I’m writing a book about my own experience of becoming a mother. It took me a long time to be able to say that out loud because… I hate memoirs. I hate the perception that I have of them: self important people that think that their lives are so interesting they are worth writing (and reading) about.
I’m writing not because I think I am that interesting or special, but because there was just so much I wish someone had told before I went into that journey.
So tell me, please, just so that I know that I am not crazy, also, so that I might remember some stuff that with time I may have completely forgotten and so I can include it, tell me what surprised you most about becoming a mother, what was your biggest shock or disappointment, how was it different from what you had imagined.
13 comments:
You dont know what love is until you are a mother...
Your boobs leak! Nobody tells you that, it's bad enough being a cow without being an incontinent one . . (And the love as well of course)
Being able to survive soooo many sleepless nights
How Amazing life is when you have a child or children. How you would die for this baby before even giving birth! The second I became pregnant I fell in love! Or how you can love someone UNCONDITIONALLY!!!!!
Honestly it took me some time to really fall in love with my first child.
My surprise was that the baby that came out of me was so different from the one I had imagined and dreamed of during my pregnancy.
I did not know they looked like half cooked humans at first.
That stereotypical “gender differences” do apply to mothers (not necessarily to most women but certainly to most mothers): We are genetically engineered to hear our baby cry and erase the rest of the sounds of the world as if we had an enormous loud speaker inside our head (your spouse keeps on talking and you see his mouth moving, but you only can hear the crying); we do hear our children at night before our partners/husbands do; we become efficient multitaskers while our partners manage to remain (somewhat) in the limbo of procrastination; we “have a call” for balancing work and family (that we answer depending on many factors, but the call does come from our gut not the intellect)… the list goes on.
I can't comment for obvious reasons on substance. But I came across this amazingly lucid comment from Madeline Albright, which, though only marginally relevant to your blog, I felt like sharing. When asked if she regretted devoting her life to her career instead of her kids - and she has three of them -, she answered that we are all individuals making individual choices suited to our talents, desires and needs. ”But,” she added, ”there’s a special place in hell for women who give other women a hard time for the choice they make.”
One thing I do not miss is the loaded down diaper bag. God forbid I leave home without it! No one ever mentioned how just going to 7-11 ( a convenience store a block away) would become a HUGE production!
I wasn't prepared for the sleepless nights and broken sleep :/
I can remember vividly he sleepless nights, but not the pain.
How you promised yourself you'll never behave like your mother did but, somehow, you sometimes act in a very "familiar" way.
How it makes you richer hearing the words "I love you" from your child than your own wages.
I wish I had somehow been better able to trust my gut. I planned to do it, yet when my son was born, I couldn't let go of certain ideas I had about how I wanted things to be. When I finally came to terms with the fact that I was not able to have a drug-free birth or breastfeed exclusively, I became a much better mother, and a much happier woman. I wish I had truly believed it was okay to just do it the easy way so that I could have enjoyed the first 7 weeks of my son's life a little more, instead of beating myself up for almost two months about how things "should have been."
i thought i'd be a natural at mothering like my own Mum but I have found it to be mostly hardwork with a few glimpses of joy.It is getting better now that they are older (4 and 5) but I still resent giving up me and my life and it it seems that is OK with most people. Now I am desperately trying to restart my life.
I read all the books, and tried really hard to be the best mom ever....and I made mistakes.....
Its so difficult to receive a blank canvas, with no instructions on how to handle....and do it the right way with so little information and so many important decisions to make.
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