A Good Mother Wouldn’t Say That

Here’s a question that’s been nagging at me since shortly after our first son was born, over 7 years ago. How come we, as moms, don’t talk honestly about how hard it is to give birth to & take care of our child(ren)? Many of us participate in various group activities for new mothers – yoga, play groups, baby singing, baby swimming, … When we get together in these circles of new moms, we talk mostly about the babies. Which milestones they’ve already hit. How well – or not well – they sleep. How great – or less-than-great – the nursing is going. Beyond the basic compare-and-rank that often seems to be at the core, more often than not, we round off our reports by saying how great we’re doing, how wonderful it is, and how grateful we are. What a blessing, having this privilege of getting to be a mom. And don’t get me wrong: of course this is a reason for gratitude and amazement. I routinely find myself saying to my husband: are you aware, like actually aware, at the very core of your being, that there are 3 kids sleeping back there, and that we “created” them? No matter how much time passes, this can still strike me at utterly surreal every once in a while.

But my question is this: where does the memo come from that we all got, before ever even having children, it seems, that reads:

Ø  Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances talk about how hard it is, about the fact that you might be struggling with one or more aspects of your life as a (new) mom, or anything else that might be construed as “negative”. In the event you absolutely have to, for example, tell someone that it’s been a tough time because you haven’t really slept for X number of days, weeks or months, DO NOT forget to very quickly add how much you love your child(ren), how grateful you are, and how, really, it’s pretty wonderful pretty much all of the time.

It seems to me that this message simply arrives along with the child(ren), even before they are actually born. Because pretty much the same goes for pregnancy. Ideally, you go to prenatal yoga, talk about how wonderfully you’re doing, how still working full time at 38.5 weeks has been super chill, and how pregnancy is and has been just pure magic and joy.

From what I can tell, the fine print of those messages reads something like this: What kind of a person would not relish every moment of acting as the sacred vessel for bringing new life into this world? What kind of person would not be overjoyed, and overflowing with gratitude, during every moment they then get to spend with said little miracle? Surely not a good mother! And that, it seems to me, is the crux at the heart of our current situation. We are stuck so deeply in this shame trap – where mentioning anything you don’t absolutely love about any part of the process is considered a sign that you are clearly just not a “good mother” – that we have no choice but to keep going, to power through, at the expense of our own health and happiness if that’s what it takes. For me, personally, this was the fast track to postpartum depression.

First, after we had our son, I started to struggle, but I felt I had to keep going. I was bummed that I hadn’t managed to return to work looking & feeling exactly the way I had before ever getting pregnant. I was disappointed in myself for not thriving in the new role, for not being happy and joyful and grateful – but who could I really talk to about this? Where is the appropriate time and place to share how I cry whenever I watch my son play because I feel so terrible that he is stuck with me as his mom? 3 years later, after giving birth to our twins, history repeated itself. I had learned from my mistakes the first time around. I didn’t wait 15 months to talk to the doctor about how I felt. I re-activated the network of helpers that I had built after my first diagnosis about 2 years prior. I distinctly remember asking my husband if he thought it was pathetic that, when considering what to do for the twins’ first birthday, the only people (with a couple of exceptions) I felt I might be comfortable with during what I knew would be a very emotionally difficult celebration for me were some of the professionals I paid to help me get better. To me, that boils this issue down to its core.

There were exactly 2 people in my private life who I actually talked to (largely) honestly about what was going on inside of me during this time. And even they didn’t hear the deepest, darkest parts of my experience until after I got better. Having a therapist was a life saver, because she was the only one to whom I could actually say: most days, I wish I could just vanish – disappear off the face of the Earth – because I know in my heart that it would be better, easier, for everyone, if I was just gone. Looking back, I know that this was the depression talking – that thinking it would be better for my 3 little ones if I just disappeared is not a realistic assessment of the situation. And that a big part of that wish was me not feeling capable of taking responsibility for any part of my experience – which is why just disappearing, as if by magic, seemed so appealing at the time.  

And I know that not every mom goes through this – though 15-20% of them, according to the official numbers, do suffer from postpartum depression, so it’s not like this is a fringe issue. Beyond that, the grey area around this diagnosis is vast, and I’m convinced that there is a huge number of moms (and parents more broadly) who do not feel all that much better, even if they do not get diagnosed and treated for this disease. I don’t want to go into a discussion of all the ways in which the medical system is failing us in this area – that is a whole other topic that could fill a book. But I think it’s important to remember that, even if we ignore for a moment the many thousands of moms who do suffer from serious depression after having their child(ren), there is a lot of silent suffering happening in this space. Because, in our “civilized society”, we don’t talk about, and normalize, the dark and twisted thoughts and feelings that humans have – honestly, not even just during the particularly trying time of being a new parent, but generally in life.

It is statistically proven that negative or troubling thoughts are extremely common, especially during the challenging and stressful time of taking care of your infant(s) - while in many cases also recovering from the potential injuries or trauma, as well as just the exhaustion, of having given birth. Various studies have found, for example, that about half of new moms, on average, reported experiencing intrusive thoughts of intentionally harming their babies during the first several weeks of postpartum life – and, importantly, that these moms were no more likely to actually harm their babies than those who did not find themselves having these thoughts. This is just one, admittedly extreme, example – but I wanted to use it to stress an important point. If we don’t start talking about all the facets of what life as a new parent is actually like – including not just extensive cuddle sessions but also the overwhelming exhaustion, the desperation, and the sometimes alarming thoughts that can go through ones mind as a result - we are keeping ourselves isolated from one another, and thereby making our lives, and those of our families, unnecessarily hard.  

Imagine that instead, we could all be reveling, together, in the joys and sorrows, the trials and triumphs, the wonderful highs and pronounced lows, that new parenthood brings. Not only would this mean less repressed sadness, rage and desperation – which we know is not the healthiest option, for ourselves or our offspring. It could revolutionize the way we live our lives and go through the world as parents. We could break free from these shackles while, at the same time, teaching our little ones how to live authentically, how to connect with others in a real way – simply put, how to be a whole human being, experiencing the full range of emotions that happen to be part of human life, and certainly of postpartum life.

If it were up to me, we should just cut to the chase and extend this idea to tear down the myths of the perfect mom who martyrs herself for her child(ren), well beyond the infant stage – but that’ll have to wait, because it deserves its own text. Today, my wish is that parents everywhere stop romanticizing the postpartum period and get honest about the physical, mental and emotional challenges they experience during this time. I can imagine that there are some parents for whom the ideal picture of what life with your new child(ren) is like actually becomes a reality – at least for the most part. But I am convinced that these parents do not constitute the majority. My hope is that more and more of us will choose freedom from the shame prison – and thereby give relief, and maybe permission to follow, to many more.

So that, some day, when our children may choose to procreate, they will look back and wonder what on Earth we could possibly have been thinking. Because to them it will seem like the most natural thing in the world to use the many forums in which (new) parents get together to share in each other’s real experiences, to support one another, and to raise new generations of humans who have the privilege of learning about the full human experience from the start.