Let me be clear: I enjoy being a parent.

I enjoy hugging my kids. I enjoy tucking them in at night. I enjoy when they eat something I've made and exclaim, "Mommy, this is so good!" I enjoy how their brains work. I enjoy watching them learn new things, gaining confidence. I enjoy the hilarious, silly and sweet things they say.

But I don't enjoy everything, and I don't enjoy it all the time.

I don't enjoy it when one of them is sick or hurt. I don't enjoy how they sneak into our bed every night, splaying themselves out like sheiks in repose. I don't enjoy the state in which they leave the bathroom.

In the grand tradeoff, the "loves" easily outweigh the "don't loves," and I'll never say otherwise.

But despite that, I don't appreciate the guilt. Not guilt thrust upon me by my progeny, no. Guilt handed me by fellow parents — mothers, if I'm honest — for looking with dread upon any part of parenting, no matter how loathsome.

I encountered that maternal guilt trip, again, recently, in the form of a mommy blog post about how important it is for mothers to constantly remind themselves to feel joy and gratitude for their status as a parent.

"I am living the halcyon years," the writer said of her children's messes, tantrums and screaming, the tough but unavoidable days (or weeks or years) that few parents tolerate with anything approaching grace.

She admitted in the post to being "guilty" of not enjoying those moments, of not being properly grateful.

How dare she, I asked myself sarcastically. How dare she not pause, covered in baby barf and woozy from two hours of sleep, and remind herself that any feeling short of pure ecstasy is a betrayal?

These are the same assurances mothers have always been given: "One day, you'll miss it."

I, for one, call BS.

My kids are firmly out of the baby stage, and though I do sometimes spend an hour scrolling through photos of them in adorable onesies, and though I do sometimes feel nostalgic, I also eventually remember how glad I am that my parental work in the baby mines is completed.

I remember the terrible reflux that caused one baby to spit up so much and so often I stopped changing my clothes every time. I remember the day I fully understood why sleep deprivation is used as torture. I remember changing dirty diapers in airplane bathrooms and the trunks of cars and on my lap in a restaurant toilet.

Those times? I don't miss them much.

I am happy that my children now use the bathroom and eat solid food and sleep for 10 hours straight, and I don't feel guilty for that. Nor should I.

There is such pressure on mothers, such an impossible standard, and I refuse to add to that weight the additional burden of gratitude, perfect and ever-present.

It's not my children's fault that I have to drive them everywhere and cook their every meal and wash their every piece of clothing, but it's not my fault that I don't always like it, either. And I don't feel bad about occasionally looking forward to not doing those things, the same way I once looked forward to my kids being able to walk, talk and wipe their own butts.

So, if, like me, you are one of those imperfect mothers — sometimes ungrateful, sometimes bored, sometimes tired —-take heart.

You're doing the work. You're loving your children. You're caring for their every need. You're raising them up.

And I say — and here you are free to accept or reject my advice — well, I say that's enough.

You don't have to always enjoy it, too.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: LauraTara at Pixabay