I wish that it was as socially acceptable for me to throw a tantrum as good as the ones my three year old has when she wants to wear her stripy shirt and not her spotty.

Some days all I want to do is stamp my feet and jump up and down. Not for any real reason except that all the little things that have accumulated have now become a giant ball of too much to deal with. Trying to verbalize the feelings that I actually can not make sense of. I now have a little more understanding as to why children just throw themselves on the ground.

My husband was mowing the lawn, he put his head phones in and mowed the lawns for two hours. I love him for that, but I was so angry, because I had to look after the children. Our kids had been sick, one in hospital and one close to being admitted. The kids just wanted cuddles, and I just wanted space. I wanted to put headphones in and zone out. Walk in a line back and forth for two hours. Be lost in my own thoughts. I went to him in tears and said I need to go out for a bit, I put the youngest in the car and went for a drive with tears running down my face. The poor guy stood there with the most confused look, because at this point his wife had just gone crazy.

All these emotions had come to a head, and it was nothing that he had done. I just needed to throw myself on the ground and have that tantrum.

Adulting is hard because it comes with responsibility in the same sense that parenting is tough because it doesn’t take that responsibility into consideration.

When you go to bed at the end of a long day, you don’t just clock off from your parenting duties. It is a constant.

As adults dealing with tough circumstances is hard, having bad news delivered is hard. Trying to work through struggles in your home life and work life is hard. Having to do that while bringing your ‘A’ game as a parent is really hard.

Parenting doesn’t wait for the tough times to end before it starts working you again. It’s all the time. And it’s exhausting. Just when you think you are moving forward, you start going sideways instead.

Even if you have the perfect child – whatever that is, juggling life as a parent with those adult responsibilities will always present its challenges. If you need to have a tantrum, throw it. There would not be one parent who judges you for it. It’s only a shame that unlike children we don’t get timed out in the process.