Back in December, I wrote this post about "having it all" and promised more posts on that topic, then epically failed to provide them. It's Friday, and even though I went to bed at 10 I feel disproportionately tired and more than a little aggravated at my body for not being able to handle caffeine like a normal, American, coffee-drinking person, so I'm going to make this short, and I do promise more (not "145-more" more, but more) in future posts.
This was going to be a psuedo-philosophical discussion of why I think this entire debate is misnamed and misleading (who really has it all, anyway? Men? I don't think so) but my brain is too momified today to produce something even mildly intellectual, so I'll just say this: I think our expectations of life post-baby need a massive reality check. (I say "our" to like, include you and a whole bunch of other people I don't know, but if you don't like that then feel free to think of "our" as strictly me, because really I am just one person so what do I know about "our"?)
We hear that life will change post-baby. We understand that life will change post-baby. We see friends leaving New Years Eve parties to get their little ones in bed by 7pm. We see other friends moving to the 'burbs to houses with more space and better schools and bigger yards and majorly huge refrigerators. We know that minivans exist. We know that nannies exist. We know that some parents work in the home, some work out of the home and some outsource their own job to China. But do we actually synthesize this information, and really get it, before that baby arrives? I know I didn't. I didn't understand how the exhaustion and picking up after/feeding/dressing/entertaining/comforting/teaching a little one would affect me, how much mental space I would have left for working or a career or my writing, how stressed or strung-out my husband would be as he tried to be a super supportive spouse and present dad with a full-time job, and how we would tackle any of this while still finding time to watch Downton Abbey.
I, like many of you, have a heartstoppingly sweet one-year-old. I have a super-cool, thoughtful, barnyard-animal loving husband. We both have careers we want to pursue that we're passionate about, and we both really want to be there for our kid. We are batshit lucky on so many fronts — but we are tired sometimes, and we are a little freaked. We are overwhelmed and we are uneasy. We are clueless and we are terrified that we have woken up and found ourselves as parents. We're also still, in many ways, operating as our old, pre-parent selves. Our expectations of how much we can fit into a day and how many friends we can see and how much we can exercise and how much time we'll have for each other — sure, they're slowly adapting and shrinking and settling down to a new status quo. But I know I'm still clinging to certain ideas of how productive I can be. And I think I need to stop doing that. Because I'm just going to be disappointed. And, on the flip side, maybe I don't write as much every day as I could if I didn't have a baby — but then I wouldn't have a baby. In short (because I said this would be short and it most definitely isn't): don't expect to have as much energy as you used to. Don't expect accomplishing your career goals to be easy. Don't expect much free time. Do expect crazy cute smiles. Do expect to love reading to your kid. Do expect hours of your time spent happily lying on the ground rolling around with the sweetest little muffin on the planet (that's the child, not your dog. Do expect your dog to be a little jealous. Do expect him to get over it).
Happy weekend!
xox,
Rebecca
We hear that life will change post-baby. We understand that life will change post-baby. We see friends leaving New Years Eve parties to get their little ones in bed by 7pm. We see other friends moving to the 'burbs to houses with more space and better schools and bigger yards and majorly huge refrigerators. We know that minivans exist. We know that nannies exist. We know that some parents work in the home, some work out of the home and some outsource their own job to China. But do we actually synthesize this information, and really get it, before that baby arrives? I know I didn't. I didn't understand how the exhaustion and picking up after/feeding/dressing/entertaining/comforting/teaching a little one would affect me, how much mental space I would have left for working or a career or my writing, how stressed or strung-out my husband would be as he tried to be a super supportive spouse and present dad with a full-time job, and how we would tackle any of this while still finding time to watch Downton Abbey.
I, like many of you, have a heartstoppingly sweet one-year-old. I have a super-cool, thoughtful, barnyard-animal loving husband. We both have careers we want to pursue that we're passionate about, and we both really want to be there for our kid. We are batshit lucky on so many fronts — but we are tired sometimes, and we are a little freaked. We are overwhelmed and we are uneasy. We are clueless and we are terrified that we have woken up and found ourselves as parents. We're also still, in many ways, operating as our old, pre-parent selves. Our expectations of how much we can fit into a day and how many friends we can see and how much we can exercise and how much time we'll have for each other — sure, they're slowly adapting and shrinking and settling down to a new status quo. But I know I'm still clinging to certain ideas of how productive I can be. And I think I need to stop doing that. Because I'm just going to be disappointed. And, on the flip side, maybe I don't write as much every day as I could if I didn't have a baby — but then I wouldn't have a baby. In short (because I said this would be short and it most definitely isn't): don't expect to have as much energy as you used to. Don't expect accomplishing your career goals to be easy. Don't expect much free time. Do expect crazy cute smiles. Do expect to love reading to your kid. Do expect hours of your time spent happily lying on the ground rolling around with the sweetest little muffin on the planet (that's the child, not your dog. Do expect your dog to be a little jealous. Do expect him to get over it).
Happy weekend!
xox,
Rebecca
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