Mom Talk – Part 3

Enjoy 40 minutes of yours truly reading in my bedroom while hiding from my children. See if you can hear the gentle fizz of my gin and tonic. Right at the end you may even hear Rowena barking at the mailman.

Question: What do you wish you had known about motherhood?

I’ve never been one who was interested in listening to advice. I resent it. I’m big into learning the hard way. The thing that came up a lot talking to moms is that even if we had been told certain things, it’s quite possible we wouldn’t have listened and we almost certainly wouldn’t have understood. That said, what I wish I had known about motherhood is that the intensity of my feelings would be so strong and that the variety of feelings I feel are normal and okay. I’m probably not the only one who feels them even if I can’t find an online message board about them.

But it’s hard to admit to certain things like— sometimes I don’t like my kids. I love each one of them so much it hurts. When they are being sweet to each other or to me or my husband, when they are playing a game or listening particularly well, when they do things that are adorable like read a book to themselves or each other or when they reach milestones I feel the love and I’m all over them. But when they are screaming at me or kicking their siblings or digging their talons into my arms or excluding one another from games or any number of other things, and when that bad behavior happens to coincide with my moments of impassioned rage, I really don’t like them at all and it scares me because I feel more bad feelings than good. I wish I had known I would feel so conflicted so much of the time.

No matter what moms said in response to this question, the theme running through the answers is that the reality of motherhood did not meet their expectations. In so many ways. Especially based on what is portrayed in movies and the media. Social media is a problem.

Moms wish they knew: that they would feel so much pressure and judgment; how physically exhausting it would be; how emotionally exhausting it would be; how hard breastfeeding is (no really – breastfeeding is going to hurt roughly infinity times more than you think. Breastfeeding is never what anyone expects); how to give a bath; how hard recovery from labor can be; that it’s okay and necessary to ask for help; to make more playdates; how important it is to build a community; how big a time commitment it is; the feelings of shame, guilt, and helplessness; that it is a roller-coaster; that it’s okay to make mistakes; that it’s normal to be miserable; that it is constant and never-ending; that they are like you and not like you in ways that will be hard to tolerate; that it will be hard but worth it; how much they are absorbing even from an early age; how hard it is; how lonely it is; that most babies don’t sleep through the night; that night nurses exist; that their bodies would change; that there is no right or wrong; and that time is no longer your own.

1. Shit. I’m still thinking. Say the question again? I’m not sure yet. Something about how it brings out your insecurities. How it magnifies your own insecurities. How much it brings out your own insecurities. Like how much you question your decisions— something like that. Something like— mothers secretly and not so secretly judge us? I don’t know if I like that; let me think again.

As someone who has a fear of judgment I didn’t realize how much our decisions on parenting make us feel judged by others. How much pressure we put on ourselves.

I got it. I got it. As someone who fears judgment, how much I would analyze every parenting decision I made both small and large. I over-think everything I do.

2. How physically exhausting it is and emotionally exhausting. I figured that it would be tiresome. Not tiresome. I figured that I would be tired. I knew that whole you’re never gonna sleep again; you’re always going to worry, but it really is exhausting—physically exhausting— and I didn’t grasp just how exhausting it would be. I didn’t realize that it would continue to be physically exhausting even after the infancy stage where they’re sleeping through the night you’re still just physically exhausted and trying to get everything done and trying to be every thing to every body— you know wife and mother and entrepreneur. It’s all fucking hard.

3. This is not a fun, exciting, sexy answer but I wish I had been more educated about things like breastfeeding and just— caring for the baby? Because I feel like we don’t have that village anymore like people used to have where their mothers and grandmothers lived in the same town and everyone used to come over and help. I just felt like I had no support in that sense and I felt— I had to hire someone? To help me do that? This is something that your body does naturally; how is it I have to pay someone $500 to show me how to breastfeed? I wish I had been more educated on the little things like bathing the baby. I know that’s a very technical answer but that made motherhood very difficult the first time around and unnecessarily.

