Trying to be a mom and a wife and an employee and a friend and anything else damn near killed me. I gave up on trying to maintain anything else in my life because I was drowning. And now I feel like even more of a failure.
If you're on this page, you probably have a young kid. Everything under a year is pure survival and 1-2 years is a slow, exhausting climb. Now that my kids are 3 and 5 I feel actually human some days--just a regular old "person with kids.
Raising kids is a huge responsibility, and it is 100% okay to let other aspects of your life slide for a while, while you focus on doing your best for your babies. It happens to all of us!
People who don't have kids yet have no idea how time-consuming and demanding parenting is. We all had high hopes for being that mom who always looks put together, goes out to brunch with her friends once a week, works out every morning at 6 am, and never, ever feeds her kids french fries. But that's not real life! And if it is, I feel sorry for that mom, because it must be really stressful and not at all fun to live that way!
That being said, sometimes it's good for us moms to take some time for ourselves. Our kids need happy, healthy mamas, and self-care is a part of that. But finding the balance between kid-care and self-care is HARD, and it's okay if you haven't quite found it yet. I haven't, either. But we are good moms, doing the best we can! And I giggle a little bit when I think about the reality check that a first time mom is going to get the first time she tries to get some "me time" and her husband calls her begging her to come home because the baby is hungry and won't stop crying and she has the boobs. 😂
Having kids in your life is still having a HUGE and wonderful life! Just because you don't have time to take up cooking or learn to paint right now (or whatever the hobby maybe), doesn't mean you aren't having a worthwhile experience. It's sad how our society belittles motherhood and treats it as if it's not time well spent. And it's sad how we all slowly internalize it, without realizing. There's nothing wrong with being focused on your young children to the exclusion of other hobbies. There will be time enough for all the hobbies in the world when they're older. That being said, it's important to find time to take breaks, if you're feeling rundown! But don't beat yourself up if all you do on your time "off" is relax in a bathtub or read your favorite Facebook Group posts!
If you want to work, spend more time with friends, etc it will happen. Your kid will be at school 8-13 in a few years. They will be able to clean their own messes, put on their own clothes. And if you decide you want to be the mom who is "just" a mom, that life is not a failure. I also don't know anyone whose life completely revolves around the kids when those kids are 4 years or older. They all have side gigs, hobbies, sit on nonprofit boards, or love crafting and put together awesome birthday parties because they love it not just because it's for the kids. You do you. You do your family. Being what those you love and who love you back need you to be is never a failure.