Are You A Chill Mom?

A new-mom client of mine recently asked me, “Are you a chill mom?” I laughed and said, “You’d have to ask my husband.” Later I told her, “I’m not a chill mom. I don’t think any of us feel like ‘chill moms.’ I think we feel like crazy moms.” She said, “You seem like a chill mom.” I laughed again and replied, “I’m a chill Craniosacral practitioner. I’m a fierce mama bear.” When I saw my husband after work I began to tell him that a client of mine had asked me if I was a ‘chill mom’ and before I could finish the story, he laughed and said, “No.” So there you have it. Not a chill mom.

I told this same client that when I first became a mom I hated motherhood for about the first 2 years. I loved my son of course, but the tasks and responsibilities of motherhood felt strangling to me, like I couldn’t breathe. It took me nearly 3 years to start enjoying motherhood. Then it was fun to take our son rafting, camping and on road trips. I thought, “This isn’t so bad. Maybe I could do it just one more time.” And bam I was pregnant again. Now that my second son has turned 2, I’m starting to see the light, where I have a sense of freedom again. A sense of myself, with my own body and my own needs that can be met.

There’s something about this huge transformation, of going from being a “free agent,” an independent woman, taught to do everything myself and muscle through, to crash landing into the depths of caring for a totally dependent being, or two, in relative isolation. It can be shocking. Before having kids I was a wild and free river guide, massage therapist, birth doula, midwifery student, traveler and adventurer. I felt sure in my body, strong and confident. Then all of a sudden my life became wrapped around diapers, naps, and laundry. I never thought it could happen to me. I’d always known I wanted to be a mom but I thought I could maintain my wild free dirt-bag lifestyle even with babies.

Having kids in the west can be so lonely, in our capitalistic culture of individuality. I’d traveled a lot before having kids and witnessed family life in parts of Latin America and Africa where community seems to play a more central role and I thought, “I want to do it like that.” But I don’t have a tribe or village or cultural infrastructure that values family. Even within the lovely local community that we do have, we also have a culture that values busyness, productivity, and wealth above all else. It’s challenging to be enmeshed in a system and to want to do it differently, but becoming a mom leaves so little energy to recreate a system. I want to protect others from crashing as hard as I did and I know I need a powerful team to make big changes.

As a women’s health practitioner I’m on the front lines of trying to make these changes, one family at a time. I see the impact of our broken system and all the women and mother’s that fall through the cracks, receiving so little care in our “health care” system that barely knows the female body. That provides so little care for our natural cycles, our fluctuating hormones that follow the moon, the seasons of the earth, that we seem to have forgotten. Menstruation, birth, and menopause are treated like diseases in the west and we are offered “feminine hygiene” products to hide the dirty blood of our broken bodies. Birth is medicalized in an attempt to control our wild power and in menopause we’re offered drugs or surgery. There is a better way.

In my practice I may see a postpartum mom, a woman struggling with infertility, and a baby learning how to breastfeed back to back. With postpartum moms I can empathize and share my own experience and tell them that it really is as hard as they think. That it’s totally fucked up to become a mom in a culture where there’s virtually no support, a big dose of isolation, and encouragement to be independent, do it all yourself, and practice “self-care” at the same time. Even building a tribe, village, or support network often lands on the mom. Then I help them relax their bodies and come back to their breath in the present moment, finding the support of the ground and balance in their bones. I share books, yoga nidra recordings, and referrals for pelvic floor physical therapists, and mental health therapists to begin creating their support team.

With women struggling with infertility, I can empathize with the deep ache to reproduce, to grow ripe with new life. But I also know how hard life can be on the other side; the likelihood of feeling unsupported, isolated, lonely and anxious. I’m supporting women to conceive while at the same time being in the throes of early motherhood and often feeling jealous of my friends without kids; of their freedom, their energy, their unfettered dreams, and bank accounts.

Motherhood is strange, the way it knocks us down and breaks us apart, while bringing us to the center of our creative force, the wild female body and our powerful creations. This is important work. It’s also excruciatingly difficult mind (and body) blowing work. It destroys and creates us. I want to share this creative journey with anyone who feels called to mother, but I also want to protect these new mothers from crash landing as hard as I did. I want to offer a better way.

Moms need more support. I want so badly to provide a beautiful landing pad for new moms, a container, a warm womb space to land and feel held, seen, and valued. I know I can’t be all of this to a whole generation of new moms but I want so badly to try. I want a huge team, a welcoming committee to usher in the next generation.

A young woman in her late 20’s recently told me that she wanted to start trying to have babies as soon as her and her partner bought a home. I said something like, “Take your time. What’s the rush? If I could start again I would wait until I was 35 to begin having kids, until I was more established in my career and financially stable.” She basically rolled her eyes at me and I could hear her thoughts: “I can do it better. I don’t need to wait. Those were your problems, I’ll do it differently.” Then I remembered when I was her age an older mom telling me exactly the same thing, “Wait until you’re 35 to get married and then have kids.” At the time I thought that was so old and I couldn’t possibly wait. I was ripe and ready.

Now I’m 37 with 2 little boys, a husband, a home and a mortgage, fully entangled with the system in a way that I thought I could avoid before having kids, but here we are. It’s not as shocking as it once was to wake up every morning to this strangely grown up life of mine. And you know what? I am a chill mom sometimes. I’m often barefoot with my boys. We play and get dirty together, laughing and crying and rolling around. I feed them healthy snacks and prioritize down-time, resting, and boredom as a way to birth creativity. We are part of no after school programs. We just play in the yard and look for bugs. I’m a passionate, anxious, calm, wild, free, hilarious, playful, fierce mama bear. Who can also be chill sometimes.

I recently heard some beautiful writing describing the human condition as all of us falling together, that the act of being born is like getting pushed off a cliff and that we are all in this free-fall until we land in death. We are all grabbing on to things and each other to find safety and stability, but since we are all falling together none of us can stop the fall, we can just be each others’ safe harbors and fall together. This is why family, tribe, village, community is so important. We can share the fall, it’s not so lonely. Perhaps it can be a joyful fall where we remember our freedom even in the midst of feeling trapped in the cycle of perpetual diaper changes. Nothing lasts forever except love.