4. I wish I had realized— and of course it’s all through current perspective— I wish I had realized how much more I would want to be around when they were teens more than when they were little, little. Like when they were infants and I was taking my maternity leave— I always worked full time— and I was taking my maternity leave and I thought: oh this is when I really want to be with them and it was true. But when they’re teens and they needed to be guided and shaped and I wanted to sort of know what’s up and they’re less communicative and they have more free will but it’s all potentially higher risk— that’s when I felt like I would have reversed the paradigm for myself, you know? Like I would have taken— it’s not plausible— but I would have taken leave when they were transitioning to high school or right before college, you know, to spend the time, to have the conversations without eye contact.

You can’t know how all of a sudden when they get more freedom, when they make more decisions, they accept more risk. And you want to let them take the risk, but you want to guide. And if you’re someplace else for 9, 10 hours a day it’s harder to know whose house they’re at and how to nurture friendships that you want to nurture. You can’t stop a friendship with a teenager but you can not encourage it; you can not facilitate it, but you can facilitate others. You can be the invisible hand. There’s a whole invisible hand in teenagers. I have not found teenagehood to be this super problematic, confrontational situation but it is very different communication, a very different level of need. Super different. They are functionally completely capable but their frontal lobes are not developed by like three miles. The slope of physical growth slows down in teenagehood but the emotional-mental capability growth slope is just stunning.

5. Let’s come back to that one. That’s a tough one. There’s a lot of things I wish I knew about labor.

I think what’s tricky about this question is that I’m so early on in motherhood. My oldest is three so I just feel like— what do I wish I had known? Well there are things I guess I wish I had known up until now but I have a long way to go. But I would say up until now? What I wish I had known are these little things, the decisions that you wrestle with, even a week or two after you make the decision you’ll feel confident that you made the decision and did your due diligence for it and did the best thing you could have for you kid regardless of what the outcome was. Becaue— I just wrestle with everything. I Google, like, the silverware that the kids should have when they’re, like, one and learning to eat. Why do I have to spend an hour on Amazon reading reviews? Just pick forks! So it’s little things like that and the bigger things that we talked about. And again, with the advice to the woman that’s about to have the kid, just know that love prevails at the end of the day. So whether you were yelling for twenty minutes because they were messing around or whatever happened, you can always make up for it; there’s always time to make up for it and give that bigger picture. I think that’s what I’d say. The small stuff is what makes you a mom, I guess, but try not to sweat it.

6. Well so I’ve been a mom now for 5 years, which is not a long time. 5 and a half years, which is not a long time, and I think that there’s definitely been already a huge transition in the kind of mom that I was. When my older daughter was first born I was a perfectionist and didn’t allow anybody to help me with anything. I think that over the years I’ve become a little bit more— a little less crazy and a little bit more willing to have other people help. What I wish I would have known initially was that I should have probably started that sooner. Like, I should have just let people help me out sooner. And I think I’m still realizing things about motherhood that I wish I would have realized earlier, like how important it is to have play dates and how important it is to have the community around you as well. I’m very lucky in that I have very strong— and I’ve always my entire life— had a very strong support system within my family so I never really felt the need to go outside of that but just for my kids’ sake I need to make sure that I am reaching out to the community as well. So I probably would have wished I would’ve known that earlier on.

7. There’s a couple things. If you had asked me this soon after birth I would have said I wish I would have known that those first few months are not anything like what’s depicted in movies or when you go to visit friends who’ve had babies. I think what I struggled with a lot in the beginning is that I was feeling very overwhelmed. I was in pain, my body was recovering, I felt like my husband’s life had gone back to normal and my life had completely gone upside-down and I felt really guilty about that. I felt really awful and I had this battle in my head because I’m like: this is supposed to be this magical time. I’m supposed to be over the moon and delighted but actually I’m scared; this is really hard; I don’t know if I can do this day in and day out for the rest of my life. Those first few months— especially after the first child— you’re feeding, I couldn’t get her to sleep, I couldn’t get her to, you know, do anything. So at that time I wish that when I had gone to see friends’ babies or cousins’ babies or when I watched movies or documentaries or shows or whatever that there was often a more realistic depiction of what it was really like to have a baby. Because I think, like, had I known other people went through the same thing I would have felt a lot better and I wouldn’t have beaten myself up about it as much as I did. And I really did. And it was one of those things where I felt like if somebody came over to see the baby I had to look perfect and my face had to be on and I had to make it appear as though everything was under control even though it absolutely wasn’t. And so I wish people had been a little bit more forthcoming and a little bit more real about the actual experience so that when it happened you know it’s a roller-coaster and you know there are moments that are great and there are moments that are really challenging but it gets better over time. And I think that’s the message that’s huge especially in those early months.

