As a New Young Mother

Being a wife is difficult. I can't speak for those who have spent years of raising children with or without their husbands while keeping a home safe and warm. I can speak for new moms like me whose marriage was sped up because of pregnancy.

For the past two months it has just been me, my unemployed husband and my 7 month old baby at home. At 6am in the morning, I get up, make myself a bowl of oatmeal or cereal and then proceed to cook breakfast for my two boys. It takes me an hour to set everything up including coffee for my husband and baby food for my Miggy. In that hour, while waiting for the meal to cook, I either clean around or open my e-mail for freelance work. Sometimes I forget to eat, sometimes I lose appetite, and then sometimes I am just too hungry to think about what to eat that I end up with oatmeal or anything instant.

After breakfast I breastfeed my baby to sleep, clean up after the meal, make the bed, wash the dishes and heat water for the baby's bath. Sometimes my husband helps me, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes I scold him, become hostile towards him, give him the silent treatment or downright snap at his insensitivity. There are also times when he would tell me to rest while playing an online game and then quickly returning to his activity. There are also times that he means it, takes the task out of my hand or personally put baby to sleep so that I could too. I fear I don't give him enough credit for "trying".

I don't think he was raised to be a home maker like me, or a responsible person for that matter. All his life he  had someone else to do his laundry for him, take out his trash, fold his clothes, serve his meals and even make him coffee. I had the same privilege as a kid, but I denied it and had my own way. I am a proud person I think. I preferred my own way of folding clothes, my own way of washing them or doing the meals or cleaning the house. I would never let anyone make me coffee or hot cocoa because only I could do it the way I want. Now here we are, trying to adjust. Him trying to be like me, while I am trying to give him the chance to do so.

My baby is crying his lungs out now... and my husband can't do much. Instead of bearing it any longer, I should continue the subject later... I can't stand leaving anything undone, let along my own son in need.