Not All About Mommy
When I became a mother, I knew I wouldn’t have as much time to write. Slowly and with the help of my support system, I was able to dedicate a day a week to wordsmithing for about a year. It was so gratifying.
I had many ideas for blog topics, but I focused my energy on different areas of my craft, mainly creative writing, and editing, even though those pieces were left less complete than the articles I could sit down to let flow from start to finish.
And then I had my second child, and all those precious moments of creativity disappeared into the fullness of keeping two humans alive every day (three, if I count myself, and some days, that was a struggle).
I dream of writing now, instead of actually doing it. Could I write more? Of course. But in those precious few hours a week that I may gather for myself, I usually end up cooking, cleaning, or folding laundry on my bed and watching whatever fantasy or crime-thriller series that I am using as my escapism (currently, The Witcher). I have let lie any habits I had created about journaling or daily words on a page. My brain and my body are tired, too exhausted to muster the motivation to do the thing my inner self longs for. I struggle with knowing whether that is giving myself real rest, or it is just an excuse not to pursue my 10,000 hours.
Perhaps there is a small way to re-enter that space, like blogging, I think. It would be easy to get back into, I say. I can complete a thought in a few pages and be done with it, no problem. I don’t have to create an entire world, I don’t have to agonize over character development, it’s basically writing out my thoughts. Why not get back to that? For one, I still adhere to Franz Kafka’s insistence that when it comes to writing, “…even night is not night enough” (I quote him like I’ve ever read his work. The Trial, a copy I brought home from Prague, sits with its pages unturned on my shelf. I do recommend reading the longer quote about writing in solace though, it always speaks to me). Meaning that I need a quiet, peaceful place to immerse myself in my words that is free of clinging children and dirty dishes and noise noise NOISE. That is a someday space, which I look forward to, but it does not often exist in my present.
The other reason I have shied away from it is because I find this blog is a place where my every day experience becomes my articles, and my experience of life has become very narrow. Or at least, that’s how I have been viewing it (spoiler alert: I need to shake up my perspective). So many of the things I valued about my independent, childless life have changed. It’s not a given that I have a conversation with an adult outside of my home every day. And if I do, it is often about the experience of child rearing. I rarely attend events, I don’t work outside the home, I’m not creating, or learning or doing anything that stretches my intellect. I didn’t want this space, like all the others, to be overtaken by the discussion of parenting. It feels like that it has permeated everything in my life, and this I wanted to still be mine alone. I felt stuck. What was I to write, if not about what I was experiencing? How else would I be authentic, honest? I had nothing.
This speaks as well to my fear of being all consumed by my choice to become a parent. That my identity is now tied to my children, or my husband, or my lack of a job title. I have become, what I see, as a shell of myself. I am hopeful that beyond this paling, this shrinking, will be a rebirth. That this shell will fill and harden and become a suit of armour built from the resilience that comes with surrendering yourself to the current of life, whether you were prepared for it or not. Right now, I see myself as small and unproductive. Where I might have described my days in ideas created, words written, or lists conquered, now they are measured in diapers changed, floors wiped, and tantrums weathered. Why do I not measure them in smiles and hugs and sweetness? In the joy of swing pushes, slide giggles, and Lego lands built? In wonder and newness and the depth of the eyes of a child discovering daily? I can do both, I can appreciate the good days where everyone is relatively easy going with eating and sleeping and there is no yelling and very little conflict. Those are lovely days. I hope they start to outweigh the hard days soon.
Will I ever find contentment in this chaotic slowness? Right now, I think not fully. I want a little more. Maybe I want too much? Yet to be determined. Any thoughts?
I do try very hard to be present. To hold those little ones close, as every day they get a little less little. To value this fleeting phase. Much as they say youth is wasted on the young, I think the baby phase is wasted on exhausted new parents, as we trudge through the sleepless nights only to look back on newborn photos of our offspring and wonder how they’ve gotten so big. The days are long, but the years are short.
Everyone always tells me that the experience I am having now, the impact I am having now, is so important. I’m not debating that. But when you go from earning your own income, creating your own work, scheduling a lot of your own hours, interacting with interesting people, and feeling fulfilled and accomplished (or at least trying to), to staying home to wipe butts and play on the floor while tiny demands are yelled at you from morning until bedtime, it can take a very long time to adjust. And nearly four years in, I am still adjusting.
