Some Thoughts on Becoming a Mother

A few months ago, an acquaintance asked me if I had advice about raising a son.  I think I said to just let him play in the dirt and have lots of rags on hand for clean up.  Later, I thought about things some more and came up with what follows below.  A lot of it is stuff I'm still trying to learn and some is stuff I wish I'd know when I had my first kid.

Expect that you will be utterly overwhelmed with a newborn. Expect to get very, very little done that's visible to anyone. In truth, you will be working harder than you probably ever have before. Your body is producing nourishment for your child, as well as healing from the most Herculean effort it has ever performed. The Church in her wisdom gives you some time off from services. Take it. Embrace it. I was *barely* ready to go back to church at six weeks postpartum. I think I took a very long nap that afternoon. Think of those six weeks as the Church giving you permission to generally skip out on commitments. If people come over to see the baby, they have to help you. Period. You should not have to play hostess to anyone. If you're used to being a bit of a super woman, learn to ask for help.

Speaking of sleep, whatever you have to do to get enough to function, do it. Lots of people recommend co-sleeping, at least for the first few months, as a way to facilitate sleep. I was surprised that my second child really didn't seem to like sleeping with me after about a month. He did much better when I moved him to a bassinet in my room, then into a crib in his own room. I don't know why; my first son would probably still be sleeping with us if we let him.

Be sure to get plenty to eat. I remember one afternoon, with my first baby, being famished and yet feeling unable to set my son down for a second to get up and eat, because he would cry. Finally, my husband came home, took the baby from me and ordered me to eat. Don't let it come to that! Keep protein-rich snacks within easy reach, as well as plenty of water. Get a sling so you can carry your baby and use your hands. And, really? It wouldn't have killed either me or the baby if I had just put him down and made myself a sandwich.

Try, as much as possible, to let go of judgements about whether you are a good mother or a bad mother. If you love your child and are trying your best to do what's best for him, you are a good mother. Trust that. Really, truly, you are a good mother. YOU ARE A GOOD MOTHER.

Let go of perfectionism. Life is not perfect. You cannot give your child perfection. You CAN give him love.  

A few practical notes about screaming infants: Get Happiest Baby on the Block, read it and internalize it. You may feel silly swaddling a teddy bear or a pillow, but do it anyway. If you get the short stick and have a colicky baby, you will be so grateful not to be trying to learn to calm him on the fly. My second was colicky. There were nights when he would scream for four hours solid. Even with the Happiest Baby techniques. Sometimes my ears would burn, and I would feel the adrenaline coursing through my limbs. I could see where the edge was at those times. The edge, falling over the edge, terrified me. That was when I knew I had to put the baby in the swing and leave the room. I would swaddle him tightly, secure him in the baby swing (a dead useful piece of baby equipment you can find for a song on craig's list), and go drink some wine and eat something. I wouldn't go back to him until I could feel that the adrenaline was gone. Usually he would be asleep. Sometimes he would want to nurse and then sleep, even though I'd been trying to nurse him before. Please, please, if you have a colicky baby, don't let anyone guilt trip you if you feel afraid or angry at your baby. It's just a feeling. It doesn't make you a bad mother. It just means you've been pushed very, very far. Know when to call in reinforcements. If there aren't any, know when you have to give yourself a break before you break down utterly.

"It takes a village" has become trite, but it's repeated because it's true. We are raising children in a very strange way--away from kinfolk and friends. Cultivate friendships with other parents whose parenting you mesh with. If you need advice about how to deal with difficulties, call your parents or in-laws first, as long as you trust them to give you good advice. If you don't feel you can ask your family, turn to your friends. People who know you and know your husband and your child are going to be able to give much better help and advice than strangers on a message board or books.

Be cautious about accepting advice that doesn't feel right to you. You are the expert on your child. You can learn a lot from books about the bell curve of normal child development, but you can't get a recipe for how to raise the perfect child. There aren't recipes for this. Anyone who claims otherwise is a charlatan who should not be trusted. Beware, especially, of any advice that puts you in an adversarial relationship to your child. Everyone in a family is on the same team. I'm sorry to say that there are a lot of Protestant child raising books that are based in erroneous ideas of what a human person is and which therefore advocate this adversarial approach. While you might be able to glean some useful tools or ideas, I would be very, very cautious about them, especially as a vulnerable new parent. If you can find them, I highly recommend the Sr. Magdalene books on children. She may not have had physical children, but she has a heart full of love for them. I was blessed to meet her and hear her talk before I got married. When I feel very down about my mothering, reading a few pages of her books can set me straight again. In person, she is full of love and warmth, and this comes out beautifully in her books as well.

A final thought: there is a lot in the ether now about losing the baby weight and getting back into your pre-pregnancy jeans. Just be aware that though you may lose the weight, you will probably never get your pre-pregnancy shape back. We are, as a culture, deeply uncomfortable with bodies that tell our life stories. The thing is, motherhood imprints itself on your very bones. I have read of anthropologists who claim they can differentiate between women who have given birth and those who haven't, even a skeleton, by examining the pelvic bones. Embrace the fact that your body is now the body of a mother, as much as you can. It can be hard--nothing in our culture tells us to love our stretch marks or our leaky boobs or any of the other changes that go with becoming mothers. But we should! We should love our strong bodies that nourished a life, and we should go easy on ourselves and our bodies as we recover from the great work of gestating and birthing a human being. Some women are able to start working out and running right away. Others of us need to ease back into vigorous activity. Give yourself permission to go slowly if you need to.