Quote:
Originally Posted by
bohemian madre 
I am so sorry this is where you are today. My heart goes out to you. It sucks to feel this way however you diagnosis this!! I feel completely burned out as a mother too. To suggest that I stop mothering my children in the ways that I feel are most healthy (tandem nursing, cloth diapering, homeschooling, co-sleeping) is intolerable. I want support to mother this way - not told to do it differently. I want our culture to support mothers. I would actually get tax credits if I send them away to daycare! I am burned out and don't have my needs met because it is impossible to meet the needs of an attached family in a nuclear family structure. I feel angry that the only way to keep going is for me to either dig a little deeper and give more or compromise my children's current and future health and happiness. What kind of world is this that I have to fight to mother my children in an attached way - where there is little to no support to mother my children?
I get lots of support. The reality is that, if one is nursing two children (I've never done that, but have come close - nursed right up to labour), cosleeping, and also homeschooling and doing cloth diapering (okay - maybe not the CD...I don't really find it that much extra work), then one is pretty much totally subordinating one's own needs to that of the children. I don't think that's always a bad thing, but it does wear a person down. Whether it should or shouldn't be that way isn't really relevant. It is that way. If a mom is burning out, that reality has to trump ideals. Maybe that means you still do all those things, but dial down the homeschooling a little, and make sure you get out two evenings a week for an hour or two. Maybe it means something else.
And, homeschooling and AP are two different things. Choosing to homeschool (I do, also) means that we are choosing to place a heavier burden on our own nuclear family. I don't think blaming the society we live in, because we choose to take on more demands within our own family unit, makes a lot of sense. I was an AP parent (although I'd never heard the term) with ds1, and he went to public school. I got lots of support for the way I parented. I also get lots of support for homeschooling, actually. But, homeschooling is still taking on a schedule that involves a lot less downtime. A lack of support isn't the issue. The fact that I've chosen (as have others, including the OP) to take a large workload, which doesn't include many built-in breaks, onto myself is the issue. If and when I reach a point where I'm seriously burning out, then it's time to re-evaluate...but not because there's no support - because it's a big, big job.
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