Yesterday, I spoke with a new mom who’s having a rough time. She’s at home with her 7 month old, breastfeeding, doing all the childcare, night parenting, and guilt-ridden for not feeling very happy. Naturally, she loves her son, grateful for the opportunity to be with him, but she feels trapped, lonely, and like every other mom is having more fun. Sometimes it’s so bad she gets into the shower at the end of the day and just cries. She’s crippled by sleep-deprivation, her husband works 12 hours a day, and doesn’t get how awful she feels. He gets to go to work, which is by far the easier job.
Sound familiar?
A few years ago, when my kids were 2 and 4, I ran into an old friend who I hadn’t seen in 10 years. He was divorced with no kids, and was so genuinely excited to hear all about my family. “Wow, you’re a Mom,” he said. “That’s amazing! What’s it like?”
My response was a shock, like a bucket of ice water thrown at my face. “I don’t like it at all,” I said, with far too much honesty.
His face fell. His jaw dropped. And I instantly knew I had made a terrible mistake. Moms aren’t allowed to feel this way, certainly not allowed to say it out loud.
I began dog-paddled backwards,“Of course I love my kids, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but…Diapers? Mopping up vomit? Bleeding nipples and breast pumps? Being awakened repeatedly through the night and at 5-6am daily for four consecutive years?”
No, the truth is that I like nothing about the actual job, yet I love my kids more than anything else in the world. So I do it anyway, even if I hate it sometimes.
If you’ve ever felt this way, I urge you to be honest with other moms. Write about it. Go on camera and tell the truth. Perhaps if we didn’t expect that mothering would be the most joyous time of our lives, we wouldn’t feel so blindsided and guilt-ridden.
Moving into 2012, I'm taking the opportunity to reflect on 2011, celebrate accomplishments and failures, to learn and grow, reconnect with my husband, and move joyfully forward into the new year with renewed passion and commitment to live from my heart, to follow my dreams, to be fully present and mindful, to keep striving for better balance in all aspects of life, and pass that spirit and optimism onto my family.
You may resolve to recommit to your health, pursue a new passion, reinvent your career, improve your marriage, or whatever you want to achieve in the new year. But when you set your resolutions or goals or whatever you call them, do you ever hear a subconscious whisper of doubt or fear, that you will fail to achieve your goals? It may be so faint you don't hear it, or maybe it's not there at all and you truly believe that you can accomplish ANYTHING you put your mind to. If that's the case, congratulations, you are a rare and exceptional person! Most of us, however, doubt our potential and have a deep-rooted fear of failure.
So I ask myself today, how is this year different? How will I possibly accomplish everything I want to do? Can I really live the life I've always dreamed of? Can I change the things I want to change and lead my family by being an inspirational role model? What fears might prevent me from achieving my goals, and being the mindful mother and woman I want to be?
Life is humbling sometimes, but humility, gratitude and optimism are what propel me forward, to believe that I really can do whatever I set my mind to do.
Thank you 2012 for the opportunity to reach for the stars, and truly believe that I can make all my dreams come true.
Have you ever looked around your new moms group, and worried that all the other moms looked happier? Compared your sugary, store-bought birthday cake with your neighbor’s Martha Stewart-like, pirate-carrot-cake-sculpture? Did your kid ever ask, “Mommy, how come we live in such a small apartment?”, or my favorite kid question – “Are we rich?” Welcome to parenting in NYC, the global capital of the most absurdly insane, competitive parenting culture!
Nearly every day, I second-guess my kids lack of scheduled enrichment activities. Like a schizophrenic whisper, I hear constant echoes of self-doubt playing in my head: Should I have signed my daughter up for swimming? What if our son doesn’t get into NEST+m? When should we start musical instruments? I have to remind myself daily to let go of my fears that I’m not doing it right, that my kids are missing out on important opportunities because I'm too lazy or slow to get them enrolled in the best programs or schools.
So, in this surreal dog-eat-dog parenting world, where it’s often every parent/child/family for themselves, how would it feel if you consciously decided to ignore the Joneses completely? What if you decided to not buy into the race at all? How might you slow down, ignore the competition, and simply focus on playing the game? Not running or winning or losing, but skipping and playing with your kids...
If any of this resonates with you, I invite you to think about your family and what they really need. Not what you or your kids think they should do (because everyone else is doing it), but what they really, more-than-anything-else-in-the-world need.
Do they need more scheduled activities in their hectic kid lives? Do you really want to spend afternoons and weekends shuttling your kids around from soccer to swimming to ballet to piano? Are your choices driven by what your friends and neighbors are doing, or by what truly serves you and your family?
