I read a LOT of articles on motherhood. I don’t really know why, there is just something about wanting to read ANYTHING about ANYONES experience that I find so addicting. Maybe it’s because I’m yearning for the solidarity that someone else out there feels like I do. Or maybe I’m always on the hunt for someone to be more articulate about the experience than I have ever been. But recently my pal and inspirational-mama Grace sent me an article that did both those things, and totally floored me. I felt like it summed up a change that I had gone through that I had never been able to find the words for.
In her article The Single Biggest Difference Between Parents and People Who Don’t Have Kids, Laura June describes a Sunday pre-baby, and then post-baby, and it is so bang on, and how the loss of time is difficult to grasp. But she also goes on to say this about the endless balancing act of time and life, which really hit home in a visceral and beautiful way:
This is very stressful for parents as partners, I have found: My husband and I worked together for years and I was still surprised by the amount of collaboration that was necessary to keep our daughter alive. Remember: She must be accounted for 100 percent of the time. That’s a given — “No shit, Laura,” you might say. But mentally, it’s a real accomplishment! And it is weirdly deflating to your sense of self sometimes. Even when I’m alone, my time isn’t wholly mine. I am mentally, often, just partly, somewhere else.
There’s an upside! I don’t want to make it sound like there isn’t. I am the very center of someone’s world and as such am truly never alone — how wonderful and how stifling. How awesome and how weird, after 35 years alone on this big planet, to feel always naked when I walk out of the house with just a purse. What a ride.
Oh the dichotomy of parenthood! So real, and what a wild ride it is. I highly suggest the full article as a must-read for all parents and parents-to-be out there!
And if you have a great #mamaread out there, please send it my way! I guarantee I will love it.
