Exclusive: I thought being a mom would be easier. I miss my old life.
This morning at an ungodly early hour, I awoke to the sound of my twins scream-singing a not very melodic duet of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." As I lay in bed trying desperately to fall back asleep (hahahahaha, as if), I started scrolling through my phone and saw this headline, "Exclusive: Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life."
Damn. I feel you, my dude.
The newest leader of the free world complained to Reuters about his first 100 days in office saying, "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier." Riiiiight? I mean I gave birth to twins almost exactly two years ago and hooboy, this job is intense. Why didn't anyone tell me how much work it was to keep an entire family alive for 24 hours every 👏 day 👏 of 👏 the 👏 year 👏 ?
Like our president, who now laments how little privacy he's afforded and how he's trailed constantly by the Secret Service, I have found that my life is pretty much over. I haven’t gone to the bathroom without the watchful eyes of my toddlers on me in I don’t even remember how long. I don't have any time to obsessively Google my own name, and I have to make plans ahead of time every time I want to leave the kids alone. It's exhausting!
If only Donald J. Trump and I had known that becoming the Commander-in-Chief (of a country or a household) would mean saying goodbye to our personal lives. Instead of sleeping peacefully well past sunrise, I now have to answer to the screaming calls of my offspring at 3 a.m. Just as he used to be able to tweet incoherently in the middle of the night instead of having to deal with all the pesky work of ensuring our nuclear annihilation. Thumbs down, way down.
Trump complains of being in his "own little cocoon," and I sympathize. I really do. Granted his bubble is filled with golf courses, lavish meals with powerful leaders, chocolate cake, and endless Cokes on demand. Mine has been more of a cocoon overflowing with dirty diapers, spit-up soaked clothes, and crumbs of mysterious origin. But it's basically the same.
If I had any idea how many sacrifices would be required, I might have thought longer and harder about going through the two years of agonizing fertility treatment I needed to conceive my kids. And maybe he'd have re-thought that whole campaign thing. But, like, how on Earth were we supposed to know!?
I mean, fine, maybe if I had read a single book about motherhood or a few of the thousands of articles online about what was involved in raising kids or even talked to one other person who'd done this before, I might have figured out that it was the most intense gig on the planet.
But how could I be expected to pay attention to things like that when I was so busy paying attention to myself?
Cassie Murdoch is Mashable's Culture Editor.. Before coming here, Cassie was Senior Culture Writer at Vocativ. She previously wrote for Jezebel and The Hairpin. Cassie spends most of her time thinking about and consuming cheese in all its glorious forms.
