I'm sitting here thinking about a client of mine who recently had her first baby, not long after I had my second. This person is a bit of a hot mess--she can't take care of her own basic needs, let alone a baby's--and I've worried about how that child is going to fare ever since I found out about my client's pregnancy. Now that the baby is here, things seem to be just as I expected in terms of this baby's basic, essential needs not coming first and not being met. And it makes me angry and sad. Sad for the baby because she didn't ask to be born into this mess and angry at the mom because she wanted this kid, now she has it and she's not doing what she needs to do to properly care for her child. And I know why. Aside from her personality disorder, she's overwhelmed and under prepared for her new normal. Perhaps she thought "how hard can it be to take care of a baby? They don't do anything except eat, sleep and poop." And yet, from what I understand, she's struggling just to keep the baby clean and fed, for a multitude of reasons ranging from financial limitations to sheer laziness and selfishness on her part.
And as much as I want to be angry with her for not acting responsibly, and believe me I am, I also think it's important to point out that she may very well have fallen into a false sense of reassurance that motherhood is a breeze and the illusion that knowing how to mother your offspring is just an inherent trait that all women have. That, like in nature, as soon as the baby pops out our primal instincts will guide us toward knowing exactly what to do in all aspects of the baby, from feeding to hygiene to health issues. And as you may well know, this just isn't true. First-time moms have so much to learn (hell, second- and third-time moms are still learning new things) and it can be a shit show for awhile for all of us, no matter what our pre-existing circumstances are.
As I reflect on my own feelings about motherhood thus far with a 3-year old and a 4-month old, I can totally relate to the fact that so many moms are ill-prepared to meet the hard, shitty realities that come along with motherhood. Sure, squishy babies that smell amazing and adorable baby clothes can make the mom life seem like a Pampers commercial where all you do is laugh and play and roll around with your baby in a field of flowers while they are happy all the time and moms know how to do everything right all the time. But the ugly truth is that parenthood can be a blowout diarrhea shit some of the time. Or a lot of the time. And what pisses me off is that prior to having kids, I never heard my parent siblings or my parent friends ever talk about postpartum depression or feeling like a failure when the kid won't go to sleep at night or crying in the bathroom because the sleep deprivation is so punishing or having the fleeting moments where you're so exhausted and burnt out from this tiny human that came in like a wrecking ball that you think to yourself "what the fuck have I done and can you return babies??" All I ever saw or heard about were the milestones being met--rolling over, crawling, walking, first words--or the oohs and aahs about how cute the baby was. Perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention to catch any of the negative stuff, since I was still so far away from being ready for my own kids. Well consider me on fucking high alert now. Universe, you have my attention.
For starters, the experience I had in the hospital with my first kid felt like being in a room full of rabid telemarketers. I was inundated with people coming and going in my hospital room, and at times it felt intrusive and jarring. Just as I would drift off to sleep, a nurse would come barreling in or the person bringing food would stop by or some other random person. If I was supposed to be relaxing or bonding with baby after 9 months of pregnancy, that objective was drowned out by the guy coming in my room while I had my tits out feeding my son to hock family photo packages. This was especially disruptive when it happened all hours of the night. However, I did appreciate the constant influx of nurses checking in with me, since I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I had a nice balance of nurses who did the basic minimum and nurses who really talked to me and dove into my questions with kindness. Honestly, in the time of COVID, my experience having my second kid was so much more relaxed and serene. Nurses only came in when they had to, there was no one pestering me three times a day about my kid's name for the SSA, and there was definitely no one barging in to ask me about a family portrait package. Plus I got to leave the hospital a day early since I had no issues and they didn't want me to have to be in the hospital any longer than needed, in order to lessen the possible risk of exposure to coronavirus. Despite not being able to have visitors, it was a great experience that second time around.
The first night home with my first kid was a NIGHTMARE. I might still have a touch of PTSD from that horror show. It was so awful that I dedicated an entire earlier post to just the first night home from the hospital. Feel free to scroll back and read it. I won't go into detail here; just know it was a shit show of epic proportions. Looking back now, it was the first of many times to come in which I would find myself crying on the bathroom floor because kids. I'm happy to report that my first night home with my second kid was leaps and bounds better.
Having kids has truly brought all of my neuroses front and center. The germaphobe, catastrophizing control freak that I am shines brightly as a parent. Everything from pinworms to abduction to drowning to him splitting his head open on the driveway because he's such a klutz and beyond are on my daily mental list of fears. And in this time of COVID, you better believe every sneeze or cough that escapes their faces makes me cringe because obviously they have coronavirus. Sometimes I re-fasten my baby's diaper six or seven times because I'm worried the scratchy tab part of the fastener will irritate baby's thigh. Yep.