I think now— and not that I’ve had the experience of raising a teenager— but I think now what I wish I had known before I became a mother is the way that children are being raised in our generation, the time commitment I think is very different to how it was in our parents’ generation. I don’t think I fully appreciated how much is involved in raising a kid today. And part of it is keeping with the Joneses: part of it is like I feel like if everybody else is doing all these activities and all these things, your kids kind of have to just to keep up. And whether or not that’s true or false I’ve yet to determine in my own mind because I have my days where I’m like no, you know, they’ve gotta do something so sign them up for tumbling. And then I have days where I’m like no this is crazy and they’re overscheduled and they need free time and down time and time to just be creative. And so I toy with that still. But I think that I completely underestimated the level of involvement and the level of planning and presence of parenting today. Because I compare it back to what it was like when our parents had kids and, you know, I remember riding my bike and going to my friends house and going to the park and that was normal then and that’s not normal now. And if you want to take your kids to the park you are there and you’re gonna sit there for a few hours, which is fine and I think it’s great but I think had I known that in my twenties, let’s say, then perhaps I would have picked a certain career path that would have allowed me to commit that time. And obviously hindsight is 20/20 so I can say that now but actually even if I planned a goal and become an entrepreneur and had my own business and had the flexibility to be with the kids all day I think that’s still not right for everybody and I think that’s an important message too. I think there’s no one way to parent. There’s no one perfect solution, at least for me. I live with this mom guilt and I wonder if it would have been better if I wasn’t at work for the number of hours that I’m at work for.​

8. In a sense I don’t have a wish list. I’m perfectly fine with not knowing what I’m getting into and, you know, I could fail. I could, you know, maybe later I’ll regret; maybe I should do this better, but I think it’s just life as a mother. I look at my mom, I look at my mother-in-law how they brought up my husband. He’s pretty good in my mind. We all have our own way of figure things out. So I don’t really have a wish list right now.

9. What do I wish I had known about motherhood? I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer to that one.​

10. I think that people have very romantic ideas about motherhood. And I think that if someone had just said to me almost, like, appealing to the practical side of it, sometimes life just gets messy and you just have to go with it. And sometimes in the situation you’re in with your child whether it’s over discipline or over something else you have to just go with the flow. And just to be flexible and understand that life can be messy and not react to every little thing. Just kind of, just relax more I think.

I think people get very tense. You know, I have to do things this way and they have this idea and they go into this very type A mode and there can’t be any sugar and there can’t be this, there can’t be that. I think there’s so many rules that come at moms. And sometimes I think you have to take a breath and say let’s just go with the flow. And let me find out what he’s about. And let me not put all these things that come at me in the media that tell me how to raise my child and let me just see who my child is going to be and let him take shape naturally. And instead of trying to mold him into me, let him be him. And let him find out who he is. And I think that’s really important. Let him be him and not superimpose too much of us on him, and, you know, let him just have his own self.

And I think also there’s a lot of guilt that moms are given. Everything you can find a way to feel guilty about, whether it’s you wake up in the morning and he didn’t eat all his breakfast and— oh my gosh he didn’t eat all his breakfast— like there’s thousands of things in a day that you can feel guilty about. And I wish someone had just said to me why don’t you silence that for awhile. Why don’t you put that in a box and close the shelf kind of thing. Don’t immediately assume that you need to feel guilty about something; sometimes things just go wrong and you just have to let them go wrong. You have to fail. You have to fail. And we’re in such a no-fail society— don’t fail—and it’s like you have to fail. And then you figure it out.

