As I told you guys recently, I didn’t always want to be a mother. In fact, I’ve spent most of my years on this planet actively not wanting to be a mother. That feeling has always been so pervasive that after I had a miscarriage, my brain even briefly convinced me that maybe I didn’t want to have a baby after all.
While I was pregnant, I sometimes worried about the negative ways that having a baby would change my life. I was going to have less time to spend with Drew. I was going to have less time to do the things that I wanted to do. I was going to have less time.
I remember feeling like I didn’t want to become boring. I still wanted to do the things that made me “me,” plus be a mother.
When Nathaniel was first born, while it was awesome and ah-mah-zing, it was also really hard. For me, part of the difficult transition was going from being me-centered to baby-centered. I wasn’t accustomed to putting someone else first. I’d spent 40 years here and was never required to put anyone else’s needs above my own, even though I sometimes chose to do so.
People always talk about how difficult it is for women over 35 to get pregnant. What you don’t hear as often is how hard it can be for an “older” first-time mother to relinquish part of her life. A life that has been hers alone to live as she pleased for years.
I remember how weird I felt when I first became a mother. Good weird and bad weird. A lot of the bad weird was due to a mixture of the radical postpartum estrogen drop and depression I experienced. But some of the bad was due to me, and some of my feelings about what it meant to be a mother.
During those first several weeks, I tried to console myself by reading things like Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman and articles like this one in New York Magazine. I started to feel less alone, like maybe there were some mothers like me out there. Mothers who didn’t want to be full-time stay-at-home moms, not because they were especially career driven, but because they knew they would go insane if they spent that much time with their baby/having to do baby things.
And then there’s the guilt. The overwhelming omnipresent guilt that you also give birth to when you expel that baby from your uterus. I’d always read about the damned if you do/damned if you don’t part of motherhood. There’s always a tradeoff. “They” say you can “have it all,” but really, you can’t. You can have all of one thing or you can have part of everything. That’s the choice. I think that applies to a lot of facets of your life, not just raising children. And unfortunately, in my case anyway, sometimes when I choose to do something for me I feel guilty because I’m not doing something with or for Nathaniel.
For instance, I’ve met some new friends who I’ve just started getting together with for a few hours on Sunday mornings to have breakfast and/or write. I’m really enjoying getting to know these women and I’m having so much fun. But there’s still that part of me that feels guilty when I’m gathering up my stuff and kissing Nathaniel goodbye. Then there’s the other part of me that would be so bummed out if I decided to skip breakfast and writing to stay home with Nathaniel. Then I feel guilty about feeling that way. So, to sum it up, I feel guilty about leaving him and guilty about how I feel when I think about not leaving him.
Then there’s the guilt/darkness/gratitude cycle nestled snugly inside my brain. Seriously, we have to go to the freaking playground again? It is so mind numbing. (Eye roll, sigh) I want to write. I want to go have coffee. Or go to the movies with my husband. Or read a book. Or sleep. I love Nathaniel. I really do. So much. I shouldn’t even be thinking this way. There are so many women out there just waiting for the day they become a mother. Or what about the women who can’t ever have children? Or those who’ve lost their children? Oh my God, I can’t even imagine how horrible that would be. No, I can imagine it. (Tears spring to eyes) It would be absolutely devastating. I’m lucky. I’m really really lucky to have this child. I’m grateful to be his mother. He loves the slide. It’s so much fun to see the look on his face before his feet touch the ground. Then, genuinely happily, “Sweetie, are you ready to go to the playground? Let’s go!” Rinse. Repeat.
Sigh. Women.
Even though I’ve been able to create some sort of balance in my life, I still have days when I just want to take 24 hours and do nothing but what I absolutely want to do that day. What used to be commonplace now seems like such a luxury. Would spending time with Nathaniel be part of that day? Of course. And I’m not just saying that so I won’t look like a bad mother. I love my son and I love spending time with him. Just not all of it.