An overwhelmed mother out in the wild.

Honestly, if I had a dollar for every time someone said to me something along the lines of, “wow! You have your hands full,” accompanied with a slight smile/grimace and a light-hearted chuckle, I’d probably have at least $40.

In addition, if I had a dollar for every time someone stared at me with a weird look of shock/pity/#goodgod, I’d have way more dollar bucks than just $40.

And I can only imagine how many dollar bucks parents of multiples get in this imaginary situation.

Anyway, I get it. I really do. I’m usually wearing the baby and pushing the toddler in the pram. I’m also usually trying to bounce-rock the baby to sleep and steer the pram with one hand. The pram is not designed to be pushed with one hand. I hate its small, useless wheels. At the same time, there’s usually at least one crying. I’m often also trying to shop or cross a road or open a lunchbox. So, I do understand. It’s a lot to watch unfold.

But I never quite know how to respond to “you’ve got your hands full!” and then the awkward pause as they wait for me to confirm their observation, their eyes enlarged at the possibility of engaging with an overwhelmed mother out in the wild.

So I just kinda say “yep” which I hope accurately conveys that yep, I do indeed have my hands full (A+ to you kind sir for solving that mystery) and also, yep, can you please stop staring at me? I’ve felt your eyes burning a hole in me for at least a minute before you brave sidling up to state the obvious. Yes, I do indeed have my hands full. I am painfully aware.

This mayhem is hard enough to manage day in and day out without strangers staring at me. I can feel their stares and I desperately try to not make eye contact, which actually isn’t that hard because my two eyes are often pretty well occupied with the task at hand. And when I feel those eyes, all I feel is heavy judgement, whether it actually exists or not.

My kiddos and I go out every day. Sometimes it’s because of sheer necessity, like we need bread or we have an appointment. My husband is away at work for 12 hours a day and sometimes overnight too, so it’s just me a lot of the time. But to be honest, most of the time we are go out just because I need to get out of the house. Despite the perceived judgement or the “wow, you’ve got your hands full,” comments or even just the plain difficultly of wrangling two small kiddos - I make the choice to get out of the house. I find it hard to stay home; I feel claustrophobic within the endless afternoons and the sleep deprivation when I don’t. When we’ve successfully made it out, I always feel happy and weird a sense of accomplishment at surviving, despite my very full hands.

Anyway, I know that I bring this on myself a lot of the time by choosing to go out into the wild when we don’t have to, but it’s still hard. I just wish people wouldn’t stare. Surely it’s not that unusual? People have kids close together all the time, right? And these families exist in public spaces, right? And sometimes their kiddos make loud noises and their parents don’t have enough hands and just want to survive buying milk in one piece. You can tell they feel a bit overwhelmed and you can also tell that yes, they do their hands full. Surely this is a common occurrence, so not really note worthy?

This is going to sound bad, but when I see other mums out in the wild who also have their hands full and would also probably get at least $40 worth of comments, it lifts me up. It’s so easy to feel wrapped up in your own chaos that you forget other people are going through this exact same chaos at the same time. It’s not a personal failing that you had to leave Countdown without anything you went in for or that your kids wail when it’s time to get back into the car. It’s a universal experience, these trials and tribulations. We are all within our own bubbles of chaos around the globe; little grey thunderclouds lurking above us and our families while everyone else seemingly passes through easily. If you look up at the sky, perhaps each cloud signals an overwhelmed parent out in the wild? Maybe don’t look up on a clear day though.

Anyway, am I a horrible person that it makes me happy to see my overwhelmedness shared? A few days ago, I saw a mum carrying her baby while trying to wrestle her screaming toddler out of the park. I gave her a smile that I really hope portrayed, “you’re doing bloody great/I’ve been there a gazillion times too/if you wait an hour, my kid will take the lead so the heat is off you?” I hope I didn’t come across as staring or pitying or the worst - “that would never happen to me.”

Because it does. This chaos is within my every day, both at home and out and about. I’m right in the thick of it too, with my hands scrambling and overflowing right next to yours. If we each combined $40 from the comments and the stares, maybe we could open our own stare-free supermarket?