Why do I feel embarrassed to admit I’m not happy staying home with the baby?

Question from Julissa C., 37, Fort Worth, U.S. Mom to a 4-month-old baby girl, Jackie.

Julissa recently left her job to stay home with her 4-month-old daughter. She was excited at first, but the isolation and monotony of full-time caregiving have started to wear her down. 

Mama,

I wish I could give you a long hug before I say anything else. Not the awkward, well-meaning kind. The kind that says, “I know. I really do.”

Because here's the truth I didn’t want to say out loud for months: I didn’t always love staying home with my babies either.
And it made me feel like a monster.

Everyone around me made it sound like the dream — “You’re so lucky!” “These years go by so fast!” “Enjoy every minute!”
But inside? I felt bored. Lonely. Unseen. And worst of all, guilty.
Because I was lucky. I knew that. I just wasn’t happy.

I thought being at home would fill me up — but sometimes it emptied me out instead.

I’m a work-from-home mom now, but even that didn’t fix the core ache right away. Because the truth is, being home with your baby all day is emotionally complicated. It’s repetitive and isolating and invisible and beautiful and exhausting — all at once.

No one throws you a parade for making it through a day of feedings, diaper changes, naps, fussiness, and trying to eat lunch standing up over the sink. There are no performance reviews or coffee breaks or coworkers. Just you… and this tiny human you love more than your own heartbeat, but who still doesn’t say “thank you.”

You are not broken for needing more than this.
You are not ungrateful or failing or selfish.
You’re just a whole person who still exists underneath the role of “mom.”

Motherhood doesn’t erase your need for adult conversation, mental stimulation, creative expression, or simply… quiet.
And not the kind of quiet where the baby is finally asleep but you’re afraid to move. I mean soul-quiet.
The kind where you get to exist again.

You don’t have to want this version of motherhood forever. You can grieve what you gave up. You can build something new. You can change your mind. You can say: I love my baby, but I miss myself.

And if nobody else says it to you today, let me say it loud and clear:
That doesn’t make you a bad mom.
That makes you honest. That makes you brave. That makes you human.

Love,
Lina P.