The sleep deprivation. Man, you thought you loved sleep before kids? Well kiss that luxury goodbye, because you will never get a truly good night's sleep with children in the picture until they grow up and get the fuck out of your house. And even then, I'm willing to bet the farm that I'll still lose some amount of sleep over my kids. Some of my personal experiences with this facet of parenthood tie directly to the fact that I'm a neurotic mess, so this may not be the case for everyone. But certainly in the beginning, the adjustment you have to make to your sleep schedule in order to keep the tiny human(s) alive is no small feat. Again, since I'm a psycho, I can probably count on one hand how many times I've truly had a full night's sleep since my 3 year old was born. Between leaping out of bed at the slightest whine to creeping into his room every two hours to check and see if his hands/face/ears are cold and adjusting the fan or space heater twenty different ways to Sunday to try and achieve the ultimate comfortable temperature in the room, I don't get much sleep these days. The universe threw me a bone with my daughter, in that she was sleeping through the night by 3 months old. Maybe that's late for some but it felt really soon for her to be doing this, so I thought I hit the jackpot there. As I type this, though, she has entered her 4 month sleep regression/growth spurt, so I've had to get up a few times for the past couple of nights in order to feed her. Oh, and the concept of having an infant and a toddler at the same time? I. Am. Tired.
Relationships are difficult enough on their own, but add kids to the mix and you're looking at yet another thing you have to work extra hard at and fall short on and thus will probably immerse you in guilt most of the time. In order to maintain a semblance of a connection with your partner, you have to be able to make room in your physical and mental space-time continuum to spend quality time with that person. As for me, when I've had a baby and a toddler hanging all over me all day, sucking every ounce of patience and energy away from me like leeches, the last thing I want to do at night is put any kind of effort forth to spend quality time with my husband. Don't get me wrong; I love and cherish him. But between getting menial tasks accomplished after the kids go to bed (because that's the only time anything extensive can get done) and making sure I have time to myself beyond just the time I will spend pumping before my own bedtime, I have no energy or inclination to take care of anyone else in my house. Countless nights, myself and my husband go to bed separately and usually without saying good night because I will inevitably pass out in my or my kid's room and won't wake up until the wee hours, at which point he's already gone to bed. We are two ships passing in the night in a bleary haze of fatigue. Why did we decide to have kids again? Kidding...kind of.
Nothing and no one tests your mental limits quite the same way that your kid does. Because, at least for me, there is nothing that presents more of a dichotomy for me than my kids. I love these kids more than I am able to explain or put into words. I fought and endured to have these babies, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be their mom. However, I cannot tell you how many times I have found myself so frustrated and angry over something related to my kids--the tantrums, the crying and screaming, the anxiety, the inability to reason with my toddler that he will not, in fact, die if I pour water on his head to rinse out the shampoo--that I have felt the push/pull of loving motherhood and hating it at the same time. Again, to be very clear: I love my kids. But I have found that I don't always love being a mom. And it's difficult to admit that to myself, even as I type out the thought, because it makes me feel like I'm not grateful for my kids. It makes it sound like I don't appreciate having these beautiful babies, and nothing could be further from the truth. But the hard truth about motherhood is that it's not always puppies and ice cream and sometimes you want to punch your kid in the face because you've asked him to do something for the 20th time and he has yet to do it. Obviously I don't punch my kids or act on these feelings in any way other than rage cleaning (yay!) or hiding in the bathroom for an ugly cry (or just crying right in front of my toddler because why not), but so many times I have found myself wanting to just scream into the void and then questioning my life choices but then smiling and laughing at these asshole kids who put you through the ringer and then make your heart feel so full in the next minute after. It's exhausting and confusing and rewarding and terrifying and beautiful.
At the very least, I hope that my mixed bag of feelings about motherhood and kids is helpful and comforting to hear for another frazzled mom. I hope that the ugly truths that I am happy to openly admit to anyone will reassure other parents that it's normal and ok to find parenthood both awesome and awful at times. I hope that more parents will admit to new parents that there will be dark days and many difficult moments. And I hope that when I think about the truth of motherhood for me, I will remember that the hard times are fleeting and cyclical. And that at the end of the day when I'm passed out in my son's bed with him, exhausted from whatever kind of day it was, I am lucky enough in this life to wake up the next day and do it all over again.
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