10 Ways Motherhood Changes Everyone
As mothers, we are undeniably different in a myriad of ways. The choices we make for our children since birth sometimes come to define the way we think of ourselves as parents. Some of us breastfeed exclusively until our babies aren’t babies. Some go straight to formula. Some homeschool or unschool or nature school while others prefer good old fashioned public school. Some cosleep and others think a crib down the hall ensures everyone gets the best rest. No matter how tolerant we are of each other’s choices, we undoubtedly have opinions about what is best. That’s because we’re mothers and we (mostly) care deeply about these seemingly menial choices. At times, they can feel like the most important thing in our universe.
But as a parent for the past four years and a half years and now, a mother of two, I’ve come to realize that we all have a lot more in common than we think. Because something happens to us when we become mothers and it has little to do with whether there’s pampers or organic cloth covering our baby’s bums. It’s an undeniable change and a shift in the way we see the world that every true mother experiences. Whether you became a mother by accident or tried to get pregnant for years, whether you adopted or gave birth, whether you fell into the role of mothering or stepped up to care for children that you now see as your own.
Here are a few things that are universal and thus, what makes us mothers:
1. Your priorities change- When parenthood strikes, most mother’s experience a huge shift in priorities. Though you can hopefully maintain some semblance of a life outside of your children (if you’re very good at multitasking, I suppose), you likely still believe them to be the most important people in the universe. You would do anything for them which is both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes you fantasize about going back to lazy, carefree, pre-spit-up afternoons but in reality, you wouldn’t trade them for the world.
2. You experience love in a whole new way- No matter how many times you’ve been in love, there is no love like the way you love your child. It’s torturous and cruel and beautiful all at the same time. It keeps you up at night, gives you heart palpitations and causes you to worry like you never thought possible. It dominates and demands your attention. And when you become a parent a second or third time, it doesn’t divide, it multiplies.
3. You know new levels of fear and frustration- Nothing can get your emotions jacked like your children can. Whether it’s a colicky baby screaming bloody murder, a disobedient toddler who ignores your every request or a headstrong teenager, you have likely been practicing some form of deep breathing since you became a mother.
4. You think of time differently- Whether it’s hours, minutes, or days of the week, time has a whole new meaning. Your day is divided up between lunch time, nap time, cranky time, uber-cranky time, ”do not come anywhere near this house” time, bath time and (thank Jesus) bedtime. And when you’re trying to remember a specific event, you can’t quite remember the month or year but rather ”that was before little Billy moved into his big boy bed!” or ”that was when Chuck didn’t have teeth.” The passage of time also becomes more frighteningly rapid when you have children who go from dependent little sucklings to preschoolers to middle schoolers at lightening speed. Soon every milestone feels like you’ve got another limb in the grave.
5. You need a vacation from your vacation- Vacations are still fun, but a very specific kind of fun that demands a very necessary kind of patience. You still want to take them but just packing up the car and getting to your destination is a feat in and of itself. Vacations don’t mean you get to stay out late, snooze on the beach and take body shots anymore. Instead, they mean you’ll be cleaning sand out of a lot of little crevices and scheduling a massage promptly when you return home. A day at the beach might feel more like a day at the lumber yard but you’d never know it from the pictures.
6. Your ”real” age is not the same as your biological age- You probably feel at least 10 years older than you actually are, that’s because you’re aging at a much quicker rate than the childless. You haven’t had a good night’s sleep in years and parts of your body ache for no good reason (even if you do yoga). If you have more than one child, you feel like you lost another 5 or so years with each subsequent birth and lets face it, you probably did.
7. You’re deeply affected when anyone loses a child- You grieve every loss of a child like it is your own. Every news story, tragic event around the neighborhood or missing child is a reminder of the deep love between mothers and children and how sacred it is. Before becoming a mother yourself you could let it roll of your back, turn the other cheek, but now these stories stick with you and you’d do anything to take away even one mother’s pain.
8. You understand your own mother (maybe, somewhat, a little) more- Even if you and your mother are very different beings altogether, you can still wrap a little parental understanding around why she did this or said that. We all make mistakes as mamas, some of which are painful to our children. But becoming a mother yourself helps you recognize that so many of your mother’s mistakes were made with good intentions. That might not heal all wounds, but it may give new light on dark places.
9. ”Alone time” does not mean lonely- Pre-child you didn’t have to plan out your trips to the bathroom. But now just finding a minute of peace and quiet is hard to come by. Any chance you get to read a chapter of a book, flip through a magazine or hell, even vacuum is time you likely hold dear.
10. You work hard- You likely have some doubts about yourself as a parent and so you beat ourselves up, lose sleep over wrong choices or guilty feelings. But in the end, you have more good in you than you ever thought you could have. You stay up late nights and then wake up early, you clean poopy bottoms and clothes and throw-up off of sheets. You do laundry and dishes like it’s your favorite pastime even if you hate it. You work hard whether it’s from an office or from home. You work hard because you’re a mother and you’re a mother because you work hard.
(Image: bikeriderlondon/shutterstock)
