In the days and weeks following the birth of my son, I felt many things. Joy, exhaustion, anxiety, love, worry, overwhelm, and more were all part of the turbulent mix of new motherhood. But one of the most surprising and hardest for me to deal with was my frustration. When I imagined becoming a mother, I never considered that anger would be part of my experience, much less that it could be normal and natural.
I could sense that something wasn’t right, but my assumption was that it was somehow my fault. I wasn’t doing something right. When my baby cried, or when I couldn’t get him to sleep, or when he wanted to eat again so soon after the last time, I assumed it was somehow my fault, and I worried that I was doing something wrong, or that something was wrong with my baby. What I know now is that the anger and frustration I felt were acting like warning lights or alarm bells, signaling an urgent unmet need. Sleep was a huge challenge for me- I had a hard time relaxing enough to fall asleep when I had the chance (a red flag for anxiety disorders that I was also unaware of at the time), but then I would struggle to stay awake while breastfeeding my son. Later, when I learned that breastfeeding caused a surge of the hormone oxytocin, which can lead to feelings of sleepiness, I was able to use this fact to my advantage, but at first I felt betrayed by my body and angry that I was struggling to both sleep and stay awake at the appropriate times every day.
Anger and frustration are not a necessary part of becoming a mother, but they are a normal reaction to the context in which most of us experience this transition, where our needs are overlooked, unspoken, and dismissed as unimportant more often than not. We are even made to feel guilty for having any needs at all while also learning to care for an intensely needy human infant. Let’s not forget that we are human too, and all humans need sleep, nourishment, companionship, love, and care. It’s ok to have needs of your own, it’s ok to do things to meet those needs, and it’s ok to have feelings when those needs are not able to be met in the moment, or in the foreseeable future.
I had to learn these things the hard way because I didn’t hear anyone talking about them before I became a mom. In the sixteen years since then, more and more moms have started speaking out about their experiences, but the intensity of the transition still takes most of us by surprise. We need to keep having more conversation about our needs, what they are, why they aren’t being met, and the ways we can help each other, whether by stepping in to support a friend or neighbor, building community centers for parenting, working to change policies and laws to reflect the needs of new moms and all parents, or simply by being open about or experiences and listening with compassion.
If this speaks to you, consider joining me in Untangling Motherhood, a 6 week virtual community for moms who are looking to deepen their connections with themselves and their purpose as mothers and humans. Doors open on July 29th.