I tell my son that all the time, I’m like when you fail, that’s when you figure out. Let’s talk about why something didn’t work. So maybe we can figure out next time why it can go better. That’s how we learn. There is no perfect. Even my son does that now— when he draws— he immediately rips off the paper and he wants to start over again. And I said to him, “no, just use what you’ve got.” And he says, “well no, Mommy, I drew the stem the wrong color; I wanted to make it green but I made it brown.” I said, “so draw over it. You don’t have to start over with new paper; don’t waste the paper. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Just flip it over and use the other side or just color over it.” And I’m like, “it looks beautiful the way it is. Why do you think it’s wrong? There is no wrong.” I tell him that all the time. The wrong thing you can do is turn it over and start over again. I’m like, just fix it from where you’ve got it. And sometimes he likes that. He thinks about it. And I try to get that into his head.

He does that with a lot of things now where if he doesn’t have success right away he gets very impatient. He swings at the bat and he misses; I say to myself, he’s 4 years old, of course he’s going to miss. Just keep at it and eventually you’ll get it. But we have to be more— in terms of society— just less guilt, less being afraid to fail. Those are the two big things. Stop injecting guilt into everything. Stop injecting this fear of failure into everything. And I think that it’s important to just enjoy life; that’s what we want him to do. We don’t want him to feel guilty about things and we don’t want him to feel that he has to feel obsessed with failing at things. He just has to try. And if he fails, okay, he’ll try again. Big deal. And eventually he’ll get there. And if he doesn’t, okay we’ll try something else. But we’re just too obsessed with that. It’s just too many opportunities for moms, in particular, to feel guilty about things and I think it’s on the TV it’s in everything. I think we just need to turn it off and just push that button and say no. Let’s just be organic about it and do things in our own way and if it backfires, it backfires. We can live with that. We learn to live with a lot of things. I can learn to live with failure.

11. That it’s okay to make mistakes as a new mother and not to be too hard on yourself.

12. Daughter: Well I did have a certain mental picture when I was pregnant of what it would be like to have a baby and it was all incorrect. I somehow pictured myself— like, I ordered the Anne of Green Gables miniseries on DVD, and I know they’re not supposed to watch screens, but— I thought he would come out older. And also loving Anne of Green Gables. And that I would wear a chiffon dress and we would like, walk around talking about Avonlea. I don’t know, like, that sounds insane but I did order it so it wasn’t totally a humorous thought; I took it semi-seriously. And then I met him and he was like, you know, a newborn child who had no interest in Anne of Green Gables and maybe never will—

I don’t know I think that one thing that I would say I wish someone would tell you is that there’s no use in picturing what it’s going to be like. Which I think some people did. I’d say, like, “how do you spend the day?” and they’re like, “I can’t— I don’t know. I just did it and I don’t know.” But I would say just trying your best to be present with the child and not coming in with too many expectations of what it will be like to spend your day with a baby because it’s more fun and also more boring and also more challenging than you might picture. All of those at once.

Mom: And I think that I wish someone had talked more about postpartum. In the early 80s people really didn’t talk about postpartum. So if you were, and I had postpartum— not terrible postpartum— but I felt different. I felt like there was no connection. She was born in January and I remember we lost our heat and looking out a window with all this snow and no heat on the 6th floor of our apartment in New Haven and thinking, “I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing I can do. I have no heat. I’m glad I’m not that attached to her—” She knows that story.

Daughter: I only know because she told me because I was crying a lot when she saw me and— I mean I use humor a lot to get around things— but I would say, like, I feel like at night he’s crying and my husband picks him up and I’m hearing this song from the Graduate in my head— Sounds of Silence— looking out the window being like: I went to Amsterdam once— I was at a party— Those are all parts of me that you feel like you’re not gonna get back. And in a way you do and in a way you don’t, I think.

Mom: Do they talk about postpartum more?

Daughter: Yes.

Mom: So it’s not a shock. I love the television shows that, you know, they have a baby and then— like, my husband and I watch Big Bang and one of the characters has two little babies like a year apart. But we never see those babies. And she goes back and he goes to the lab and she goes back to her job and there’s never a talk of— some other character comes in who owns a comic book store but we never see these babies; they never cry. And the reality of: who’s taking care of these babies? What it really feels like to be a parent. It’s 24 hours. It’s 24 hours.

