From The Confessional: We're Touched Out, Fam, And Desperate For Some Space

There are lots of things veteran moms warn us about when it comes to motherhood. Our bodies will change—our hips, our boobs, our faces, our butts. We won’t sleep (for real) for like a decade at least. We’ll likely be broke for a long-ass time because diapers are expensive AF, and after diapers comes kids’ sports, school supplies, and bigger grocery bills. And, it will be damn-near impossible to go anywhere, at least until you’re out of the toddler years.

But did anyone warn you about being “touched out”? I had no idea how hard this part of motherhood was going to be. After spitting out three babies in rapid-fire succession, a small person was either growing inside my body, feeding from my body, or climbing on my body every single minute of every single day for six consecutive years. And even today, now that they’re older, I still feel touched out some days after having to meet everyone’s needs from the minute one eye opens until I tuck the last one in, and some nights, I don’t have it in me to snuggle anyone at bedtime.

Our confessional is chock-full of similar sentiments from touched-out moms. You’ll read about moms with babies, moms with toddlers, breastfeeding moms, potty-training moms, and moms stuck in the house on month 11 of quarantine. And, of course, moms whose spouses or partners come around with feely hands wanting some love, when the thing we need most is time. to. ourselves.

Breastfeeding will make you feel touched out in ways you never anticipated. There’s another human being literally sucking the life out of you, and especially if baby is cluster-feeding, or if you have multiples, you’re never ever (EVER) alone.

Then those babies grow into toddlers, 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, but they still don’t leave you alone. They still need Mommy to get everything for them, do everything for them, hold them, wipe them, feed them. And even after you’ve done allllll the things, they still want to be touching you every second they’re awake (or asleep).

Being truly touched out and having zero minutes to ourselves can break us. If you find yourself raging, or crying, or both, we get it.

So yeah, when our SO is hinting around at sexy time or tries to sneak a kiss or butt grab, we snap. Because OMG can we just get a second of no one touching us PLEASE.

Turns out, being touched out is a huge part of motherhood for so many of us. Especially if you’re stuck in the house all day long with tiny humans pawing at your body all the damn day. So no, we won’t need more pawing from our partners too. We need them to take the kids for the entire day so we can hide in our rooms and read or binge Netflix or do anything really that doesn’t involve another human. Then, after we’ve reclaimed our personal space and bodily autonomy a bit, maybe we’ll be in the mood, mkay?