Let’s Bring Motherhood Back to Center

When I was pregnant with my first, I was overcome with excitement and joy and the yearning to meet my baby. I bought the absolutely oh-so-cute baby clothes, painted the nursery, and made sure I was prepared with all of the latest “baby gear.”

During my pregnancy, there was also A LOT of advice. The “make sure you enjoy your sleep now,” the “wait until you have to pack for baby,” the “enjoy your alone time now because you won’t have anymore of that.” To be honest, I HATED hearing the negatives. You’re supposed to be excited when you’re pregnant, you’re supposed to have people just be excited for you, right? Being excited was all that I wanted to do, I wasn’t naive to the fact that I was going to have sleepless nights, or that my time was going to be placed in a new area of caring for another human.

Then I had my baby. It was the most perfect experience I could have ever had. Then we brought the baby home. And just like that it was like we were expected to know what to do. I’m not going to lie, it was kinda scary. Ember was born 4 weeks early and she was so tiny. We were using an SNS system with a nipple shield for breastfeeding since she wasn’t a huge fan of the breast and my milk still needed to come in. So with that added into the mix, and the fact that we were newly parents, it was a little stressful.

Then it was time to go back to work. I cried pretty much for the first two weeks because I was so exhausted. I was up at least three times a night nursing Ember, then I was expected to get myself up from bed, put my make up on so that I looked decent for my job, and get my child ready for the day. I even had feelings of resentment towards my husband because he didn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to feed her (obviously not his fault!), but these feelings happen when you become as sleep deprived as I was.

BUT. Being told that I was going to be sleep deprived when I was pregnant COULD NOT HAVE prepared me for what I went through. It was something that I just had to live through and it was something that I wanted other mothers to relate to me on by telling me that I wasn’t crazy for being tired and feeling stretched in all directions. It was also a time that I felt like I could have used the “You’re doing a great job mama,” or “kuddos to you for breastfeeding.”

We live in a era where there is a movement for mothers to be recognized for the amount of work we do and I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of it. We are very fortunate to have social media avenues to relate to each other as we are going through these different milestones of motherhood.

The issue that has happened, though, is that sometimes the posts about “real-life” motherhood topics can be perceived as viewing being a mom as a negative, and the posts that are all about all of the wonderful things about being a mom can be perceived as unrealistic.

I recently read a post that talked about instead of warning mothers what they are in for, why can’t we support mothers by telling them the wonderful things they have to look forward to in becoming a mom.

The fact is,

WE NEED TO BRING MOTHERHOOD BACK TO CENTER

and support each other in BOTH the good AND the hard.

Being a mom means that we can read between the lines on topics that are of interest to us. When a mom decides to write a post about why it is hard to be a mom – lift her up and relate to her. It’s not that she hasn’t experienced any of the unconditional love a child brings to us as mothers. We all know writing can be an outlet for some people and talking to other mothers about similar things that they’ve gone through can be a form of therapy, to let others know that they are not crazy or that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. When a mom decides to write a post on all of the wonderful things motherhood entails- we can appreciate the positivity within that read and still know that as a mother of little ones, she has also gone through the hard with all of us.

It’s not realistic to read from a mom who is stating how hard it is and think that she doesn’t love being a mom, and it’s not realistic to read from a mom who writes about how wonderful motherhood is and think she has never gone through a hard moment with her child.

And if we all only read about all wonderful things motherhood brings, moms could be given unrealistic expectations or a feeling that thinking it’s hard isn’t ok. And the same goes for if we only read about the hardships motherhood can bring, it can bring us down. That is the beautiful thing about having all sorts of different views and ways to express where we are in motherhood at that specific moment in time.

We need to stop thinking that there is only one way to support each other as moms, we just need to support each other…period. You can love being a mom and still think it is hard, you can love breastfeeding and still think it is hard, you can love being a stay-at-home mom and still think it is hard, you can love being a working mom and still think it is hard– the list can go on.

To the woman who is about to be a mom, congratulations! You are about to embark on this remarkable journey called motherhood and it instantly connects you to all of the mothers in the world. You absolutely are allowed to be excited and giddy to meet your little baby.

To the mother who is overwhelmed and exhausted, you are not alone. The great thing is, mothers have been doing this since the beginning of time, and they’ve survived. You will too.

Let’s support each other, in every aspect of motherhood. If you see a mom struggling with a child in public, offer a kind and supportive word or gesture. If you know a mom who seems to have it all together, let them know that you SEE them and all that they do for their family. I promise you, it will go a long way.

I love you all!

Love, Brittany

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