{"id":154745,"date":"2015-01-27T17:00:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T22:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/?p=154745"},"modified":"2015-01-27T21:56:58","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T02:56:58","slug":"its-okay-to-miss-the-freedom-of-your-childless-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/its-okay-to-miss-the-freedom-of-your-childless-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Admitting You Miss The Freedom Of Your Childless Life Doesn’t Make You A Bad Mom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"woman-running\"

“I don’t really feel like going home. You wanna go to a movie?”<\/p>\n

“Sure.”<\/p>\n

That small interaction inspired a giant blanket of envy to wrap around my entire being. I realized I hadn’t had the luxury of doing something totally unplanned and spontaneous with my partner since our child was born. I was jealous of that couple. Does that ever happen to you? Do you ever just long for the time when you didn’t have so much responsibility?<\/p>\n

Occasionally, I will think back to my twenties — single, childless<\/a> and living in Brooklyn — and wish I could just step into a time machine, back into my old living room. Back to a life of freedom to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I ache for that time occasionally — really ache for it. I love my kids and I wouldn’t change any of the decisions that brought me into this role as mother for the world. Sometimes I just can’t help but feel that I really didn’t appreciate the freedom of not being committed to tend to all of another human’s earthly needs.<\/p>\n

I used to struggle with these feelings when they surfaced. I guess it doesn’t help that every time I write about them there is someone all too willing to call me a “bad mom.” I once wrote a story about how motherhood may not fulfill every woman<\/a>, and someone actually tweeted me the lyrics to “Cats in the Cradle.” Oh, boy.<\/p>\n

I’ve come to realize that remembering that I loved the freedom of being childless doesn’t make me a bad mom – it teaches me to live in the moment. I know much the same way I miss my childless life now, someday I’ll be saying the same thing about having young children. Everything is so fleeting – remembering how much I loved my life when I was childless reminds me to also open my eyes and be present in my life with my small children now.<\/p>\n

I speak fondly of that person I was before I was “mom” because it reminds me that I still am that person. If not being content for the label “mom” to totally define me and if missing the freedom of not having that label makes me a bad mom, so be it.<\/p>\n

(photo: GuadiLab\/ Shutterstock)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After I had my first child, when I was still working as a waitress, I remember overhearing an conversation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21295,"featured_media":155422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[35107,1315,6111],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":32,"label":"being a mom"}],"post_tag":[{"value":35107,"label":"being a mom"},{"value":1315,"label":"childless"},{"value":6111,"label":"memories"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/shutterstock_199984826__1422382289_107.146.17.44.jpg",640,427,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Maria Guido","author_link":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/author\/mguido\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":32,"name":"being a mom","slug":"being-a-mom","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":898,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Being a mom isn't easy. Learn ways to be a good mom and find out more about what being a mother to a child is all about.\r\n","parent":3,"count":842,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":32,"category_count":842,"category_description":"Being a mom isn't easy. Learn ways to be a good mom and find out more about what being a mother to a child is all about.\r\n","cat_name":"being a mom","category_nicename":"being-a-mom","category_parent":3}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":35107,"name":"being a mom","slug":"being-a-mom","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":32,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":535,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1315,"name":"childless","slug":"childless","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1373,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":20,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":6111,"name":"memories","slug":"memories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6194,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":8,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mommyish.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}