love them after all—but just for a day or a weekend or a week, or maybe even two, seeing them as inconveniences, pests, ungrateful little beasts that ruin everything.
And that feels incredibly sad. I know this time is fleeting. I know they’re precious and beautiful and sweet, so why are they so darn annoying? If I were called to this, wouldn’t I find it less irritating?
~
There’s this idea that I somehow absorbed as a young person that the “right” job, the right life, would bring me immeasurable happiness just about every day. Writing that out, it seems obviously silly, but that idea still lurks deep down inside my psyche—maybe my unhappiness today, yesterday, last week means this isn’t the right fit. Maybe, if I could just tweak something in my circumstances, this frustration and dissatisfaction would dissolve and evaporate, leaving behind a sparkling, blissful existence.
Ha.
My head knows that’s not true, but I still catch some subconscious part of me feeling that it’s possible.
At the same time, maybe there is something I could and should change about the external reality of my life. Sometimes we do need to quit that job or pursue a new career or work less (or more) or engage in a hobby or ditch the toxic relationship. And that is so, so important to recognize and act upon.
But more and more I realize it’s the internal reality that really needs tweaking.
A lot of it is caused by warped expectations. I’m not supposed to feel blissful all the time. No career or activity is going to feel easy and exciting every minute or even every day. Frustration is not necessarily a sign that I’m engaged in the wrong activity or vocation. Feeling inadequate is not, in itself, a reason to quit (or to wish you could).
The fact is that we are all called to things that feel hard, even painful at times. Yes, there should be moments of delight, joy, and deep satisfaction, and hopefully they will be many. But enjoyment alone is no indication that you’re following the right path for your life. Pleasure is not the measure of a life well lived.
You’re not meant to be perpetually miserable either, but some degree of suffering is almost always a part of real growth. It’s just the way it is in this world.
~
So what do we do with that? Well, I’ve found it doesn’t help at all to try to ignore those feelings of pain or discomfort, to minimize or discount them. And it certainly doesn’t help to feel guilty about them. Rather, it can help to normalize those feelings. It’s ok to not be “feelin’ it” one day or week or month, even if “it” is something as precious and sacred as your children.
Love, like any real accomplishment, is not about how we feel at any given moment. It’s not about some emotive force emanating out of our chests, though it’s certainly nice when that happens. Instead, loving someone well is about showing up anyway, about accepting the bad and seeking the good, about working to find ways to improve the situation but also being willing to sit in the discomfort and pain and even, at times, disgust that inevitably come with any true challenge.
Love is not dependent on how we feel. When I feel like I want to lock my child outside until she learns to stop whining, I can still love her—by setting the limits we both need with a kind, calm voice. When my baby can’t bear to be put down but I just can’t hold her another minute because I’ve been holding her all. day. long. and my arms and back and neck are screaming at me to stop, I can still love her—by putting her in a carrier, or letting her work through her issue on her play mat while I lie next to her, or by asking my husband for help even if he’s busy working. When I have an off day and feel “blah” about everything and everyone and can’t seem to summon a genuine smile to my face, I can still love them—by acknowledging that I’m having a hard day and thereby showing them that it’s ok to feel how we feel and that our feelings don’t have to determine who we are or what we do in any given moment.
The same principle applies to our other “children” as well, be that a novel, a project at work, a class you’re teaching at church, or some other professional or creative endeavor. It’s not always gonna be fun. It’s not always going to be easy. Sometimes, living into our calling may feel like absolute hell. But the great thing about feelings is that they pass, drifting away with a change in the wind.
We cannot be governed by our shifting emotions. If we let our feelings dictate our choices, we will be as fickle as the sea, coming and going with the tide. Rather, we must learn to listen to something much deeper, to the longing of our souls, to the small, quiet voice that calls to us when we are still enough to listen. That deeper sense of who we are and what we were made to do is what we have to cling to in those moments of pain and despair that will inevitably come.
~
After all that drama that night, bedtime actually went rather smoothly. As I tucked each girl into bed, I apologized for yelling at them and reassured them that I love them, even when I’m mad. “It’s ok, Mama,” the five-year-old said. “I know. I know you still love us even when you’re frustrated.” She pulled me in tight for a hug, my face buried in her hair. “I love you too.”
Maybe I’m not a complete failure as a mother after all.
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