Stories of motherhood usually follow one of two plots: a tale of overwhelming love and joy, or a saga of toil and sacrifice.
The tales of love and joy are fairy tales. They’re romanticised versions of reality featuring a sensibly dressed, brain-dead robot woman who smiles benignly while her child paints masterpieces in his sweet sailor outfit #blessed.
The sagas of toil and sacrifice are horror stories designed to glorify the wretched, starring a woman so spent she can’t even drag on pants in the morning as she battles with her filthy, screaming children who’ve stolen her will to live.
Both of these stories are fiction.
Motherhood is so much more complicated and nuanced than any trite or cautionary tale. Motherhood involves every emotion in the book. It’s a revolving door of good and bad and crazy and wonderful and hideous and fulfilling and mundane.
A mother can never be just one thing. A mother is everything, all at once.
It’s the knowledge that you can’t go back. This is a forever kind of job.
It’s discovering there’s no break. It’s relentless and you never could have known how exhausting it would be.
It’s learning you can do it. Even when you’re shattered and emotional, you can still show up and perform. Even when you think you’ll break, you keep going. Who knew you had so much strength?
It’s suddenly understanding how remarkable women are. Look at what we do! We create people and then we give every last drop of ourselves to keep them alive and happy. It’s the most selfless, astonishing and bad-ass thing you’ve ever seen and it feels wrong that everyone’s carrying on like it’s no big deal. Where are all the street parties and gold medals for mums?
It’s wanting to give every single part of yourself to your baby, but learning that’s impossible. Taking care of yourself is essential but you’ll struggle to find the balance every day from now.
It’s finding out that your happiness is directly linked to another person. When she is happy, you are happy. When she’s upset, you are upset. Your heart is in her hands.
It’s coming to terms with the mania in your head as you become this new version of yourself. You’ll feel conflicted every damn day. So confident and yet so unsure. So exhausted but so motivated. So in love, and so defeated. So empowered and so unseen. So lonely but never alone.
Your story is one of adventure, and the hero is you. You start out as you—the old you. You have a baby, you lose yourself, you find yourself again, you change and evolve, you learn and you grow, you face each challenge head-on because there is no other way around it. You will find things in yourself you never even imagined were there—more patience, more understanding, more empathy than you thought possible. You will see the world and all its flaws with fresh eyes.
One day you’ll look at this tiny creature and think, ‘How did I ever survive without you? What did I ever do before you were here?’ because everything is now framed by your love for your child.
You’re a mum now. You’re part of this great tradition of women, centuries of goddesses who create life and devote their being to raising their children. Every step you take has been walked before you. You’re part of it now. The Motherhood.
Welcome.