Whether you’re parenting a baby, toddler, or school-age kids, I bet your kids want you to get down on the floor and play with them. I bet more than anything, they would enjoy that more than music or swimming or piano classes. Focused time playing with your kids is more valuable than any enrichment, it doesn't have to be scheduled, and the best BONUS—it’s free!
Maybe you've never felt this, or maybe you simply can't admit it to yourself. But have you ever looked around your home—surrounded by diapers and strollers and sippy cups—and felt like you were trapped in a bad film? Have you ever woken up and thought (while your child is endlessly whining and demanding your undivided attention), My God! What have I done? I have. Many times.
My childless girlfriend casually said one day, "Oh you probably can't even remember what it was like before kids..." Um, no, not exactly, I thought. I honestly DO remember life without kids, and frankly, I miss it sometimes. I miss sleeping in and the Sunday Times and spontaneous adventures and a life without constant interruptions!
Don't get me wrong. I love being a mom and I wouldn't trade my kids or life for anything else. But if I'm honest with myself, being a parent is a lot of undocumented, hard work, with very low ROI (return on investment), and it's not glamorous. Not at all.
My solution? Have a life of your own outside your family (I'm literally writing from a hammock on a Mexican island with aforementioned childless friend). It will give you the opportunity to miss your kids, and be fully present when you return. So go ahead, leave your family every once in a while! I promise it will be worth every moment you are away, and your family CAN survive for a few days without you.
I write and think a lot about work/family balance, and how difficult it is to find you’re groove. Whether you’re the primary caretaker, work at home or in an office, it’s hard to find enough time to get it all done without having a nervous breakdown. (It’s normal, so stop beating yourself up about it!)
The question I’m thinking about today is not about how you should juggle X, Y or Z in order to find balance. The question is, are you HAPPY? Are you doing what you think you SHOULD or MUST do, or are you doing something that really INSPIRES you and brings you JOY? Are you living the life you want to model for your kids? Most of us don’t take the time to ask these questions, or put happiness on our priority list, but we should.
Because at the end of the day, your kids don’t care about the square footage of your home, the size of your stock portfolio, or the brand of your car. They just want unconditional love, and happy parents.
Seven years ago today, I became a mom. It was as humbling then as it is today. While I strive for a Utopian work-family balance, sometimes I feel like a miserable failure.
Reflecting back on those first days and weeks and months of motherhood, I can't say I enjoyed it much. I felt awful. I had extreme difficulty with breastfeeding; I felt overwhelmed and overly-anxious, lonely, crippled with sleep deprivation, and torn between staying home with my baby or going back to the job I previously loved. I felt plagued with guilt and fear, and suffered from severe postpartum depression. I slept about 8 hours a week for roughly 6 months. I thought I was losing my mind.
How I managed to get myself out of this is a long story, but somehow my husband and I were able to reinvent our lives from two parents with full-time jobs and a (wonderful) nanny, to two parents running home-based businesses and ample time for ourselves and our family.
Though often I feel like my family is totally out of balance (and always feel like it's my "fault" if we are), I endeavor to keep us all on track, and have ample time/space for everything, everyone, and be fully present in every moment.
It's extremely challenging to cultivate balance, and feel happy in all aspects of our lives, but I truly believe it's possible. I have a long, detailed strategy of how I balance family and work, but even with all my lists and systems and strategies, it doesn't always work.
In those moments, when everything comes unraveled, I try to not judge myself, because that's just the way it is with kids sometimes. It's a mess, and it's magic, all at the same time.
So all this is to say, keep striving for balance, people. I believe we CAN enjoy our work and family and ourselves, if we make it our top priority.
It’s a fact: new moms judge other moms about their parenting choices. I’ve been there, I know. I’m ashamed to admit, I even lost friends over it. Nearly 7 years later, I can finally understand it more objectively, but it still perplexes and angers me that educated, intelligent women are fighting over how they “should” care for their babies.
Why should you care if your friend co-sleeps and quit her day job to be a full-time, baby-wearing mom? And why should she judge you for sleep-training your baby, and going back to your full-time day job? Is it simply because we’re so insecure about our own choices? Are we so afraid of doing something "wrong" that we judge others because they believe a different method or theory or author? Can we blame baby theory “experts” for pitting moms against mom in these theoretical wars, or do we blame ourselves for falling prey to this bourgeois pettiness?
In Attachment Parenting or The Alternative, I write about how opposing parenting theories are confusing new parents more than ever. I would further argue that this trend is divisive amongst women. Megan Francis, author of The Happiest Mom, writes a humbling account about her struggle to find her own parenting style in a piece, On Labels and Limits: Why I No Longer Call Myself an Attachment Parent.
