It takes a village
I’m at a stoplight. I haven’t been driving alone since my baby was born, but I guess I must return to real life at some point.
Guilt is my overwhelming emotion right now. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I wonder how they let me become a mother. I’m terrible at this.
She screams constantly, nursing has been an adventure in learning failure, and I’m completely inept at consoling this child I so desperately wanted.
The thought occurs to me that I could simply let the car roll through this red light, and my life could be over. My husband would be left with my life insurance, and my daughter would never be able to figure out for herself what a terrible mother I really am.
The only thing that stops me is the thought that I might hurt someone else in the crash.
This was my inner dialogue in my first few days as a mother.
In my sleep-deprived brain, the thoughts that swirled were self-defeating, admonishing my lack of mothering skills.
It’s astounding that the most natural of roles as a woman, that of a mother, should come with the highest expectation of perfection. Society has taught us that we should instinctively relish this role, know what to do, and find pure bliss in nurturing this life that we grew in our bodies once we have birthed them.
So why did my brain betray me so awfully? Why did I feel like such a miserable failure in this role which was supposed to come so naturally? I don’t have the answers to these questions, but the pain of not knowing any solution was such that I decided not to have a third child.
Granted, the second pregnancy began with the understanding that this emotional turmoil would be the result, and I had greater confidence in my mothering skills that second round. But the doubts were still there, still percolating under the thin veil of competency as a parent.
I found myself jealous of my husband who is known in our group of friends as the “baby whisperer,” with the uncanny ability to settle down any infant in any state of crisis. I can recall many, many nights when he held one of our girls on his chest as they both slept, exhausted, on our living room sofa. I was not blessed with this same power to calm little ones.
My husband also seemed to know that I was struggling, trying his best to do what he could to make my burdens lighter. When the babies woke up in the night hungry, he got up and brought them to me to be nursed. He fully participated in diaper changing, bathing, feeding, playing with, and reading to our babies.
Now in my late 40s, I look at my female colleagues beginning families and I give advice that may be different than what they might hear from others. I urge them to find little moments for themselves, to not abandon the women they were before they were mothers.
In buying gifts for new mothers, I tend to lean toward items for her, not the baby. Baby stuff is adorable, for sure, but the moms need comfort and items that remind them that they are still a person separate from this other life they began.
I recently gave a pregnant colleague a bottle of wine for after the baby is born. She had lamented how much she missed red wine one of the last times we worked together. I understood.
While growing babies, mothers make tremendous sacrifices to ensure the health of this precious life they are growing. It’s so hard to give up caffeine, that occasional glass of wine, and certain foods. My husband bribed me to push with the promise of a cold Coca-Cola once our daughter was born. This often doesn’t change much once the baby is born if you are nursing.
If this is your plan, you are essentially giving two years of your body to growing a child, as it’s recommended that you nurse for at least a year. A man’s essential role only lasts a few seconds. The bodily burden for women is magnanimous in comparison.
My husband would argue that his role was much more important than that, and he’d be right. But that’s because he chose that path, not because it was biologically necessary.
I nursed my babies at a time when it seemed “granola” and was not yet socially accepted. My work asked me to pump in the bathroom that our patients used. Gross, right? They reasoned that it’s a bodily fluid. But I’m feeding what I’m expressing to a child, not flushing it down a toilet.
I was only allowed to pump during my 30-minute lunch break, during which I also had to feed myself. Which meant extra planning and no cafeteria meals for me. I didn’t have time to add that to the 20 minutes it already took to pump, leaving me with only 10 minutes to eat. And nursing moms are ravenous.
Now there are laws to protect nursing mothers. They have to be allowed a place to pump and time to do so in their days. I’m grateful for the changes, and I’d like to think that my generation paved the way to make life easier for new moms who work.
Because on top of the burden of returning to work, you shouldn’t also have to struggle with how to relieve your engorged breasts and excrete enough milk to feed your baby in your absence.
The overwhelming feelings of guilt from multiple factions as a new mother are so very real and can be completely defeating.
What’s even worse is that moms can be truly cruel to each other. Why in the world would moms play such a dangerous game when we are all just doing the best we can?
Those moms lucky enough to have husbands who have lucrative jobs who can then stay home with their babies make working moms feel guilty for leaving theirs.
Moms who have to work make stay-at-home moms feel simple for taking on that traditional role, even though many of us secretly wished for that precious time with our babies. But two-income households are almost necessary in this economy, even if you barely make more than what daycare costs.
I remember sitting with my newborn first daughter in a rocking chair in the infant room in the daycare where we had made a deposit. I nursed her right there in that chair. And in the 30 minutes we existed in that space, I observed things I didn’t like. And I wept.
I came home crying to my mother-in-law that I couldn’t do this. She understood, and somehow we patched together trusted caregivers to ensure that our baby was well cared for. We continued to rely on this network when our second daughter was born. I’m forever grateful to not have to rely on a daycare.
This was my village. It was a great one. And that may be what is missing in parenthood these days. We have abandoned this notion of multigenerational upbringing. My kids had that to some extent, and I count myself blessed. My kids had such a great foundation of love in their formative years, only part of which came from me.
If it wasn’t for my village, I don’t know if I could have made it through those infant and toddler years. This includes my husband, my in-laws, a woman who also changed my husband’s diapers when he was a baby, and a few trusted friends.
I’m so very glad those days are behind me. As I watch my colleagues struggle to raise their families, I don’t miss those early days. Sure, there are wonderful memories from each stage of raising my girls, but I also am in love with the adults they have become. And they may not be the strong women they are now without that ever-important village. I know I would not have survived early motherhood without this.
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Often I feel as though my daughters became great adults in spite of me, not because of me. I certainly hope they forgive me for all of the mistakes I have made as a mother. Unprocessed trauma does not make for sensible parenting. I wish I had begun that part of my journey a lot earlier than I did. Perhaps my bouts with postpartum depression would have been more manageable. Does any of this resonate with you?
As always, I hope you all are safe and healthy.
Anne the Vegan 