“Inside a chrysalis, a caterpillar's body digests itself from the inside out. The same juices it used to digest food as a larva it now uses to break down its own body!”
Found here: https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-goes-on-inside-a-cocoon/
“Wishing you ease and joy on your motherhood journey and patience as you transform into your most powerful self. What a wild ride.” -the wise and beautiful Carol Anne Lesser (Yes I just quoted myself. It’s fun, you should try it!)
A friend of mine reached out to me about one of my last posts and said some really nice things like: “You are a badass momma! Your sleep deprivation hasn’t hindered your incredible wit and I always get an excited, tingly feeling when I see your email in my thread. Thank you for the laughs and blunt truths you always share!”
First of all, thank you Natalie!!! Especially about my sleep deprivation not hindering my incredible wit. What a relief! The quote above was my response and I hope it didn’t come off as patronizing. (It was not meant to be!) I actually went back to read it to myself because I needed the reminder to be patient as I transform into my most powerful self. I’ve been thinking about how when a caterpillar goes into its chrysalis its whole body (other than its legs I just read) melts in preparation for the total metamorphosis and although motherhood does not look the same (when do my wings grow?!) there’s a similar feeling of discomfort in the transformation. Much of our culture around motherhood sounds like, “Birth sucks, it’s painful and gross- you should just numb out and medicalize the whole process. But don’t worry because once the baby is born you will be sooo happy! Eternal bliss. The end.”
The problem with this story is it supports immense spending on highly interventive medicalized hospital birth (averaging $30,000-$50,000 per birth in the US) but virtually no support after the baby is born for the first 5 years because that is the “easy blissful part.” What I’ve found is the birth process can be really cool and actually potentially pleasurable (and quick compared to the rest of your life with baby!). Similar to the pleasure from intense extreme sports with all the hard work and accomplishment that goes into overcoming immense challenges like: rock climbing, marathons, or rafting over a waterfall. Birth has the potential to teach us about resilience, power, and surrender. The other side with a baby is when it gets really hard and we need help. There are so many stressors with babies with very little systematic or societal support. What if we stopped spending money on unnecessary hospital interventions for low-risk pregnancies/births and used that money instead to support the postpartum period and the first 5 years of a child’s life?
I’ve been reading the book Mother Brain by Chelsea Conaboy, where she talks a lot about the real concrete changes going on in the brain of parents with the stimuli of the baby. It’s incredible and somehow comforting to know that there is something really powerful going on in my brain, in my body, with my hormones. It’s not just this sense that life is different now than it was before babies. I really truly am a different person. My brain is transforming again with the stimuli of our second baby and his relentless needs that I must learn to respond to so he’ll stop screaming. There are comparisons to the changes in adolescence with raging hormones and a body that is shifting and growing, going in and out of balance.
Why does this matter? Somehow writing this and doing this deep dive into the challenges of motherhood (and parenthood and all care-work!) feels crucially important because if we let the weight of this work land, really give it the value that it deserves, maybe we can change some things. “What kind of things?” you ask. Thank you for asking! I want to fight for paid parental leave for all parents in the country! (Countries around the world have paid parental leave for 6-weeks to 2-years! The US is the only developed country with no paid parental leave guaranteed for anyone. Let that sink in.) I want free/affordable quality childcare for the first 5 years. Think about this: we are all paying taxes for public schools- including all us families with kids under 5. So all us parents with kids under 5 who are paying 100% out-of-pocket for childcare are paying both taxes to cover public schools and for current childcare. What the fuck?! I also want affordable quality healthcare for everyone in the country so we are not losing our fucking minds about who is going to pay for birth, for our kid’s healthcare, for mental health services...
I meant to write a fun piece about our spring break shenanigans last week (I’m working on this) but to tell you the truth I’m exhausted and grumpy. Our baby is not sleeping because he’s teething, has a cold, and is switching from 2 naps to 1. So we’re all a little (a lot?) deregulated in our house. I’m out at a coffee shop banging this out because my husband caught the baby’s cold and is sleeping in “my office” which doubles as “our bedroom.” But I didn’t write last week because of spring break (read: lack of child care) and I just have to write for my own mental health and the health of my family.
It’s funny and sad to realize that a lot of the terms my friends and I use to describe our experience as mothers of kids under 5 are military terms like: front lines and in the trenches. Is early motherhood like going to war? I don’t know, I’ve never gone to war but I do feel like I’m battling our fucked up system and fighting for a better future for our children. I want to have hope that having kids will not be an unsupported mess that brings us to our knees, by the time our children are having babies.
Another quote I keep thinking about from Mother Brain is: “Taking care of a baby is isolating and stressful and boring, and it’s undervalued in our society. It’s not seen as worthy employment,’ Saxbe told me. ‘When you put men in that role, they are going to maybe pay the same psychological price that women do.’ That doesn’t mean men shouldn’t do it, she said. In fact, society needs more men in caregiving so that more people can see that the best answer is to provide the infrastructure, like paid leave and supportive workplaces, to protect ‘the whole-family system.’ Imagine that.”
We live in a society that values independence, as if we are truly separate individuals. But what happens when we become a family? I was raised to be a strong independent woman but I don’t feel like a separate individual anymore. Now I’m a mother, a wife, part of a greater whole where 2 little people depend on me for their well-being and my well-being is interconnected to theirs. We are linked and my own selfish happiness is no longer as important as it used to be because I’m part of a family. Or maybe it’s more important because when I am happy my children feel safe and secure. We are all part of families. That’s where we come from. Mother’s issues are everyone’s issues because we all got born. We all came from a uterus, from a vagina. We are not just separate individuals. We are interconnected, part of the whole. Whether we like it or not.
In order for our society to thrive we must support the health and well-being of mothers and babies. It all starts with mothers. Mothers who are thriving will care for their babies well and produce healthy happy people to care for mother-earth and all of her babies. This is not to discount fathers, other parents, or caretakers. It’s all connected! That’s what I am fighting for.
Why is this important? Because it feels like if we keep going the way we are going, we’ll continue to produce a generation that is stressed and disconnected from their bodies and from nature in a way that feels dangerous. I’m worried about the future. I’m also hopeful that these youngsters will dismantle some of the bullshit mixed in to gender roles and fight for all parents, all people, the whole-family to be supported and the health of our planet.
I’m also concerned that this writing may not be properly edited because my editor (my brave husband) has a cold today and is sleeping in my office. Hope this is good! He would probably tell me to drop some of the F-bombs but since he’s asleep: Fuck Fuck Fuck! Let me know what you think below :)
What are you fighting for? How do we get on the same page and pass some bills so we are properly supported and have hope for the future? How do we reconnect with our bodies and learn how to work together because we are not isolated separate beings but part of one big whole that needs everyone to thrive in order to function? Ok go! And in case you didn’t read the last piece here’s the link to write to the president: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ Yes let’s change some things!!!