I'm Only A Half Good Mom

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I am only a Half Good Mom. Let me explain.

People joke with me all the time.

"Maggie, when are you going to have more kids?"

"Maggie, don't you wish you could try for a third if it could be a girl?"

"Maggie, you're boys are so great. Can you please make more of them?

No. No to all of the above.

For starters, I'm divorced. No need to add more human victims to an already poorly-executed marriage turned family. On top of that, kids are expensive and time consuming. I am one person taking care of two people. And because I'm reckless and impulsive, I added a dog to the mix. The financial math on that is already against me.

Also. I have this crazy fear that life is going to hand me some horrific Sophie's Choice moment when I have to choose which of my kids' lives to save first. And if I have to run out of some burning building with both of them underfoot, I only have two arms for two kids (both of whom are wildly uncoordinated) so I have to be able to personally ensure I can carry ALL of my children out of said burning building all at the same time. And last time I checked, I didn't sprout a third arm.

This is the shit that keeps me up at night.

But if I'm honest with myself the answer truly lies in the limited, already-exhausted finite resource that is my patience. I can only be yelled at, questioned, prodded, taunted, and needed so many times by such tiny people in one 24 hour period before I absolutely lose my shit. Which even at this point is far too often. Adding a third child to this mix would only make me worse of a mother than I already feel that I am. And with recent research coming out stating the parents in the USA are the most miserable parents worldwide, there's no reason I need to independently bolster those statistics any higher. My god-given anxiety and depression is enough without the kids. Let alone two (or heaven, forbid three) of them.

I look at it this way: if I only have enough patience for one child (which is probably more true than it is hypothetical), then I'm splitting that patience between two children which means both kids are only getting one half of the Good Mom I am capable of being.

I am only a Half Good Mom.