We read so much about the development and growth of our tiny humans before and after we give birth. Millenials are bombarded with all kinds of information in the age of digital, internet, expert, "guru" connection. How much they should pee, how they should grow, milestones, leaps, wonder weeks, the best wrap/carrier, the carseat they should be in- it all makes your head spin.
I feel that there is more pressure on this generation of parents than any other. This generation is expected to know more, expected to do more, expected to be more. What I am hearing from my work with this generation is that more and more women feel that they are falling short. They feel afraid that they are not measuring up, not "doing it right" and certainly not fulfilling the roles that the women who came before them did. Understanding the information that is out there at our fingertips is overwhelming. Discerning what works best for our families is daunting. The preparation for the growth that we will go through as Mamas is NON EXISTENT. Really, it is not out there.
Where are our guideposts for this huge life change? How do we measure our feelings, our fears, our growth? Is it possible to normalize our experiences, to find some semblance of grace in our perceived short comings as a Mama? I believe it is. It takes bravery, hard truth and trust. To trust in ourselves is perhaps the biggest challenge we face in our course of development. To understand that what works best for us can simply be the answer. Every aspect of our lives will come into question once we are birthed as Mothers. So much of what we have been conditioned to believe in our own upbringing will ripple through our interactions with our tiny humans and will lay us bare. Our own attachment style, the way our brains are wired with our life experiences will determine how we move through becoming a Mama. This is imperative information for our journey through Motherhood. It is essential knowledge for our co-parenting relationship. What we bring to the table as far as our abilities to negotiate are concerned depends on our attachment style. This very basic information will help us understand not only what we are capable of, it will help us heal the chasms within us as we grow alongside our children.
Infants attach to their parents in their first few years of life. Adults bond with their children and with their partners. Having a child is a prime time to deepen the connection with our partner. Most couples do not know this let alone understand it. The journey of parenting is hard! Transparency in our experiences is not a common practice. We are afraid to say how difficult parenting is for as many reasons as there are shades of blue. The experience of parenting is at times an example of how you don't need water to feel like you are drowning. Moving through the waves of sleepless nights, decreased communication, ruptured connection with your partner and the bone weary exhaustion of being "on" 24/7 is enough for anyone to be dragged out by the undertow. We feel stunted by our experiences. Sometimes it lasts for days, sometimes it feels like it never ends. Normalizing the rigors of growth is hard to hear, for we so often doubt our own experiences and truly believe that in this isolation of our thoughts, we must be the only one going through this.
The growth is in the hardest of days. The growth of our spirits, our psyches, our souls and our self-awareness occurs when we just.feel.like.we.can't. go.on. The growth is knowing that we can do hard things- we can sit with our babies as they have tests performed on them, we can wait for the diagnosis from the Doctor, we can change the sheets for the fifth time in four hours, we can get up and get on the hamster wheel of meeting everyone's needs before our own. We try to implement the "self care" buzzword that everyone talks about, we attempt to "fill our tanks" so we can in turn take care of our family, we plan for "girls night out" for that break that will help us restore our sanity, our psyche, our relationship. And sometimes, all of this feels like one more thing to do in our already stretched thin, over scheduled, under thought out day to day. But...and it's a big one....looking after ourselves is necessary. It is how we develop, grow and flourish. We are ever changing, ever seeking, ever connecting. We are hard wired for connection and growth and for the most part, I fully believe that this need is to connect with ourselves. To truly reveal ourselves and connect with our hurts, our wants, our desires and our needs. Mothering is not a faint of heart endeavour. It is, I feel, an experience in which you are blown apart and mended back together again in a wholly new molecular fashion. Yes, physiologically our cells change. Those tiny humans that we carry within us leave traces of their very DNA within our bodies. The stress hormones of Mothering alter our cells, our spirits, our beliefs. The immense love that we experience in our bonding with our tiny humans launches us into a brand new stratosphere of what it feels like to have your heart nearly burst. The sheet on the floor moments where we think we are losing our minds bring us to the brink of never returning- and we grow. We grow stronger as we get more sleep. We grow resilient as we trust that we know what is best for our children. Not only do our hearts literally grow in size in our pregnancies, the capacity to love as we bring another child earthside causes cellular change in every part of our bodies.
The ebb and flow of of the growth of a Mother is not linear. We need periods of contraction as well. There are times we need to shrink down, curl up and be taken care of in order to continue to grow. Pruning our activities, our scheduling, our feelings of "not enough" ness and sitting in the difficult moments, days and years will always promote growth. Grieving is an integral part of growth as well- for the life we had BK (before kids) - the love life, the free time, the cash flow, the body, the job, the travel, the experiences- and cherished, we tuck them away in our hearts and know that they have shaped us and showed us what was truly important, really meaningful and what was fodder. We move forward with our experiences and some days step back into what we wish we had. And that's okay. An important part of Mothering is feeling 3, 5, 20 different things all at once and not harbouring the slightest shred of guilt for that. Our relative experiences, our families of origin, our hurts and hardships have shaped us in every aspect and have brought us to where we are now. Stepping forward, back, sideways and not stepping at all are par for the course in this growth as a Mother. There is no race, no "right way" no such thing as being "mother enough". There is you, your family and your knowledge that brought you here. There is healthy striving instead of perfection, there is no such thing, truly, as competition and there are no guarantees. It is hard. Full stop. And you can do it- and some days you won't. That too, is okay. Know there is growth- so much growth. Know you are just what your tiny humans need. Know that shaming helps no one and that there really is no collapse in parenting. You are on your path like millions of others and it will be way laid with pitfalls, quicksand, roadblocks and heartache. We all learn and grow, heal and grieve, weep and laugh, and to share this journey and speak the truth about it is a huge growth spurt for everyone. It is hard, and we can do it.