But I digress.
Anyway, I happen to love being a mom - partly because my son is obviously the coolest kid in the whole wide world - and I think it is one of the most fun things you can really do as a grown-up human. But I am finally ready to admit that it is almost nothing like what I expected. The awesome stuff is ever so much more awesome than I thought it would be. The crappy stuff is ever so much more crappy than I thought it would be. Then there's the stuff that I thought would be easy which is totally not at all easy, and the stuff I thought would be incredibly difficult which is actually quite simple, especially after I've just thrown in the towel and said "fuck it" and decided that this particular difficult thing is really not worth all of the goddamn screaming.
As a mom, I am basically learning lessons all day, every day, and some are more painful than others. For example, I learned that cream-coloured shirts are horrible, while plain white t-shirts are actually a great idea because you can bleach them to remove stains without leaving weird white spots! (Note: I have no idea whether you would want to bleach a little tiny baby's clothes, but I suspect not since their skin may be more sensitive than a toddler's, so take that bit with a grain of salt). Also, it might be super cute for your child to learn how to throw a football, but a nice, tight spiral across the Christmas dinner table into a glass of chocolate milk isn't always well-regarded by one's guests. So other than the learn-as-you-go lessons, which my dear niece will learn through her own trial and error, what sage and completely unsolicited advice do I bestow upon her as she embarks on her mommyhood journey?
- Get sleep whenever you can, wherever you can. Nate doesn't nap. He has never napped. He napped while he was in Guatemala (so we were told), but once we brought him home, he was like "hell no, I'm not napping, and if I do, it most certainly isn't going to be in that horrible and degrading crib!" I realized this very early in my maternity leave, so I developed a system. I would curl up in a ball on the floor inside the play-yard with him, using one of his stuffed animals as a pillow, while he played with his toys. I also found that if I was going somewhere in the afternoon, he would fall asleep in the car and stay asleep. So... I ran short errands in the afternoon and would carry him up to bed when I was done so I could lie down and snooze as well. If the errand was totally contrived, this wouldn't work; it had to be legitimate, and preferably involve me trying to juggle multiple large objects while pushing a stroller or carrying a sleeping child. When my mat leave was over and he was in day care, it was someone else's problem.
- Speaking of someone else's problem, don't micro-manage your day care team. If you have done your homework and selected a good, reputable, clean and established day care with well-trained staff, you should not need to micro-manage them or nitpick every little tiny thing they do. They have dealt with many more children in their tenure than you ever will, and most of the time, they have a pretty good idea how to handle things (especially potty-training... follow their lead on this one!). Be involved, be engaged, but don't be that parent.
- Find people to work with who won't make you feel like a failure or a slacker if you leave before they do to pick up your child from day care. Since joining my current company, I have never once had anyone crack wise about me "taking a half day" as I walked to the elevator with my bag at 6 pm. My boss has actually cut sentences short when he realized the time and reminded me that it's time for me to leave. While you wouldn't necessarily think this type of support or understanding is a big deal, it really kind of is. Lots of employers (and employees) pay lip service to it, but few follow through to actually help you find some semblance of work-life balance. Just take my word for it: if your current employer in any way makes you or any other working mom feel badly for trying to get home at a reasonable time, cut bait now and find a new employer, and take the other working moms with you.
- Accept that "work-life balance" will probably not mean a perfect balance. I work for a company that does a pretty good job encouraging work-life balance. I have reasonable hours, and am finally starting to overcome my Pavlovian response to my Blackberry's flashing red light. Is it perfect? No. Do I wish I had more time at home? Yes. Is it better than my previous employer? Hell yes. If you go into the workforce as a working mom expecting a perfect balance, you will be sorely disappointed. The trick is to end each day feeling like you did the best you could with the hand that was dealt to you that day, but to realize there are going to be a lot of days when even that is too high of a bar. On those days, you just need to resolve to try harder tomorrow and leave it at that.
