The gothic housewife

Since we moved into our own place two months ago I have gone from young mummy living out of one room and hovering awkwardly in my boredom in someone else's house, to full time housewife with a million things to do every day. I must say I only work two days a week so shout out to all you mamas with full time jobs - I bow down to your multi-taskedness!

Whilst we are STILL unpacking and getting things in order I will never feel at ease and like I have gotten everything done. There are shelves and furniture items still required  to finish things off, for example the cabinet for my teacup collection needs to be assembled in order for me to unpack them all. I have been quite hard on myself about not having a perfectly clean house too. When I lived with the inlaws their clutter drove me mad, so now that it's my clutter it's obviously my fault. I know it's silly, and I am recognising that I need to be kinder to myself but I never really realised just how houseproud I seem to be!

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 Perhaps  what I'm finding the most difficult, however, is how I really don't fit the stay-at-home-mummy mould at all. I have struggled a lot with 'mummy friends' because when my daughter was born I was floating in the horrid middle category of being too old at 19 for 'young mum' support groups (and all the other help that goes with it) and being much too young to fit in with the other mums, who were in their 30's and even 40's . They were career women who left having kids quite late. They were all married with 'good' jobs and mortgages and great maternity pay. I was a blue haired teenager shacked up in a caravan with her previously married boyfriend. Talk about unconventional.

Don't get me wrong, I really love my life and am very grateful to be able to spend so much time at home with my child. I just feel a bit alien about it all sometimes. I rock up to a mummy meetup in my tattoo t-shirt and bat leggings, sporting freshly dyed hair and false eyelashes  and I can feel all the unmade up faces following me across the room. They are all so very mumsy. And I, I am so very un-mumsy. Apart from the women I already know, I can't talk to anyone. I am terrible at making friends. I want my daughter to make friends and have fun, but preferably not whilst I'm feeling so uncomfortable surrounded by so much normalcy. I am so self conscious that people are staring, judging, wondering could I even be this child's mother? I don't look outwardly maternal.

But then there is the passionately maternal part of me, who co-sleeps with her child and is a huge breastfeeding advocate, secretly I love to do things the hippy way. Mothering is the best job in the world. It comes so naturally and is so rewarding.  I love babies. I love being pregnant. I love all of it. It is so empowering to make these offbeat parenting choices amidst opposing opinions and to feel like I am the best parent I could possibly be because of it.

Some days are wonderful, I feel satisfied and productive and some days I feel trapped inside my own house, not contributing anything meaningful to anyone. On those days I want to be able to be my old self, wear totally impractical and completely beautiful clothes, and craft all day long without interruptions. I haven't crafted at all since we moved and I need to fix that. Things will come in time, I hope.