Messy Minded Momma

For the last four years, I’ve been the primary parent in our son’s two-parent household.

From the earliest moments, I was my son’s form of survival. Like most moms, I handled the midnight feedings, the nap schedules, the daycare drop-offs and pickups. Because of our work arrangements, I was home more often than my husband, but I always made sure my husband had special one-on-one time with our son, including bedtime stories whenever he was home.

Being the primary parent often left me burnt out, overstimulated, touched out, and emotionally checked out by the time my husband got home from work. And like many married couples with young children, our marriage slowly drifted to the back burner.

Because our son saw less of Daddy, time with him felt exciting. Special. Fun. Daddy became the playful parent. Mommy became the tired disciplinarian.

And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself our son loved my husband more. I believed it with every ounce of my being. I was jealous. Resentful. “If I do everything for my child, why doesn’t he love me the way he loves his dad?”

There were nights I would lie awake in bed crying, wondering: “Why doesn’t my child love me?”

After many therapy sessions and unpacking my own deep need for reassurance and love rooted in childhood trauma, I began to understand something important: my son didn’t necessarily love his dad more than he loved me. He simply gravitated toward him because he was the novelty.

I was told it would eventually pass. That parental preference tends to flip-flop throughout childhood. So I waited. Secretly hoping my turn would come. And for years, it never did.

Our son turns five next month, and recently, I finally heard the words I had spent years longing for: “I don’t want you, Daddy. I want Mommy!” I know I probably shouldn’t admit this… but internally, I was ecstatic. He finally wants me.

But then something dawned on me. My husband had quietly become the primary parent.

These days, he handles the morning breakfast routine. He does most of the school pickups because he now works closer to home than I do. And he has continued the bedtime story tradition because, apparently, Mommy doesn’t do enough funny voices and accents.

Suddenly, I wasn’t the default parent anymore. I was the novelty. And as much as I once dreamed of having a break from the constant neediness, I didn’t expect the grief that would come with no longer being needed in the same way.

For years, I was exhausted and desperate for space. I counted down the minutes until bedtime. I longed for quiet. For help. For someone else to carry the mental load for a while. Now I find myself missing the tiny hand reaching for mine first. I miss being the one who knew exactly how many stuffies needed to be tucked into bed. I miss being the preferred parent at bedtime, the first person called for after a bad dream, the one needed for every little thing.

Because somewhere between surviving motherhood and sharing the load, a piece of me quietly attached my worth to being needed. And maybe that’s the strange thing about motherhood… sometimes the very things that overwhelm us are also the things we ache for once they’re gone.