Felicity Huffman: "I often feel I am drowning in motherhood"

Check out these powerful, honest snippets from a recent blog post Felicity Huffman wrote on motherhood. Haley thinks it's the best celebrity blog post on motherhood she's read in a long time, so checkit!

By Haley Overland

Updated Mar 29, 2017

Felicity Huffman: "I often feel I am drowning in motherhood"

Photo: Visual/Flynet Pictures

I often feel I am drowning in motherhood. It was really bad when my girls were younger, but it still exists now: When I am home I want to be away. When I am away I want to be home. I am no longer the person I was before having children, but not quite comfortable with whom I have become.

That's the opening paragraph of actress Felicity Huffman's iVillage.com blog post, published just today, about her journey toward finding her voice and accepting her limits as mom to Sophia, 11, and Georgia, 9 (with hubby William H. Macy, 61).

Much like her Desperate Housewives character, Lynette Scavo, Felicity often finds herself overwhelmed, "drowning," in motherhood. It was the worst when her kids were younger, and she was an extremely anxious mom:

I compiled all sorts of arcane equipment to make homemade rice milk because I decided that the rice milk from Whole Foods wasn’t pure enough! ...I made sure their diapers were organic, compostable and made of corn or something; in a pinch we could have eaten them for dinner.

Yum! As Felicity explains, though, it all came to a head one day on their way to the Natural History Museum, when her daughters were around 3 and 4 years old. She recalls waking up at 6 a.m. with them after a long week of work and packing an "absurdly large healthy snack," only to be called "The Grump" by one of the girls on the way there.

WHAT?! The Grump! After all my effort and exhaustion and sacrificing, she wasn’t going to remember the museum or the snack or the wonderful adventure. She was just going to remember that she was on an outing with “The Grump.” Something snapped and I knew what I was doing wasn’t working.

So, Felicity called upon her "wise" sister, who had this piece of wisdom, which has helped her, and which I think can benefit us all:

Any damage I would inflict by trying to be a “good mother” far, far outweighed any damage I would do by just being myself.... I tried it for a week; it was a relief, but frightening, like walking out on the ice, constantly expecting it to break beneath you.

Since then, Felicity says she's been struggling slowly to find her voice. "But now," she writes, "I am the first person I consult instead of the last, although I do ask a lot of people for advice."

Maybe good mothers can pretend to be Poobah for two hours go on endless trips to museums and parks. But I can read out loud for hours, I can build forts all afternoon, I can really listen when things go wrong and I am great when the flu hits. I now try and accept my limits. I am a nightmare after 5 p.m., so instead of muscling through the evening, my husband has taken over nighttime parenting, and it works great! Everyone is much happier.

Love love love love love love love. Best celebrity blog post I've read in a long time. I probably shared too much, but there's a lot more to read, so CHECKIT!

And tell us: What are your limits as a parent? Are you the type who goes on "endless trips to the museum"? Are you any good at "nighttime parenting"? Do you pretend to be Poobah? Hee!

Love!
xo Haley-O

This article was originally published on Feb 24, 2012

Weekly Newsletter

Keep up with your baby's development, get the latest parenting content and receive special offers from our partners

FILED UNDER:

Celebrity candy