It’s the messy middle of motherpause – between raising young kids and perimenopause – sending our hormones haywire.
Clare Jeffery shares how – quite frankly – she could do without the hormonal tantrum on top of everything.
There’s a very specific kind of madness that comes from trying to parent a toddler while your hormones are quietly staging a coup in the background.
It doesn’t arrive all at once. It sneaks in slowly, like a suspicious smell. You think you’re just tired. Or unfit. Or a bit unreasonable lately. You don’t realise it’s perimenopause. You just think you’re failing at everything. The mornings become survival missions. Not the inspiring kind where you discover hidden reserves of strength, but the kind where you’re sweating through your bra by 8.30am and still arguing about socks.
You start most days begging someone to eat toast they begged you to make. You reason, you bribe, you finally cave and offer them something else then feel terrible for the rest of the day. All before you’ve even brushed your own teeth. The toddler is lying on the floor, screaming. Something about raisins being too raisin-y. You try offering grapes. This is met with fresh outrage and a tub thrown across the kitchen. You breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, like the antenatal book said, and repeat the sacred words “Breathe, Breathe”.
The “my do it” phase
Meanwhile, your toddler is in a full-blown my do it phase. “My do it” with trousers. “My do it” with the car keys. “My do it” with the sandwiches. Except they can’t do it so they scream and you take over, and then they scream again. You are either too helpful or not helpful enough. And then suddenly you’re crying in the toilet for reasons you can’t even name. You’re not sure if it’s their tantrum or yours. Because today you feel like lying on the floor too. You wanted to cry in the bread aisle. You did cry last night, though you’re not entirely sure why. Then you shouted at someone for chewing too loudly. Was it the toddler or your partner? Hard to say. Both looked equally confused.
I started forgetting everything. Appointments, snack requests, my own name. I left myself messages on the fridge. Library books due. Put bin out. You are not going mad. There’s a forgotten note about a costume for nursery tomorrow. I haven’t sorted it. There are also six unanswered messages in the group chat. Something about snacks, library books, a lost shoe. I stare at them like they’re written in code.
Quietly unravelling – but not drowning
You feel overwhelmed, but not in a dramatic way. More like you’re quietly unravelling behind your eyes. Not drowning, exactly, just floating away from shore while everyone else is still building sandcastles and asking for juice.
Your periods have gone erratic. Sometimes they arrive early, sometimes not at all. When they do, they burst in without warning, wreck the place, raid the biscuit tin and leave the bathroom looking like a crime scene. You never know what mood is going to show up either. Some days you’re fine. Some days you cry because someone left a lonely slice of toast on the side.
You look in the mirror and feel like you’re seeing someone else. Someone tired and slightly cross. Someone who used to know how to be funny or organised or fun but now just mutters Where’s your other shoe while wiping yoghurt off the door handle.
Tiny failures that feel huge
Every tiny failure feels huge. Forgot the spare pants – Useless. Didn’t cook a proper tea – Lazy. Snapped over something small – Bad mum. I kept apologising. Then apologising for apologising. Then wondering if I’d always been this tightly wound and just never noticed before.
And then there’s the guilt. That constant, itchy feeling that you’re not doing it right. That too much screen time is rotting their brain. That you’ve just used Hey Duggee to survive the last hour before dinner, and now Mr Tumble is babysitting while you try to remember the last time you felt human. You know it’s not ideal. You also know you’re doing your best. But the guilt still lands like a brick in your lap.
Everyone else seemed to be breezing through it. Reusable wipes and tidy hair and relaxed smiles. I was the one who forgot nappies and cried in the supermarket over the price of wet wipes. My brain wasn’t working. My body was rebelling. My toddler was eating crayons under the table and I was googling “Why am I sweating through my pyjamas and questioning every life choice?”
“Is it perimenopause?”
Then one day I saw the word perimenopause and felt something shift. I didn’t feel fixed. But I felt seen. Like finding out your house isn’t haunted, it just has faulty electrics. I wasn’t broken. I was changing. And I wasn’t alone.
It didn’t make it easier exactly, but it softened the edges. I started being a bit less cruel to myself. I stopped assuming it was all my fault. I learned to laugh when I cried over yoghurt lids. I forgave myself for the screen time. I forgave myself for the toast dinners and the forgotten forms. I even forgave myself for feeding them biscuits and calling it breakfast once because it was all I could manage.
Parenting toddlers is full-on at the best of times and that is with one, I salute anyone who has more but you are doing it while your hormones are losing the plot is something else entirely. You’re tired, you’re tender, and you’re always carrying everyone else. No one sees the fridge messages. No one sees the mental load. But if this is you, please know you’re not failing. You’re not weak. You’re just in the middle of something massive.
It has a name. It’s called perimenopause. But most of us only figure that out after we’ve blamed ourselves for everything else first.
About the author
Clare is a writer, mum of twins, and recovering overthinker. She writes about the bits of life we usually keep to ourselves like menopause, identity, and the messy middle of womanhood. Follow Clare on Substack
