On judging other moms

And asking for help

I went from thinking I knew what kind of mom I wanted to be – a chill one who breastfed casually and didn’t worry about nap schedules – to meeting my baby and chucking everything I thought I knew out the window. I wasn’t chill; I was anxious. I hated breastfeeding. And we live and breathe by wake windows and sleep routines. I thought I knew what being a mom would look like, but it quickly became apparent that there was so much I didn’t understand about it.

I recently joked with a friend that motherhood needs a major PR & communications overhaul. I’m a college educated, emotionally intelligent woman and I had no idea about so many aspects of having a baby. I didn’t know how raw I would feel postpartum; that I would bleed for five weeks straight after childbirth. I didn’t know that my body would hurt in new places – my wrists, my neck, my lower back – as it contorted itself into new positions to hold and feed my baby. I didn’t understand the exhaustion, the mental load, the overwhelming love, the profound responsibility. I thought about having children the same way I thought about marriage; I knew it was a major decision that would change my life in big ways, but I didn’t realize I would feel altered on a molecular level. I didn’t know that, when my baby screamed in his carseat, my nervous system would still hear his cries reverberating for hours afterwards. I didn’t know the love would feel heartbreaking, or that a part of my brain would be thinking of him every second, no matter what else I was supposed to be doing. 

I’m not sure if the knowledge gaps around motherhood are intentional, designed to keep prospective moms in the dark so we’ll all continue populating the earth, or a byproduct of the collective forgetting that seems to occur in most parents. In my earliest postpartum days, I turned to most of the moms in my life, particularly the ones with multiple children, in a state of horror. “How did you do this more than once?” I implored. “You forget,” they all reassured me, waving me off like I was a child. It seems to me like this form of selective amnesia is a biological response to trauma, the brain’s way of protecting itself from pain recall. 

This all brings me to a confession which is that, in my own pre-motherhood state of ignorance, I committed a grave offense: I judged other moms. 

I’m not proud to admit it, but it’s the truth. I judged moms for small and large reasons. Moms I saw lose their tempers at the grocery store and moms I followed on social media. I judged moms for going on vacations without their children, but I also judged the ones who let their noisy toddlers splash around the hotel pool. I judged the moms who complained — so negative! — and the ones who only posted highlight reels on social media; they had to be lying. I judged the moms who worked and I judged the ones who stayed at home. I judged myself into an impossible corner, vowing to maintain a sense of self outside my child – hobbies, friendships, a career – while also being a mom who was present for her baby all the time.

I judged moms before I was one, much like I judged sober people before I stopped drinking. I knew I was destined to be one, but I was afraid. What if it was too hard? What if I failed? I didn’t want to get too close, so I kept moms at a distance, cocooning myself in opinions I knew nothing about. 

I judged up until my fourth or fifth sleepless night at home with my newborn. Exhausted, sore, and perpetually in tears, I found myself pleading for help. And I finally understood the “it takes a village” adage; I understood why our great-grandparents lived near aunts and uncles and cousins when they were having children; I understood the need for help, for support, for permission to sleep or take an hour, alone, outside the house.

In her memoir about motherhood, A Life’s Work, Rachel Cusk writes about how childbirth separates moms from others, and themselves. “When she is with them she is not herself; when she is without them she is not herself; and so it is as difficult to leave your children as it is to stay with them.” 

I’ve found myself thinking about this line often in the last few weeks. I do feel entirely like myself when I’m with my son, but it is a self without wants or needs. I can only be that self for so long before needing a reprieve to refill my own cup. I think this is where mom guilt enters the equation; the gnawing fear that leaving my baby will make me a bad mom, coupled with the knowledge that not leaving him will inevitably make me a worse one. 

My son is only four months, so I’m clearly still working through all of this. But in the meantime, I’d like to say something to all the other moms: I promise to give you a pass. If we have plans and you have to cancel, don’t worry about it. If you’re late, I’m probably late too. If you can’t concentrate on a normal conversation and you just want to talk at each other, or sit in silence, that’s fine too. If you’ve never been happier or more horrified, I’m with you. Above all else, I promise not to judge you. Motherhood looks different on all of us, but we’re all just out here watching the baby monitor while our kids sleep, praying for rest so we can do it all over again tomorrow. 

on a sleepy solo walk without the baby at 3 months PP

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other news:

• Looking to continue your dry streak past January? I partnered with De Soi to share my top tips for staying sober this February and beyond. If you haven’t already met, De Soi makes bubbly non-alcoholic apéritifs designed for fun nights you want to remember. 🥂
  

• The paperback edition of my book, Drinking Games, was released one month ago today! For a closer look at my life as a blackout drinker and in early sobriety, pick up a copy wherever books are sold.

the paperback edition of my first baby

Xx,

Sarah