Daughter: People talk about postpartum depression like, “No shame.” “It’s hormones. You can’t help it. It’s a chemical” and I don’t know if this sounds too cynical but it’s also situational. It really is a hard time that people are going through. It was not helpful to me when I was pregnant when people would say “this is the easy part” because I had gestational diabetes and I was tired and I was trying to finish my book and I was like don’t tell me that. This is already really hard.

Mom: And now we look for postpartum. My family— I had left a long time ago— but my mother was working and so my husband and I had a baby by ourselves without any help. Both of our parents lived in New Jersey. She was born January 18th. I went in on December 1st because she was placenta previa. I should have had someone from the hospital come in and talk to me. You have all the makings of postpartum which now we look back: bad pregnancy, separation from sources of support that you might have. So when it was time for them to release her I thought, what kind of people are they to give me a baby? I’ve been here. This is where I’m comfortable; I’ve been living here for 2 months. Can’t we just live here in the hospital? It’s better.​

13. I don’t know what I would say I wish I had known. I don’t know if I have a good answer for that one.

14. I mean you kind of know this or you’re at least told this but that your kids do end up being a lot like you! So maybe some of the things that you did to your parents you get back. Like I said, that is kind of known already, but I guess I didn’t know how much that would be true. I’ll admit it: I’m stubborn. And I’m seeing that in my daughter right now big time. I guess, you know, that the challenging days really wear on you sometimes but then the good days are so worth it. I’m trying to think if I have anything else to say with that.

Yeah, I don’t know, I guess just that not to be afraid to really ask for help and how much help we would really need especially with two full-time jobs and all that kind of stuff. We’re really grateful for that; I’m glad we’ve been able to work that out because I know that’s a big stressor for a lot of people. It really does take a village.

15. I think one of the things I think I’ve learned going from— for example when my first was let’s say 6 months old I don’t know that I was overly focused on showing him letters and colors because I was like, he doesn’t understand what’s going on. And I feel like now I appreciate more that even if they’re not articulating a response they’re really absorbing. It’s not like he’s delayed in anything but I feel like the second time around I’m more— I think that they— I feel like this is not a great answer to this question. I think that they are absorbing so much before they actually are articulating and I love the teaching aspect of it and I feel like one of the things I’ve learned that I appreciate is that you can start that very early. They’re not just sort of little blobs. They are— what’s the word, satient? beings. That’s not the word it’s something like that. Now it’s going to bother me. I’ll look it up. I like carefully chosen words and when I don’t have it, it upsets me. “Satient – capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively.” It’s not the right word but it’s fine.

16. Nothing. I kind of like figuring some stuff out for myself. I like the journey of it. Because you figure out a lot about who you are and what you value when you become a mother. What’s important to you is what you teach your kids. So you learn, you re-learn about the simple, basic things of who you are again.

17. I think that it’s really hard. I think nobody talks about that. I think everyone doesn’t want to scare anyone. But I wish someone would have said to me: you’re not going to feel like yourself for six months. If you cry every day that’s normal. I had a best friend who— I was literally crying every day with my older son and my husband went to talk to her husband and he was like, my wife did the same thing. But all I saw with my friend was, like, her great posts of her baby on Facebook. Everyone’s baby is smiling and they looked like they were just so peaceful and I had to hold my son for 2 months. He was like literally attached to me. I held him for two months and so I felt like you should tell people it’s really hard. You’ll get through it: it ends. But it’s really hard and no one tells you that. Until the baby comes. But even then it’s not— no one talks about, like, how miserable they were. I feel like it’s just starting to now— there’s all these Facebook groups out. When I had my first I felt like there was nothing and nobody talked about how hard it was and I felt like I was completely alone. Which meant that a) I shouldn’t have become a mom because if this is so hard and I’m feeling so badly I had no right to be a mom and b) I had no idea that other people felt the same way. Nobody wanted to talk about it because then you feel like a bad mom. That you’re miserable. I remember thinking: I don’t think I should have done this. I loved him. I didn’t want to hurt him; I loved him very, very much. But I was like, if I could go back right now I probably would. Like if someone asked me right now if I would go back, I think I would have said yes. I wouldn’t say that now but at the time, within the first 4 months, I think I would have. And I think that’s very common and I don’t think anybody until now has talked about that and I felt like people were like, “oh it’s great, it’s so lovely, you’re going to love your baby so much right away.” And I didn’t have an issue where I didn’t love him right away but I definitely just felt like my job was just to keep him alive. That is my job: keep him alive, love him, keep him alive. It wasn’t— there wasn’t a connection yet until maybe a month later where I’m like I’m keeping him alive because I love him so much— it was just like, this is a being, you keep him alive. It was almost like a job.