There’s a lot of buzz in the Mommy-sphere about how moms are divided and feuding over parenting choices. Leslie Morgan Steiner’s book, Mommy Wars: Stay at Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families is a perfect example. It's all shockingly true, and it fries my feminist feathers! Why on earth do women compete about how their kids sleep, or for how long they breastfeed? Sorry Ladies, but I grew up knee-deep in 70’s feminist ideals, and I just don’t get it. What happened to Sisterhood?
I’d love to hear from you about this. Have you lost any friends, or are you at risk of losing any friends over your parenting choices? Please share your experiences! And most importantly, WHAT CAN WE DO RIGHT NOW to make this a better, more supportive world for all moms?
I want to live in a world where parents don’t have to choose between career or family or self; a world in which all parents have meaningful, flexible work, and have ample time to simply be with their families without constantly rushing. I want to live in a world where parents feel fully supported by society and by their communities and by each other. Yes I know it sounds Utopian, but...
The truth is that we don’t live in this world unless we create it. We have to build community, make time for ourselves and demand flexibility from our jobs, or create businesses of our own so we can design our lives to work around our families. It’s challenging to live life the way we really want, but I truly believe we can do anything we set our minds to. So strive for happiness, work less, play more, put yourself on your priority list, and enjoy life as much as you possibly can!
Because really, how many of our kids will ever think, If only my parents had worked harder and made more money!?!
Parenting is really, really hard. I've got 2 kids, 2 years apart, and I'm still humbled daily by the endlessness of parenting. Nobody told me I would have these feelings, but I swear every mom feels them. Even if you don’t admit these things to yourself, guilt may be secretly wearing away at your very core, threatening to take you down. Here are Five Mom Taboos, with correlating Guilt-Liberation Tips.
1. We feel like failures at everything. Whether we work at home, outside the home, or we’re the primary caretaker, we feel like we’re never doing anything good enough. I know you’ve heard these voices in your head: I’m a terrible mom, a lousy wife, a bad friend and I’m so tired, I can’t even do my job!
Guilt-Liberation TIP: Resist multitasking, cultivate efficiency, and re-program those negative voices! You’re not a failure; you’re a mom, you’re doing your best, and that IS good enough. Pinky promise.
2. We let our kids watch more TV than we admit. I’ve finally stopped agonizing about this now that my kids are 4 and 6, but I am guilty of lying to friends about how much TV they watch, and I know the lies are reciprocal!
Guilt-Liberation TIP: Chances are, if you’re reading this, your kids have very well-rounded worlds and have a LOT of stimulation. Give yourself a break, and worry about something else!
3. We want to run away. OK, maybe it’s just me, but some days I seriously feel like I just can’t take it anymore. Last week I was feeling particularly cagey from caring for sick kids ALL WINTER, and I thought, if I hear Mommy! one more time, I’m going to die, or leave, or both!
Guilt-Liberation TIP: Thinking about leaving and doing it are different. If your kids are driving you nuts, go away with a girlfriend for a day or a week, so when you come back you, want really want to be there! (I go away with a girlfriend for a week every year and it’s amazing, try it sometime!)
4. We have violent feelings sometimes. Yes, it’s true. We all have them. It’s those moments when your inconsolable baby is screaming at 3am, or your toddler is having a tantrum and hitting you.
Guilt-Liberation TIP: Relax, it’s normal. Yes, you might lose your cool with your kids, and feel TERRIBLE when you do (been there!), but beating yourself up about something you merely thought is a waste of energy.
5. We’re not interested in sex. After childbirth (or c-section), 24/7 hour breastfeeding, between the full time day-job or childcare-job (SO much harder); between laundry, groceries, poops and puke, I’m sorry man, sex isn’t on the priority list!
Guilt-Liberation TIP: You don’t have to pretend to be interested, just throw him a bone every now and again. Or trade for a massage if necessary. It will help your marriage, I promise!
In our race to build careers, create financial security, and amass material things for our families, many of us have forgotten to strive for happiness. Often we’re so off-track, we don’t even know if we’re happy or not. Busy planning for our futures, we don’t stop to think about how our happiness—or lack thereof—affects our kids. Or maybe we think of it, then push it way down out of our consciousness, because there are more important things to do.
The things is, kids don’t care about money or the size of your home or the brand of your car. They just want unconditional love, undivided attention, and happy parents.
Ask yourself if there’s one thing you can do right now to be a happier person. Not a better parent, or a harder worker or a bigger bread winner, just happier.
Maybe you used to play the guitar but put it aside? Maybe you were a dancer but hung up your dancing shoes when you became a parent; or maybe you know (like me), that if you committed to two yoga classes a week, you would be a completely changed and happier person?
If we prioritize our own happiness, we have a better chance of actually being happy, and passing it onto our kids!
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