I’m about to talk about really tough things. If you’re at all triggered by stories of pregnancy mishaps or really bad things that can happen to babies, or you just can’t, in general, today—I understand. I send you lots of love.
It’s also gonna be long… so get some water and a snack, and get ready for a preview of one of the books I’m working on.
My first baby turned 18 a few months ago. His birth was a terrifying initiation into parenting. Apgar score of 3, he was taken from me before I could see or hold him and sent straight to the ICU. Hours later, lying frozen in the recovery room, I felt like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, repeatedly uttering, “Wiggle your big toe,” in an attempt to get enough feeling back post-epidural to walk to the baby I carried for 40 weeks so I could finally meet him.
Our first true meeting was ROUGH. Three hours had passed when they thought he was stable enough that I could nurse him—only for him to have a seizure in my arms. Cerebral palsy, they initially told me. MRI, phenobarbitol, “Wait! It’s only a series of strokes! This is good news!” WUT? (JK, we didn’t even have “WUT” in 2005.)
His birth trauma was the start of a massive transformation in how I experience myself and the world. (Though it would take years — plus a second child with complex medical drama —before I would realize I had lived with varying degrees of anxiety—for my entire life.) He is a wonderfully kind, thoughtful, wise adult man now, with his own challenges and ready to write his own life story around them. Neuroplasticity is amazing. Had I not had a baby who had a stroke, I’m not sure I would be on my current path of studying brains, emotions, and trauma—all of which inform my work and my life’s purpose!
As a new nursing parent, I could no longer access my coping mechanisms: sleeping, self-medicating with alcohol, and socializing. Trapped at home with a baby (whom I felt I had failed when in utero,) too scared to go out due to crippling anxiety, plus undiagnosed ADHD that made logistics stressful (Did I get the diaper bag? Did I remember to put diapers in it? Am I doing this right?), I felt like I was in quicksand, quietly suffocating. Keeping a feeble human baby alive felt scarier than watching Buttercup and Westley go through the Fire Swamp when I first saw The Princess Bride in Grade 8.
His birth was my awakening to all I didn’t know about myself. And much like any hero’s journey, you gotta walk through the Fire Swamp and battle some baddies (like Rodents of Unusual Size) before you can claim your prize (I want my castle and my true love, dammit). So reflecting on my odyssey through motherhood for the past 18 years, I can see that what began as a horrifying experience was exactly what I needed.
WUT?
I thought I was going to be a different kind of mother. More stay-at-home-ish, more… Pinteresty—though all we had to reference in 2005 were Martha Stewart Living magazines and the cool moms in Trinity Bellwoods Park. On the one hand, I was determined to continue the independent, Carrie Bradshaw-wannabe life I had just won through marriage (yes, marriage of all things— traditionally, in my Armenian culture, girls don’t move out until they are married). Conversely, I wanted to be a good Armenian mom with a Western twist. I wanted my kids to do all the things “Canadian” kids could do that I couldn’t. Sports, sleepaway camps, themed birthday parties with REAL pizza (not English muffins with cut-up hot dogs and melted cheese on them. Damn, now I’m craving mom’s mini pizzas). I ended up somewhere between those two states, somewhere between “Cringe. Why were you like that?” and “Wow. You did actually pull that off.”
I don’t care how much you love babies or how Zen you are—lots of early-stage parenting is pretty dullsville. I was parenting without a smartphone back then, and “watching stuff” meant channel surfing or renting DVDs. Look at your child in bewilderment and awe for 10 minutes, then—BORINGBOREDBOREDBORING. I did have something my mother didn’t have: the internet. Do you know what anxiety and sleeplessness will have you do when you’re a people-pleasing perfectionist? Research the heck out of everything to do with your baby because you have inadvertently been taught never to trust your intuition, and clearly, your clumsiness (which you don’t yet know is due to your brain wiring) means this baby will die in your care. Heck, you couldn’t even keep him safe in your womb, b*tch! You are so going to fuck this up, said my inner gremlin on repeat.
Anyway, suffice it to say that I’ve gone to the school of hard knocks on this and learned a few things while I earned my bumps and badges. Here are 18 things I’ve learned in 18 years of being a mama:
Babies cry. The sooner you accept this, the more at peace you’ll be. They have no other way to tell you shit. They’ve just been ripped from the happiest place on earth (no offence, Walt) into this cold, cruel world, and they can’t even control the movements of these bodies they’ve been given. As an adult, you cry because you have to wait seven days to see what happens on White Lotus or Love is Blind. Treat your baby’s tears as data. Notice what the different cries are trying to tell you over time, patiently. Or just join them and sob too. It’s all good. No one knows shit anyway. This leads me to…
No one knows shit about parenting. Sure, trusting the science is a good idea (this will resurface soon, so note it). But advice is like the penis of a guy I slept with once after he promised me he’d make me squirt: It may sound good, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Sure, read a parenting book if it floats your boat (probably best to stick to Ann Douglas). Keep some emergency numbers somewhere (although I guess people have Google in their hands now). Pick one path and one source of advice, try it for a bit, and be consistent and patient as you collect data on whether it works or not. Try not to waste energy (and baby-free time) reading ten different books; learn to trust your intuition instead. This is called attunement and is probably the most important thing to study before you have a bébé. Learn to adapt to your baby’s needs when possible. But not at the expense of yourself.
Take care of yourself first. No, this is not some airplane oxygen metaphor. The most important thing you can learn in parenting is how to regulate your nervous system. When you have a cool head, you can plot your parenting strategy with the calm precision of Daenerys Targaryen. BUT LISTEN UP. More critically: A regulated parent can teach a child how to respond to their own emotional needs, breaking a cycle of inner and outer violence. You can’t model what you don’t know how to do for yourself (screams GenX into the void).
