The Undoing of Modern Motherhood

We had a nanny for a short time after I had my first child. She was a godsend and incredibly wise. I'll never forget what she said to me as I was leaving for work my first day after maternity leave. I was an anxious, sniveling mess. I would save my ugly crying for the drive but saying goodbye to my little baby for 8+ hours felt like death and it was written all over my face. As she was coaching me out the door she said, "motherhood is about letting go a little more each day and being a little less needed each day."

While it is a completely accurate statement and what I needed to get out the door, it pissed me off. I just spent a year of my life incubating, growing, birthing, and sustaining this new little being. I made her. She was "of me" and now I am supposed to just let her go off into the world to be cared for, loved, taught, and shaped by others. HELL NO. That is a raw deal right there.

As much as I resisted this truth, it unfolded the same way it does for every mother. Every day she became a little less of me and a little more of the world. She learned to crawl, then walk, then speak, and soon enough she had her own friends, favorite activities, and a whole world that I wasn't the center of..... she was. And that's where I think modern motherhood gets stuck.

As mothers, we are told to live for our children, and we believe this because when a new baby comes into our life (birthed, adopted, fostered, etc.) we must live for them. If we don't live for them they won't thrive. As mothers, when we welcome that baby into our life, we are undone. Who we were is no longer who we are or ever will be. Motherhood, early motherhood, isn't just the process of birthing a child. It is the process of birthing a new version of ourselves. And we know this. We just don't articulate it well. We don't have language for it. I often hear it called the newborn haze.

I remember during those first three months, known as the 4th trimester, my daughter's essence came onboard. It was so amazing to witness and as I reflect almost 6 years later, I was doing the same thing. I was in a swirl, a cocoon of early motherhood. Change and unease were the only constants. It felt like there were moments of crystalizing clarity around who I was and then it would fade away and I would go back to being undone. But just as she was finding herself more each day, I was too. I just couldn't see it as clearly.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment I realized it was time for me to stop living for her (and her brother) and start living for myself again. I wanna say that shift happened for me sometime around the 3-year-old mark. However, I think for many mothers, that shift or awakening doesn't come. We've bought so much into the idea that we must live for our children that we try to stay tethered to them. Instead of embracing this truth that motherhood is letting go a little bit each day and being needed a little less each day we just keep holding on. Because if we don't we're bad moms. Because if we take an hour for ourselves it means we don't love our kids as much as we should. Because if we put our needs first we are abandoning our children. Because if we value ourselves as much as we value our children we are narcissistic and selfish.

No wonder women are opting out of modern motherhood at a historical rate? We need to change the story. We need to champion mothers (and all parents) who are loving themselves and much as their kids. We need to support each other in finding ourselves again. And maybe above all else, we need to give ourselves permission to believe there can be a different way.