Last Sunday, I hit the ceiling of my patience. Between a lack of sleep and feeling overall run down, I couldn’t deal with the screaming-jumping-running-around of it all. I locked myself in my office for a few hours to snack and decompress. And it got me thinking. There is so much to love about being a mom. There is also so much to hate about it. And it really is ok to hate some of it. Motherhood asks that we give a lot more than we get most days. Sometimes it’s a little bit too much. The dichotomy of motherhood is the strangest mix of joy and sorrow, love and frustration there is.

Here’s my love/hate of motherhood list.

Love: All the cuddles, squeezes, and kisses. There are moments in the day where a surprise squeeze from my boys is exactly what the doctor ordered and it makes everything feel better.

Hate: All the cuddles, squeezes, and kisses. Then there are days when they are hanging off me like a necklace. Clinging to me like the barnacle on the bottom of a boat. It all feels like too much and I just don’t want to be touched anymore. To the point where, when A comes home from work, I don’t have enough affection left to show him love.

Love: Watching them learn new things and explore the world around them. One of the amazing things about having kids is learning about the world through their eyes. Their enthusiasm and pride after they accomplish something new. Like, when J says, “It worked!” every time he owes in the potty. EVERY. TIME. Or whenever C figures out how to do something — like opening the child lock we put on the fridge because he kept leaving the door open — and he says, “I did it!” Even when it’s something I don’t want him to do, I love the enthusiasm. It’s infectious.

Hate: How hard it is to keep them teach them about the world and protect them from it at the same time. In a world of police brutality and ALICE drills for pre-schoolers, what are parents supposed to teach their kids about trust? One day you can have lunch and laugh with a friend, the next day you’re running from them in an attempt to save your own life…as a child. How do we teach them how to trust the police when it feels like every other day there’s another story about officer-involved violence against civilians?

Love: The extra purpose in life that having children gives you. I’m not the kind of person who thinks having children makes me superior to anyone who doesn’t. But raising kids is an important job, probably the most important job, we can have. We’re literally molding the future. When every thing else goes away. When you get laid off or divorced or lose people, your little ones are always there. So even when we feel like we have no purpose, they are our purpose.

Hate: Motherhood takes away so much of our autonomy, and sometimes it all feels like too much. Taking care of yourself can sometimes feel like a daunting task. Of course, caring for another person will feel overwhelming at times. Knowing that they are solely depending on you to keep them alive and mold them into good people…sometimes it’s an utter mindfuck. The person you were before you have kids and who you are after are two very different people. In some ways that’s a good thing. In others, we have to give up some of the things that make us feel the most like ourselves.

Motherhood asks a lot of us, and sometimes it feels like it takes without giving. Other times it asks nothing and gives so very much. See, perfect dichotomy.