Between Us Judging Mothers
I have a million things to write about the subject of motherhood but I sit down and it just becomes blank. What can you actually say about motherhood that really describes it?
For me it all started out during pregnancy – the identity crisis. All of a sudden I had to make myself a priority, I was a carrier of the priority and a lot of people have a lot to say about how you should be doing that properly. Combine that with your own preconceptions about how everything should feel and be and it’s all a total mess. Don’t get me wrong, I actually loved being pregnant. I had a smooth one (except for two months of constant nausea) and my belly made me feel proud. I was so into my own preggo glory that one time when walking down the street with my belly in the air, a drunken lady saw me and asked “are you pregnant?”, “yes” I answered with a big phony smile on my face, upon where she goes “so f*****cking ugly”. I couldn’t do anything but laugh but was taken out of my little pink cloud when I realized that this insult involved my BABY and it made me furious.
Onto motherhood… the identity crisis continues. Society tells you a good mother is one that tends to her children at all times, cooks food, bakes cakes, creates games, cleans the perfectly decorated house while never losing sight of your career goals, spending time with your partner, giving yourself alone time and exercising to stay in shape. HA! Really?! It is the expectations of what motherhood is supposed to be that makes it so much harder than it is.
I can’t really put my finger on it but it seems like each and every one of us go into motherhood wearing a veil that is blurring our intuition, creating doubt and judgment. I know I did, and the work of unveiling takes time. In Sweden, I feel like we are slowly starting to break down the norms of right and wrong when it comes to pregnancy, delivery and motherhood to make everyone feel comfortable in their own situation and abilities. This is good, really good! But the ironic thing is that it started making me uncomfortable to share my story. For example, I dislike sharing my birth-story because I am afraid people with a different experience will feel judged or offended by how smooth mine was. This could simply be my insecurity to deal with but this reaction scares me. Maybe there are things in these success stories that are good to learn from? If I cannot speak of this positive experience maybe we will eventually lose the valuable insight they can provide us. I am on thin ice here, I know but we mustn’t forget that the way you experience pregnancy and early motherhood is a result of our individual situation, our expectations and our ability to listen to our own body and intuition.
Where am I going with this? I guess what I am trying to say is that I’m a great fucking mother and no one can take that away from me. And so are you and no one can take that away from you. This is my experience, my story. Everyone goes through it differently yet we all share some crucial commons, one - being a mother. We can all learn from each other’s stories, but the best teacher will always be the experience itself. If we let ourselves be present in this experience, without fighting the ups and downs, I believe we can make it way easier on ourselves.