18. I wish I had known that many babies do not sleep through the night and that it’s normal and it’s just part of motherhood and there’s things you can do to help like get a night nurse. I mean that wasn’t part of my knowledge of motherhood at all. I wish I had been a little bit more forgiving of myself when things were difficult and realize that it was difficult for lots of moms and not just myself. But I don’t think I really would have gone back and changed much, I just would have given myself some more insight.

19. I don’t know. I’m one of those freaky people that will read every book— when I zero in on something, I become very passionate about it: I’ll read books about it, I’ll ask 50 million questions to people; so I really felt very prepared for motherhood. I felt ready. When things happen I don’t feel, in the moment, overwhelmed. I kind of do what needs to be done. So I don’t know. Ask the question again? I wish I had known with my daughter that my breasts would change. I wish I had known. Because they were cute and perky. And my nipples changed colors. And all types of stuff happened that I wish I had known that that was going to happen. I wish I had known just the physical changes. My body is not the same and I don’t understand how other women were able to snap back so quickly. It’s different for different people but I feel like I wish I had known how to handle that better and how to maintain myself better. Up until I was 30 I was a size 4 so I didn’t understand how to deal with everything that came with it and I just thought: oh, I can still drink Pepsi and— there’s just changes you have to make and I wish I had known that.

20. This is a tough question to answer because it is phrased in a way that suggests I missed out on knowing something. I don’t feel that way at all. There are definitely things that I did not anticipate— like how helpless I would feel when my daughter was born 8 weeks premature and had to live in an incubator in the NICU for 6 weeks, or how much of an internal struggle it would be to stop breastfeeding when I felt so much societal pressure to continue— but these are not things I necessarily wish I had known. Motherhood is a unique journey for everyone, and I think part of what makes it so rewarding is to figure things out along the way and make choices that are the right ones for you and your family.

21. Okay logistically, I didn’t know how hard breastfeeding would be. I feel like nobody talks about it. I took a class and I was like yeah, okay, I took a class. And people are like “why are you taking a class?” It’s not— it doesn’t just happen. Maybe it does for some people; but most women I’ve talked to it’s, like, hard. And immediately after he was born there’s, like, lactation consultants in my room like, cool we’re gonna nurse! And I was like what?! It was really stressful. My milk didn’t come in for a week. I had a lot of— not shame— but kind of. I think I’m a little— not PTSD— but even now going away for 10 days I’m like I’m not letting that milk supply drop I’m going to nurse him for a year. Like it feels like a point of pride because I worked so hard. I feed him, pump immediately and then he would be ready to eat again and then I was power pumping, which is like 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off for an hour just to try to get my supply up. And like my husband is making me lactation cookies. That’s just like a motherhood logistic thing. And I’ve heard from friends, like one of my friends, her milk just never came in and she was like, it was torture when the lactation consultants came in because I felt so bad about it. Because I love that they’re like “breast is best” but there is a lot of pressure about that.

I don’t know if there’s anything else I could have known. I think I told you I lowered my expectations, like, okay this is going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done; it’s going to be brutal. So then it’s hard but it doesn’t feel that hard. I was like, “we’re going to war.” “This is a spiritual rebirth.” I’m grateful that I had friends who were honest about yeah, it’s not all peaches. But in the way where we’re talking about where it’s not negative, it’s just hard. It had also been described to me as the highs are really high and the lows are really low and I think that’s like the roller-coaster and it’s true. And it’s like amnesia. Because something shitty will happen where he’s like crying for an hour and my husband and I are both sweating— literally where everyone’s drenched in sweat and we’re like bouncing him on the yoga ball. But then ten minutes later he does something really cute and we’re like, “oh my God!” And you literally forget. So people described that but I didn’t understand that until I was in it. Which is hilarious.

