What I’ve Learned After 2 Years of Motherhood
This past Saturday, my sassy little daughter turned 2 years old. That might not seem like a very long time to be alive, but it feels like it when time flies by this fast. She is now completely unrecognizable from the newborn I held two years ago. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that she went from being 100% dependent on us to being able to walk, talk, ask us questions, answer questions, identify all colors, shapes, some numbers, and almost all animals, etc. She is also incredibly social - a trait neither of her parents possess.
As different as she is now, I wonder if I have changed just as much. Back then, I was figuring everything out for the first time. Now, we have many well-established routines and habits that make everything a little easier. Motherhood has also come to feel more natural now that some time has passed and I almost cannot remember what it feels like to not be a mother.
If a new parent came up to me and asked what I’ve learned over these past two years and what wisdom I would pass to them, here are some things I would say:
Parenting gets way easier, even in the toddler stage. Toddlers still need 24/7 supervision but they can move around and walk without you. They can walk themselves to and from the car (a far cry from when we had to carry her in the car seat everywhere - my arms still have not recovered from the weight of that thing). Toddlers can communicate much better - now Bebe can tell us when she’s cold or hot or what hurts if she has a boo-boo. Toddlers can sometimes dress themselves, to a certain extent. We still have to help our toddler put most of her clothes on, but she can handle putting on a jacket and socks if needed. Our toddler, the only small child in our house is also sometimes willing to play independently while we handle boring adult things, like chores and cooking. Not all the time though - she will pull us away from whatever we’re doing to go play with her eventually. And finally, we no longer need to carry so many baby items in a diaper bag. Now, we usually just bring one or two diapers, some wipes, and a single change of clothes if we take her somewhere.
Parenting becomes way more fun. In the early newborn days, much of our time was spent simply surviving. Our lives revolved around feeding (usually 6-8 times a day), pumping, washing bottles, getting ourselves to and from work, and getting Bebe down for naps. I was also consumed with making sure she was still breathing - SIDS was my #1 most gut-wrenching fear until she hit a year old. Now, Bebe can notice and enjoy the environment around her. She can run around in our home and on the playground, she has friends at daycare, and she talks to her toys as if they’re alive. One time, Bebe and I were driving home at night and she looked at the moon and said, “Hi Moon! I love you, Moon!” Moments like this are so sweet, and make the daily struggles of parenthood seem like not such a big deal.
Fear abounds. When my daughter was an infant, I worried all the time about her suffocating in her sleep. That’s why we never co-slept with her at night during the first year and I followed safe sleep rules to a T. Ridiculously, I thought that if we could just make it to the year mark, I would never have to worry again because the risk of suffocation would eventually dissipate - as if that’s the only thing a parent could ever worry about. Once the year mark came around, we no longer had to worry about accidental suffocation, but a new onslaught of fears surfaced - what if Bebe climbs out of her crib and breaks her neck? What if she snatches her hand away from me while we’re crossing the street and she gets hit by a car? What if she tries to climb her dresser and it falls on top of her, crushing her to death? What if… she makes it through childhood unscathed and then is murdered as an adult?! I’ve come to realize that unrelenting fear is the price we pay for the love and joy we experience during parenthood. No one is ever completely safe from all the horrors of the world, even our children.
Time FLIES. Okay, I know every person who has ever had a child or knows a child says this all the time. “Time flies,” “Time is a thief,” we’ve heard it all a million times. But wow, you don’t realize just how fast it goes until you watch your own child get big in front of your eyes. One day, you’ve got a positive pregnancy test and the next, you’re taking your daughter to Disney for her second birthday. Some people say, “The days are long but the years are short.” I partially disagree; days feel short to me, too.
The fear of death heightens. My most acute fear is something bad happening to my daughter. But my second greatest fear is something bad happening to my husband or myself. I think we’re all afraid to die to various extents but now I’m afraid to die because then my child will not have a mother. I used to be afraid of my husband dying because he’s my best friend and I would miss him so much, but now I’m also afraid of him dying because how can I explain to a toddler that her beloved dad isn’t coming home? Scenarios like this run through my mind all the time and they’re hard to recover from.
Rejoice if you have a village and if you don’t, hang in there. As a kid, I was raised by a single mom. I occasionally saw my father but he didn’t raise me. I did not realize how difficult that would have been until I became a mother myself. I have been fortunate enough to have a loving partner and a robust village, and I still find motherhood difficult sometimes. The idea of doing it all myself and having to work full-time is incomprehensible but you hear stories about single mothers and fathers all the time. These individuals handle all of the bath times, feeding times, pick-ups, drop-offs, disciplining, cleaning, cooking, homework, playtime, and much more all by themselves. Sometimes, they don’t even have family members who can step in and take over once in a while.
Everyone has strong opinions about parenting, and there are intense double standards between mothers and fathers. You don’t have to go any further than Instagram to see mothers get ravaged in comment sections for various minor offenses. These could include feeding their children an unhealthy meal, feeding them a healthy meal (because why would they deprive their children?!), letting their children watch TV, or not letting them watch TV - everything gets criticized. Any social media platform is a toxic environment for most people, especially if you’re a mother watching parenting content. There aren’t nearly as many father influencers, but the few that I’ve come across generally have much kinder comment sections. It seems the consensus is if you’re the father, then kudos to you for keeping your children alive at all without the mother around. This also happens in real life, of course. For a brief time, my now-husband and I separated (we have since reconciled, of course) and I moved into my own place. We amicably agreed to a 50/50 custody split; no courts involved. My parents and mother-in-law all pestered me about that, saying that a baby belongs with her mother and I felt very much judged for making that decision. The difference is, that I believe spending time with your father is just as important as spending time with your mother. At the end of the day, you need to use your own best judgment to decide what’s best for your child(ren), regardless of what others say.
XOXO, Alexis.