It Was Never My Children. It Was Everything I Didn’t Have.

For years,

I told myself my children drained me.

Their needs.

Their noise.

Their questions.

Their constant closeness.

I thought they were the reason I felt tired

down to my bones.

But slowly—

painfully—

another truth surfaced:

It wasn’t my children.

It was the absence around me.

The lack of help.

The lack of rest.

The lack of someone to lean on.

The lack of nourishment

that wasn’t just food

but actual care.

It was being the one who remembers everything.

Handles everything.

Holds everything.

It was parenting alone

even when other adults were technically present.

It was the way mothers are expected to function—

as if we don’t need a pause

or a door

or a moment

where someone else takes over.

It was exhaustion disguised as personality.

Overwhelm disguised as “normal.”

Loneliness disguised as strength.

And when you live like that,

even love becomes heavy.

So yes—

I snapped.

I got irritated.

I blamed the nearest thing—

the children.

Because guilt makes you rewrite the story

just to make it through the day.

But now I know better:

Children don’t drain mothers.

Motherhood without support does.

Motherhood without rest does.

Motherhood without a village does.

My children were never the problem.

My depletion was.

And if you’re feeling something similar—

if a part of you whispers this truth late at night—

know that you’re not imagining it.

You’re not weak.

You’re not failing.

You’re just carrying more

than any one person was meant to carry alone.

In the quiet corners of my 1:1 spaces,

this is often where we begin—

with the relief of finally naming

what was never your fault.

Just a gentle opening

for anyone who needs it.