Motherhood. Do It With a Smile

11/10/21

Hello Dear Reader, a note to you before you journey into my thoughts. This piece on motherhood is my experience and belief only. If I strike a chord in your heart I hope it is one of acceptance, for I have no intentions of excluding. If my writing does not resonate with you or you have feelings to the contrary, I welcome all opinions as I do not believe mine are the only ones worth having.

Sincerely, Your Narrator

The feelings start in my chest, or just below it, around my diaphragm. A tightening creeps in and settles down into my body reminding me of who I am and the shit I can’t escape. Once I notice the feeling it gets heavier, moves in like a lead weight and refuses to move. The feeling squeezes my diaphragm making it hard to take a deep breath. I try to breathe, but like the bad dreams I have occasionally, a giant wave is about to crash over me and I have just a split second to take a breath before…

I’m under water, I can’t breathe, I have to hold my breath or I’ll die. Or wait, remember, it’s a dream. A shallow breath at first, then deeper. OK, I can breathe, but damn was that hard.

The anxiety that grips my heart, my lungs and my diaphragm, that anxiety is real for me, and it has always been a part of me. Simmering below the surface of my conscious mind, waiting for the next time to surface. Waiting for the next moment to crash on my well being and wash me out to sea.

It wasn’t until the birth of my child that anxiety came for a visit and never left. Born 2 month early while my spouse was on a work trip in Hong Kong, our child opened the doors of my heart wide for the most immense love I have ever experienced.  But while the doors were open anxiety slipped in the back and set up shop. At first the feelings seemed normal. Of course I would be anxious about motherhood. I had a 3 pound baby that was living at the hospital, being cared for by a team of doctors and nurses that would keep her alive. Not me.

My body did it’s part. Pump every 3 hours they said. That first night I pumped so hard I pumped the skin off my nipples. Pump a little less they said.

How the fuck am I supposed to know what to do here people?!

No one watches you pump those first times in your hospital bed, they leave you to figure it out alone. Hi anxiety, I feel you there, want to get a drink later?

When we finally got to bring our baby home from the hospital anxiety had made a home for its self in my chest. It didn’t ask for much, just a comfortable place in my heart and a supple pillow. It came to say hello and check in from time to time, reminding me that I needed to perfect my perfection at mothering.

That baby needs more sleep! Never enough calories for your young! When did you change that diaper? You want to leave the house?! Try again another time. You’ll go back to work in a few months, you can leave the house then. But in the mean time could you finalize those lesson plans and check in on the long term sub and listen to the other teachers tell you that they can’t wait for you to return. Hurry up and return to the job.

OK anxiety, you can take the reigns on the job, I’ll hang back and try and get some sleep.

But of course sleep never comes, at least not good sleep. The sounds of my baby’s cries rip me from the simple dream I was having; standing next to the wave, far back on the beach. Maybe there was a palm tree. The cries wrench me from the sand and make my body jump alive. Fight or flight here we come.

Run to that baby!

That adrenaline would stay coursing through my mind and body for years to come, wreaking havoc on my nervous system. I didn’t sleep well for years after our child was born, but you know who slept like a baby all those nights? My anxiety. It got great rest so it could begin to take over during the day. It’s master plan was to take over my world.  It knew exactly what it was doing. A well seasoned veteran at the art of deception and total domination. Plus, it invited its friends self doubt, shame and guilt.

4 months go by and it’s back to work. Back to the job I love, the colleagues I enjoy and the students that were my children before I had a child. It all feels different now, somehow less important, but I can’t tell anyone that. This is a job, and one must give their all to the job. Set yourself aside while you’re on the clock. The paycheck means someone else sets the rules for your body and your mind. But you’re also a mother, so there is a force fighting against the job for your being.

 Pump every 3 hours if you really love your baby!

Kindly ask everyone to leave the staff room because you need to pump. Listen to the grumbles of tired teachers and then listen to the mechanical rhythmic sounds of your body being squeezed for it’s life-giving nutrients. Feel cold air on topless skin in dirty staff room. Feel the shame and worry of wondering how long it will be before someone walks in on you. Feel the deep cavern of sadness because your baby is not with you and because you left your baby with another person to go to a fucking job. Shame smothers you with long arms and a thick blanketlike body. It wraps and squeezes and brings on the tears.

 No you can’t cry here, you wanted this. You wanted the job and the baby. Suck it up.

Alas. The cold and the fear and the shame take over and I cry to the rhythm of the pump, hoping the sound of the machine is louder than the sound of my sobs.