I so often hear “You’re such a good Mother.” I’m flattered, I’m grateful that I am held in that regard. I appreciate it. But being good at something doesn’t mean you always enjoy it. It doesn’t mean it fills you up. And because someone else says it, doesn’t mean you believe it about yourself (although it is nice to hear). As we often are in many areas of our lives, we are hardest on ourselves as parents. I don’t count up the healthy meals cooked or books read or walks in the woods or thousands of hugs & kisses given. I count the triggered moments, the impatience, the yelling, the days of wanting to give up, the wishing I was somewhere else. And I know that’s not healthy. I know my self-esteem is broken and I am trying to stay conscious enough to repair it. I know that as I tell my other parent friends, I need to give myself grace. But when my behaviour upsets my 3-year-old because I can’t self-regulate my emotions, I feel like I am failing. I look at the tears well in his little eyes and think “You monster. Who are you to hurt this little being who has done nothing?”
I don’t let those emotions hang in the air between us. I repair. I apologize. I explain as if to an adult that even Mommy has a hard time when she is frustrated, that my behaviour has nothing to do with you, you are always good inside and I am sorry. If you ask him, “Whose responsibility are Mommy’s emotions?” he will say “Hers.” His nearly 4-year-old brain won’t know the impact of that distinction, but I do hope that I am wiring him for a future where he doesn’t bear the burden of others’ pain. You could ask my one-and-a-half-year-old as well, but she will probably say “Mama” or “Apple” or “Dirt.” Never have I seen a child so happy in a pile of dirt.
I should note that I certainly think blogs dedicated to parenting are excellent resources for support, information, and community building. I am so thankful for the people who dedicate their time to sharing their experiences so we novices may learn from them. I have read many an article on teething remedies, irregular infant bowel movements, breastfeeding tips, and laughed or cried alongside my fellow procreators at the absurdities of watching a young life discover and explore and challenge. For them, I am grateful.
Why am I hesitant, almost embarrassed to write about my experiences as a parent? It’s not because I want to seem like I have it all together, far from it. I like to talk about the messy bits of our human experience. I do think it is that I want to keep something for myself. My longest documents written in the past 4 years have been baby books. I am happy to write those for my children, but this space, I want to be for me. I don’t want to be swallowed by a title that no longer names me as an individual. I want to keep my identity intact. What I need to remember now is that being a parent is a part of my identity, and there can be coexistence.
I am a mother. Deep breath, try again. I. Am. A. Mother. It still feels strange and hard to say, especially doing it without a mother of my own at my side to turn to on the hardest days. I am though. I have a pendant made of my own breastmilk, I wear practical clothes that I don’t mind getting dirty, sticky hands on, I wake up every day at the mercy of the needs of those two little rugrats. And as much as I yearn for freedom, as much as so far it may seem that I am an unrelenting, impatient whinge who isn’t ever going to be satisfied with anything, there are so many beautiful moments in being a mother that I hope stay with me and help me grow into a stronger, more empathetic person.
I am the most important person every day to at least two people in the world, and isn’t that saying a lot? Every morning my children wake up, they think to find me. Dad is also very important and very involved in their lives, but when they cry, they cry for me. I give them a safe space, a cove of warmth to curl their tiny bodies into and wrap their limbs around when what they crave is comfort.
Truly I cannot imagine any deeper feeling than the love you have for your own children. I would go to the ends of the Earth, past the edges of morality for them. I would fight, scream, and slay to protect them. I still sneak into their rooms at night to look at them asleep, giving me peace of mind that they are safe. I watch videos and look at photos of them before I go to bed. I sure enjoy my time away when I get it, and I am privileged to have help to do that, but when you get to kiss their little noses or they tell you they love you, there’s nothing like it.
What a balancing act it all is. Or like being on the inside of a tornado torn between wanting to escape and hoping you never touch the ground.
Here is to letting go and writing what is, and what will be. To leaning into a rose-coloured perspective and counting up the wins instead of losses. To grace, strength, discipline, and gratitude. To not overthinking. To giving in, not giving up.