- Set high expectations but be willing to adjust them. I would LOVE to have a super-clean house with everything in place at all times, but with an active 5 1/2 year old and a husband who leaves piles of laundry, snibbles of paper, mail, dishes, and anything else that can be piled all over the house like some sort of pile-leaving wild animal, it just ain't gonna happen. Do I like this? No. Does it occasionally piss me off to the point where I become a screeching, semi-coherent banshee? Yes. Do I (somewhat) accept this reality and endeavour only to be a screeching, semi-coherent banshee when it really matters, such as when company is coming? Yes. Mostly. Ish.
- Divide the labour however you want, but recognize that no matter how enlightened your darling other-half is, you will probably still do most of the work. This one is a really bitter and jagged little pill for me to swallow. But I do realize that my husband does a fair amount of work around the house that goes unseen. By anyone. Including him. Ha! I'm just kidding (?). Seriously, though, I think this is something that gnaws at a lot of (especially working) moms. Before the baby comes, we all think "I'm in a wonderful 50/50 relationship and I'm confident that my man, who respects my value as a working woman and a human being who sometimes actually enjoys walking around without a toddler wrapped around her leg, will step up and help out and it will always be 50/50 in every respect." And then the baby comes, the fog lifts and, poof! There's your enlightened husband and father of your child, sitting on the sofa watching fourteen episodes of Cool Tools in a row "to clean out the DVR" while you, ya know, clean the kitchen sink so it isn't a festering pool of rotting, half-eaten dinners and simultaneously try to keep your increasingly-mobile bundle of joy from tumbling down the stairs headfirst while carrying the fireplace poker and a handful of crackers (aaarrgghh... crumbs!).
- Ignore the nosy-binosies. I can't possibly emphasize just how important it is to ignore all of the crazy-ass, busybody nosy-binosies you will encounter, who want to make sure you rear your children exactly how they think you should and no other way at all. For example, when we brought Nate home, he was 13 months old. He still took a bottle in the morning and before bedtime, and in theory, before his non-existent nap. It was, hands down, one of the most awesome bonding times we had each day, and I credit much of our attachment success to those quiet times in his rocking chair. Generally, many people in the US - including doctors - will advise parents to yank the bottle as soon as the child is one year old. Of course, this didn't work for us, since we couldn't go back in time (and if we could, we wouldn't waste it on the bottle thing). Plus, our doctor (who, incidentally, understood the limitations on time-travel and was aware of our adoption situation) told us it was fine to keep him on the bottle for as long as we needed or wanted. But boy, oh boy, you would have thought we were locking him naked in a dog crate in a cold, damp basement with the criticism I got from nosy-binosies who knew better than my physician and I did! "You know, when my daughter had her baby, her doctor had her take the bottle away on little angel's first birthday, and of course, I, my daughter, and little angel are the most well-adjusted people in the universe, so you would be a fool not to do what we did and you are clearly a failure as a parent for not having figured that out yourself." You will need to develop a politically-acceptable response (something like "thank you very much, I'll consider it and take your idea up with my husband/boyfriend/physician/therapist") that you can calmly deliver while mentally giving the nosy-binosy the finger and screaming "fuck off" at the top of your lungs. Mentally screaming, that is.
- Trust your instincts. The day before I went on my maternity leave, one of the partners I worked with wrote these words on a piece of paper for me as his advice. You know what? He was right. The sooner you learn to trust your instincts, the better off you will be. This can be hard for those of us who want to know that what we are doing is objectively right, want to know someone with a degree behind their name said it is okay - those of us who've been trained to look at the facts and determine the best course of action, as though there is always one right course of action. But sometimes, you just have to go with your gut. In the event of a tie between two rational options, pick the one your gut tells you to pick... unless your gut is telling you something really weird or potentially illegal, in which case you should seek help immediately.
At the end of the day, no amount of solicited or unsolicited advice will completely smooth the road ahead. Hold on during the curves, slow down and proceed with caution over the bumps, and enjoy the downtime of the straightaways. Bring your camera, and remember that parenthood is a journey, not a destination.
Enjoy the trip, Brittany. And William... welcome to the world, little man! You're in good hands!
