Becoming a mom was a huge adjustment for me. I adored my babies, but the change was hard.
At first, I marveled that the hospital let us walk out with this precious creature, like I’d won a prize that I couldn’t possibly handle. Surely, I should be better trained before taking him home? I’d been thrown into the deep end and needed to learn to swim fast.
Sleepless nights blurred into long days as we struggled to find our footing. I tried mightily to make sense of his different cries – what I would’ve given for this tiny human to speak words to tell me exactly what he needed! We both cried more than a few tears of exhaustion and frustration.
Hours turned into days that turned into weeks. Slowly but surely, we found our rhythm. Moments of humility, amazement and gratitude that this new person was ours to love kept me going.
Eventually, I started to learn what the baby needed and let others help as they could to preserve my sanity. It was still hard, but as this new phase of life became more familiar, it felt more manageable.
Yet even with all this, it was the world’s reaction to my journey into motherhood that surprised me the most.
As soon as I emerged from the newborn fog and went out into the world, people asked how soon I’d be going back to work. But an unexpected move to a different state when the baby was only two weeks old meant my legal career had stalled. I wasn’t going back to practice law anytime soon. I chose this new path willingly, but people who had only ever known me as a fiercely independent lawyer didn’t know how to react.
Without a paid job to discuss, it was odd how quickly people ran out of things to talk to me about. They’d ask about the baby’s progress, but no longer did people ask about me. Before having a baby, I was a whole person with interests and opinions. After giving birth, in the eyes of many, apparently now I was just a mom.
Assumptions about people aren’t reserved only for moms.
When you were growing up, remember how strange it was to see one of your teachers outside of school? If you ran into them at the grocery store with their kids, they looked so out of place. You only knew them as your teacher standing in the classroom, but now you saw them buying cereal or corralling their rowdy kids, just like everyone else. You realized they weren’t just a teacher, which messed with your youthful sense of reality.
Our extended families do the same thing. The questionable behavior of your childhood can follow you the rest of your life as family lore repeated for years at the holiday dinner table. It’s hard for family members to see how you’ve grown up when they have you etched forever in their minds as the pesky little brother or favored sister. You can be a fully-formed and highly functioning person out in the world, but then regress to your prescribed family role when you’re with them. Strange but true.
A woman who has a child isn’t just a mom any more than an educator is just a teacher, or your sister or brother is just your sibling. Likewise, an accountant isn’t just a numbers cruncher and a well-known singer isn’t just an entertainer. All are real, multi-faceted people. But it’s easy to ignore what we can’t (or choose not to) see.
We wear many hats. We lead full lives with family and friends. We have hobbies and paying jobs and volunteer positions. We are parents, or not. We are role models and mentors. Or we’re just trying to hold it all together despite outward appearances.
There’s so much more to us than meets the eye – or what’s posted on social media or shared in a bus stop or water cooler conversation. But if we put each other in a box and limit what we’re willing to see, we don’t get to know some of the best parts of the people around us.
When we all feel free to be who we really are, we let go of what’s keeping us from doing the good we’re meant to be doing out in the world. We are the best version of ourselves, and feel accepted and seen.
So let’s stay curious about each other. Ask questions that help you understand who someone really is, not just what they get paid to do or what you expect of them.
Because no one is just any one thing.
To all who provide any kind of mothering to others, we see you and appreciate your many contributions to the world. Happy Mother’s Day!
***Much gratitude to my friend Leslie Bowers – all-around amazing human and mom – for planting the seed for this week’s newsletter. Thanks, Leslie!