I did not want to go back to work, but I believed that I had to. My employer was counting on me to return, my students were counting on me to bring fun and consistency back to my class, and I believe society was counting on me to go back to prove that women can do it all. We can have a career and a child and keep the family together and we can do it all while still worrying about getting rid of the baby weight so someone will want to have sex with us again. We do it all and we keep smiling, because no one likes to look at “resting bitch face”. The guilt of leaving my baby with another person while I tried to do it all would well up inside me, reminding me that I was making a choice and that choice was not my child. What could I do? I had to prove to myself and to society that I was tough enough, that I could handle it. Plus, there were bills to pay, things to buy, and a college savings account to fill.  

Stuff those feelings down and forge ahead!

I remember looking at mothers who looked happy and wondering how did it. I remember being resentful of them and their easy smiles. Who knows, maybe they had a full term baby, maybe they didn’t have a career to manage as well, maybe they were getting laid. They made mothering look easy and I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe they were happy. And I was not. Maybe; maybe, they were suffering just as much as me, they had just learned to tuck the feelings away so no one else could see.

At some point my suffering and unhappiness turned to rage. A nightly crying baby meant no sleep, fight or flight meant my nervous system was shot, job, pump, sadness, anxiety, shame, guilt, repeat. The cycle of my life during this time couldn’t be turned around with the good qualities of my days, and rage was what remained. Just like anxiety, rage didn’t come on with a switch, it took some time. It moved into my belly. Low in my gut. And when it said hello it took over in an instant. A twist of my insides with a vice like grip that would not let up. I was powerless over it because I didn’t know what brought it on. Everything brought it on. Anger and rage are not something we talk about though, so I learned to hold it tighter in my belly. Shame for having these feelings came up and I stuffed the anger down and held it close until I couldn’t hold it anymore. The rage would boil over at the littlest things- too much salad dressing, a knocked over cup, the dog jumping on me when I had just fallen back asleep.

How the fuck am I supposed to do all that life is throwing at me AND clean up other people’s messes!

 It was me against my daily life and the only way I knew to survive was to fight. No fleeing for me, no escaping this moment.

Get out there and fight like hell.

My best defense against the rage was a 70 pound punching bag and my neighbor’s baseball bat. When metal bat connected with a deadening thud with the weight of the bag I felt a rush through my body. The rush was the wave in my dreams. First the powerful surge of energy sent a hot buzzing through my entire body leaving a reverberation coursing through me. Next was white water crashing into my body and washing the rage out with its foamy power. After a few hits and screams I could feel my stomach relax. I could feel my body slump and I could feel the fight leave my mind. It was over. I would walk back into the house from the garage where my bag and bat lived and get ready for what lay ahead with a renewed sense of calm. The calm didn’t last for forever, rage would return, but in those moments, post fight, I felt lighter, I felt peace, and I felt like I could make it another day.

Women are not encouraged to talk about the feelings of shame, guilt, anxiety, sadness or rage. Our 1950’s views of what a woman and a mother should be are still alive and well in our hearts, minds and in our culture.

Keep it together, look hot, don’t complain, and take care of others. Do for others. Oh, and please do smile more.

Today though many women have the added challenge and expectation of managing a job as well. Some because it is seen as part of our identity; some because it’s the only way to make ends meet. Pre parenthood I thrived on my career. I relished being a teacher. I was proud of it. I fostered my career and nurtured it. My career was almost like my first child. But when the deep seeded, reptilian brain instincts of my body took over I could not shake the urges to conceive. My DNA programmed me to set my career aside for the good of the human race. Even though I was steadfast in my love for my job, hormones coursed through me taking me over. Then, once I’d satisfied my ancestral duties, it’s right back to the current time where women can do it all! We must do it all! Prove to the patriarchy that women can create life and make money.  I ached for my baby, treated my body like it was livestock and suffered so that I could do it all. Have the kid, keep the career, do it with a smile.

Fuck that smile. I do it all with a baseball bat.

Or at least I used to. Therapy, support groups and learning to let go have helped me set the baseball bat aside and learn to recognize when anxiety and rage come to call. I have learned tools to use, and over the years and I’ve realized that I want to use them. I want to live simply; I want to find joy and I want to have calm in my life. I decided to set the career aside and put the focus on myself.

I am worth tending to. I am worth loving and I deserve my time more than my career does.

I realized I CAN do it all, but I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to suffer through my days to prove to society that I can be a mother and have a career and keep my shit together. Today I smash the belief system that no longer serves me because I chose myself. I chose me over a paycheck. I chose me over most else, because without me, life would not be as good. My light shines bright and I intend to keep it beaming from my chest; lighting the way for my family, lighting the way for my future, and lighting a path with less anxiety, less shame, less guilt, less self doubt, less fear and less anger. I light my own path, and today I lead the way down it.