Related sidebar: I love Dr. Gabor Mate, but whenever he suggests my being stressed as a new mom gave my sensitive baby ADHD, I want to punch things. I agree that ADHD and trauma responses are similar and that ADHD presents as taking an adaptive behaviour (like checking out when there’s stress in your environment) and using it so frequently that it becomes a maladaptive habit. But in that conversation, can we talk about how we don’t support moms?! Anyway, go to therapy, do the work, learn to breathe and shit. You are the most important figure in your beautiful future baby’s life; learn how to treat yourself as such and forgive yourself when you inevitably fuck it up.Cultivate a non-judgmental nature. It’s so hard, but what causes shame and guilt? Judgement. Do you want any other tired-ass mom to feel like shit about her choices? Stop judging yourself and stop judging others. Practice it. I told you, no one knows shit about parenting, including you! Everyone’s figuring it out the best they know how with what they’ve got. Some people research online during feeding time, and others listen to their… MOTHERS! Some people call Telehealth, and some people call their nanny. Whatever gets you through (that doesn’t hurt others in the process)!
I breastfed and bottle-fed. I co-slept, and I sleep-trained. I used cloth and disposable diapers. I swore I would never yell, and I yelled. I was convinced they would only ever eat organic food, and I fed them whatever food was in front of me because feeding your kids is a privilege and not a right in this world. I carried them, and then I pushed them away. I held it together until I fell apart. Sometimes we had cartoon character band-aids in the house, and if I used enough of them to patch myself up, I’d feel like a person again. Just because someone else’s way is not YOUR way doesn’t make it wrong (this point is important in your co-parenting relationship as well).
Stop it. It’s hard enough without the judging. And girl, start with not judging yourself so harshly!YOU do know everything about parenting.
But not the way you think. Your body is full of infinite wisdom that has evolved and improved over millennia. It’s got more code than Google. It knows. Learn to listen to yourself. Not the voice in your head but the Knowing in your gut. Learn to discern what is anxiety chatter and what is truly your universal wisdom. You know what to do. You just haven’t been taught to trust yourself.Don’t say shit to the media. Because only Buddhist monks can do #4 all the time. Everyone is gonna judge your choices that you were so convinced of that you confidently gave your name and picture to the reporter covering a controversial topic*. Even if you think the aforementioned reporter is a “friend” because she reads your blog sometimes, don’t do it. That’s not the way to get your name out there.
Seems kinda obvious, but avoiding evisceration in a comments section is a very good way to keep your nervous system regulated.
* What we didn’t know back then was that our daughter had a rare disease that was causing her bodily issues. I have since been to hell and back and feel differently about that topic, but it lives on for eternity online.Don’t work at a parenting magazine. Oh sure, it always seemed like a dream job for a chick-lit heroine. But your job will be to read research that tells you you’re doing it wrong. And then you’ll come home and tell your husband that you have to change the way you’ve been doing it, or else the baby will die some preventable death and confirm that everyone thinks you are unfit to be a mother. And just when you have everyone doing it the new way, another study will come out and tell you you’re doing it wrong. It’s truly hell (although the colleagues and the creative work are the best). Writers who hope to procreate: Go into content marketing instead.
You’re going to fuck up.
If you’re lucky, someday your kids will love you so much they’ll want to roll their eyes at your “cringe.” Someday your kid will also have the emotional language to tell you that you crossed a line or you said a shitty thing that made them feel bad. They will remind you how you promised you were never gonna divorce their dad, or yell or nag, or let them look at screens all day.
The only perfect mom/parent exists in your imagination. Trust that every fuck-up is meant to be a lesson. That your love for yourself and your offspring will mean you can swallow your pride and admit when you’re wrong, take accountability for your actions, apologize and do better next time.You don’t have to do it alone.
Every single baby item you buy takes hundreds of people and resources to get it to you. Capitalism makes us feel like we have to be perfect and do all the things without asking for help. Or we have to buy our way to convenience (which I’m not opposed to but is not accessible to everyone). It’s bullshit that has ruined the fabric of neighbourhoods and families. They say it takes a village because it does.
Finding your people takes work, but building a community is one of the most worthwhile investments of your time and energy. You never know when you’ll need them. When you’re an exhausted new mom who can’t see straight or remember the last time you showered, making a date with ANYONE to go for a walk or see a Mommy and Me movie will SAVE YOUR LIFE.If I was scrambling to pick up my kids from daycare, my community would scoop them up and feed them. If, like me, you find yourself in the hospital, wondering if your sweet six-year-old is gonna die (a story for another day), your community will show up and leave dinner on your porch and get your other kid to drum lessons. If you need your house to be cleaned so you can feel like a somewhat functioning adult, ask for help. You’d be surprised what people will do for you in exchange for ten minutes of sniffing a baby’s head, but also because you’re infinitely lovable, and humans love to be needed!
Like any investment strategy that prioritizes your long-term well-being, the key is to give back or pay it forward when you can, to continue to invest in your community in big and small ways to ensure the health of its members so you can draw from it in times of need. You also want to surround yourself with people you genuinely love and enjoy because otherwise, it’s just transactional, and I don’t have space to get into why that’s kinda icky.
I’m big on barn-raising. Host a batch-cooking party to get ahead. Find a fitness buddy. My favourite moment in my village was walking on my high street one winter when Erin from the toy store came running out to ask if one of my kids left some gloves there the week before. (Yes!)
Whether or not you’re on a first-name basis with your village like I am, you still need people. Choose them wisely and show your appreciation for them.
Part 2 next week! If you enjoy I Heart Stories, tell a friend!
Love this so much. Looking forward to the book!