22. There’s not right or wrong. You can only do the best you can.

23. Que los hijos absorberian todo mi tiempo.

24. I wish I had known how lonely it was going to be. Because that really surprised me. And I think I don’t know what I would have done differently and that’s something that I tell— I try to tell people who— I guess I don’t tell anyone but I try to reach out as much as I possibly can because I know when I was a new mom especially— I thought I always made a lot of friends, like, I always found a good friend wherever I was even if it took time, I had, not a group always, but friends. And even at times when I didn’t I knew it would come; I knew I was in the right place. But being a mom it was so— all my effort and energy was going into that, like, learning and all those new things that it was really hard to make friends in that making friends is a lot of effort in a way that I didn’t realize before because it was pretty natural. I would meet people but I didn’t have the follow-through that I usually would or the confidence actually either. I’d question a lot more. Maybe they were just being friendly but then I’d be like, well they were reaching out to me like obviously I’m this way, they’re this way. But the getting-to-know-somebody is exhausting. And as much as I wasn’t on a strict schedule, I still had this schedule and you wind up in the house alone a lot. And even when you try not to be it doesn’t always work out. And a friendship that might have developed over the course of a month in another setting takes like 8 in a mom setting. And I was like— really in my head I thought: I’m going to have a baby and I’m going to have a mom best friend who had a kid the same age and we’re going to do all the same things. Because I’d see other women like that and so I just thought that that’s how it would be. And it took me years to have close mom friends. This year is the first year. And I have a lot of close friends and I’m in constant contact with my best friends; they’re all spread out and not all of them but most of them have kids but that’s not the same as a person you call to come over on Sunday afternoon when you didn’t have plans and they didn’t have plans and spend time as a family. Not having that felt really lonely. Feels. Can feel. Even sometimes now. We have friends but it takes a long time. And also the confidence of recognizing that that person feels the same way about me. Usually that’s not something I question but because it takes so long and it’s harder I think and because you’re just alone so much whether you try to or not and also because I’d watch other moms and see that they were friends and I’d be like, what am I doing wrong? And a lot of it was like I wasn’t putting in the effort— reaching out. Or I’d let it die in a way that I’d never had done before. So I don’t tell people it can be really lonely but I try to put in all the effort if it seems like if I’ve connected with someone and they’re not that responsive; I used to be like well, maybe they’re not that interested and now I’m like well, maybe they’re just busy and I just keep trying. If it’s clear that we’re friends and I know you like hanging out so you just might be the person that’s uncomfortable making the effort and that’s fine for me right now. But I just didn’t know. I just didn’t realize that I would feel so lonely amongst— in a place where everyone is a mom. Where you could look around and see people exactly like you everywhere and be like we’re in this group together but also I’m so much alone.

I also had no idea how painful the recovery would be? And my best friend, I was like why didn’t you tell me? And she’s like, I thought I did and I was like maybe you did and I just wasn’t getting it because I didn’t even have the concept. People are so casual about it; they’re like, you have the baby and it hurts: the pushing is hard and then it’s over. That is not what happens. That is not what happened for me. I feel like I was in pain for months. And so now I tell everyone, sometimes it takes a really long time and it’s brutal and I don’t want to scare you but it hurts. I remember on day 7 with my recovery with my first I couldn’t sit down. I was like this hurts more than 2 days ago.

And I guess it’s not stuff I wish I’d known but I was shocked to not know. How much nursing was going to hurt. I was like sitting there with bleeding nipples with both kids and like I wanted to nurse and I was going through it and they were latching but I was like, how does anyone survive? Any baby survive if this is how you feed them and it hurts. I would dread both times. I would be like, I don’t know how we’re going to get through the night. I would dread every time she or he was awake and I’d be crying nursing them and I’d be like this is not— turns out I got a lactation consultant that really helped. And one of my friends said it takes 2 weeks. And because I’m a pretty—that’s really helpful to me— time goal whatever and I was like alright 2 weeks. And she was right. And then I was like God isn’t it amazing I was literally bleeding 3 days ago and now it’s like nothing; this isn’t a big deal at all. And I know other people who were like, there’s no way I’m continuing with this and I don’t want to push anyone but because I knew that I was able to push through and it really does take 2 weeks and 2 weeks is a long time but all of a sudden you’re like this is the least big deal ever but I had no idea that nursing was going to be so extraordinarily painful. My doctors told me that mine seemed to be a little more intense than other people. But both of them just bleeding terrible. It’s such a weird space in life when your parents and in-laws mother and dad whatever are like, “how are your nipples?” and you’re like, “they’re better thanks.” Or your dad’s like, “did you need anything from the store?” And you’re like, “if you can get me this specific nipple cream that would help” But like it’s not even a thing at that point because you’re like I’m fucking miserable. But I didn’t know that either . Even with my second I was like I can’t believe this hurts so much! I just was here!

How is it that every woman around me is doing all these things and they’re all close with me and we’re all really open about so many things and yet I had no idea. And then I felt bad for not helping people more. Like my best friend who I asked, again I’m like, again I’m so sorry I didn’t bring you food I just showed up at your house. She’s like it’s fine. You wouldn’t have known to do that. I guess I’m not faulting any of my friends who didn’t know either but I’m like I wish I had been there for you more.

If you had told me I’d have been like of course it hurts; like this giant baby comes out of your vagina and explodes it and like okay. But it’s hard to explain. Also my friends— the ones who don’t have children— they get that they don’t get it. Because now they’ve seen more because we’re older. And I think it’s okay not to get it. It’s like I don’t get what it’s like to have a 10 year old because I’m not there yet. I don’t know. I’m not going to judge someone in a way that I might have before. I don’t know. I haven’t been there. Who knows?

25. I feel like this is such a stock answer that a lot of people say, but it’s true: I wish I had known how difficult the breastfeeding was going to be right off the bat and how painful. I don’t know if somebody told me this before and my mind blocked it out. With my first, she just never latched well and apparently my nipples aren’t 12 feet long and she just couldn’t get on board with that, so that was a big struggle. And then with my second, the breastfeeding— she could latch but for the first 4 or 5 weeks I cried every time. The right breast was fine; the left one was bleeding. It was so painful I would let out like moans. Every time I saw it encroaching the third hour mark I was like: here we go. I can’t do this. I would sweat. I would get anxious about it. And I really did not know it was going to be like that at all. I was always so envious of women that I’d see, like, on a park bench just breastfeeding their kid with a blanket over them. I needed a set up. I needed a pillow. I needed to be basically half-naked to do it. I was very unaware of how difficult that was going to be and I wish I had known that just to mentally prepare myself like: you’re going to want to claw your eyes out when she latches on. Just be prepared for that. Now it’s much better and I relish breastfeeding her; I really do. It’s mainly in the evenings. But I look forward to that time with her. But before that it would just be me, like, in bed crying and my husband being like, what can I do? There’s nothing I can do for you. I can’t give you anything to help you. I’m so sorry. And I wish I had kind of had a better idea of what that was going to be like. I had no idea. And then when my older daughter was like, Mommy you’re bleeding. Because I could feel milk coming out of the baby’s mouth and I was like, “no, please don’t waste this! Please keep it in your mouth, please” and I pulled her away and it was just like blood on my hand, on her shirt— That, I wasn’t prepared for. So that would have been— but again maybe someone was like it’s going to be painful and I was like sure I get it—

26. Hm. What do I wish I had known about motherhood? That it would test my patience, love, commitment and sanity day to day.

27. That I could be more relaxed about it. That I didn’t have to worry so much all the time. I was worried all the time and trying to keep everything neat. I wish I had known that I didn’t have to do that.

So there you have it. Just a brief treatise on the things moms wish they had known about this crazy enterprise called motherhood.

What took you by surprise? What would have made the transition easier for you? If only I had known….

Coming soon — Mom Talk Part 4: What has come naturally to you as a mother?