Being a mom has made me a better daughter

There is something unique about being a mom without a mom. There is a missing link, the circle doesn't close leaving me with a sense of loss. The sad part is, is that we both have lost out on what would have been an amazing understand and friendship.

Becoming a mother changes how you think about your own mother. Suddenly a lot of things come into perspective and you have a new found respect and understanding for your own mother. I once incurred the wrath of a few family members when I compared looking after my ailing mother to being her mother. I was given the proverbial knock over the head for daring to compare the two things and...as much as I loathe to admit being wrong I was wrong. It is no where the same. I wish my mom had gotten the chance to know me as a mom and I wish I had gotten the chance to stand  before her a mom myself.

I understand a lot more know, and I am still only beginning to understand, how difficult it is being a mom, especially to a strong willed stubborn daughter. Chloe might only be 4 months old but I see a lot of myself in her and i cant help but imagine my mom chuckling to herself about the justice of it all.

There are times when I long for her motherly touch so much. Sometimes I wish i could lie in her lap while she strokes my hair and just be her little girl again letting the weight of being a mother to my own daughter slip away.

How would being a mom change the relationship I had with my mother?

I would be more patient. This is a quality a sorely lack. I lacked it right until the end even though I knew I should be more patient, I just could not find it in me (something I will always regret).

I would be more affectionate. My mother was always looking for more affection than I was willing to give. I now understand how much she gave up to be a good mom to me and all she asked for were hugs and kisses in return.

I would give her the space to be her. I expected a lot of my mom because I wanted a lot for her. I guess what it came down to was that I wanted something different for her, so much so that I stop appreciating her for who she was.

I would be gentler with her. I am a tough cookie and I scare people sometimes. I was hard on my mom, aggressive even. She was so soft, it drove me nuts. I saw it as a weakness now I see the strength it took to stay soft and vulnerable in the face of all her hardship.

All in all I wish my mom was still here. Being a mom has made me a better daughter - the only problem is that my mom is not around to know that. But in my heart I think she does know now and is smiling as I finally grow up and let go of all my self righteous bullshit I carried around for so long. Being a mom has certainly cut me down to size and teaches me a thing or two about humility, patience, self-sacrifice, love... a couple times a day!

I love you mom. You were an amazing mother and a beautiful person and I sorely regret we did not get to know each other better.

Where Did All The Real Men Go?

Since becoming a dad my husband has proudly gushed to friends and colleagues, sharing some of the hilarious stories of poop in the bath, sleeping on the couch with babe in arms, pushing prams up and down our driveway at 2am. What has struck as both is the response he gets which is one of surprise that he should be up at 2am, changing diapers. The comment "wow, you are really an active dad!" is one that we are used to. It seemed shocking to us that him being a dad would be considered so unique by so many people, which then begs the question, "Where did all the real men go?"

It seems we have a society riddled with weak men. Men who cannot handle the responsibility of being a dad, men who cannot and don't get their hands dirty, men who leave it up to their wives to raise their children. Here is a snapshot of some of the husbands we have heard of lately:

- one ran off to Mauritius when his son was born... apparently he needed a break (nice place to run to if you are going to run!);
- one who slept in another room so that his wife getting up 4 times a night did not disturb him;
- one who wanted nothing to do with the kids till they were a "decent" age which was considered to be at two years old;
... and all of them refused to deal with nappies and if they do they bring out the masks and gloves (no jokes!)

I have seen men look at their children bewildered when their wives are not around unable to act without a list of instructions being barked at them and I have heard wives tell tales of useless husbands who could not parent without a manual.

We watched a comedian last night (name and link) who had a great bit about being a father of four. In it he jokes about the fact that he should really have learnt their names by now and how he does indeed do diapers and by doing diapers he means telling his wive it needs to be done. It appears that this "joke" is much the reality out there and more terribly - it is accepted.

It seems to me that our society is apathetic about absent dads. Do we believe men are incapable of showing love and compassion for their babies? Do we think them incapable of being nurturers  Surely not. And if we do, shame on us for making them feel inadequate and banishing them to their game consoles to be "men".

I think its all bullshit. Men are indeed capable of intense love, great nurturing and wells of compassion if we just allow them to be, expect them to be. My husband is considered to be "an active dad" - whatever that is supposed to mean. Lets just point out that I am not called  an active mother for caring for my daughter - nope, I am just a mom, no adjectives for me!

What granted him this grand title? He was up with me at 3am when monkey wouldn't sleep. He would rock her, talk to her about her future, make me tea, hug me - he was there, really there. Could he breastfeed? No. But he could be there for me keeping me company in the dead of the night so the burden wasn't mine alone. When I was exhausted and monkey wouldn't sleep he rocked her while I napped.

The point is we survived the early months together, as a team. The result? I fell in love with him over and over again in completely new ways. I saw a strength I never saw before, a resolute man determined to care for his new family in any way he could. I saw his patience as he rocked her for hours and I loved him deeper. I saw him wait for a poop nappy so he could swoop in and clean her up, have his daddy moment with her and it made me proud. I see him carrying the burden of caring for us with his head held high and my heart aches for him.

Does it take a special man to be an "active dad"? I would hope not. I would hope that every man has it in him to be so present, so willing to bond with their offspring, to want to experience the act of raising that child no matter if it occurs at 3am. That being said, there seem to be far too many men who complacently allow their wives to do it all, and far too many wives who dismiss their husbands' attempts to parent.

The sad fact is that in this situation everyone loses. We now have an exhausted mother who believes she must do all the parenting alone, a father who feels inadequate and a child who misses out on the joy of having a team of parents. Its a sad state of affairs really.

All I can say is that I am grateful every day for my husband who happily changes diapers, rushes home for bath time, makes us dinner every night and is happy to be in bed with me at 9pm. I have fallen in love with him over and over again in these past few months watching him grow as a person, a father and a husband.

I implore the wives out there not to shut out their husbands just for being men and I implore dads out there to get their hands dirty and prove everyone wrong. I really do believe that it is through the very physical act of caring for something so helpless that you bond so resolutely and love so immensely.

So this post goes out to the real men out there who are dads, not active dads, just dads (my husband included). Horray to you!

Before Amnesia Steals my Ugly Truth...

There is a global pandemic of amnesia and it is occurring everyday to millions of moms around the world.

I have joined a Moms and Babes class. It provides weekly sanity. Around 6 - 8 moms and their babes gather for an hour and a half to do baby exercises but really we are there to gaze at other glassy eyed moms and wonder if they have it worse than us. All of the moms in the class are on their second child. I am the lonely first time mom (it seems this status beguiles me wherever I go). All of them swap stories about food stuck on walls, projectile poop, the unbrushed teeth and unwashed hair of a mother of two. Another thing they all seem to have in common - they had all forgotten just how difficult a newborn can be. They must have, why else would they have opted to do it all again. (I do actually plan on doing this again, although there were desperate times when i thought NEVER AGAIN!)

Even now I can feel the memories of the early days slipping away. At almost 4 months we have settled into a beautiful routine. Chloe goes to bed at 6:30 and pretty much sleeps till 7am. This means we get to eat dinner together, talk, connect, watch an episode and get to bed early. Last night I had 9 hours uninterrupted sleep - whoop whoop! Now this all seems spectacularly below average to any childfree adult but to us new parents it is bliss. So now after a few weeks of this routine I can barely remember the truth of how bad it was in the beginning.

During the first 2 and a half months it pretty much was hell on earth. There were times that I handed our crying daughter to my husband and retreated to the laundry room where I put my robe over my head and just sat there in the dark softly crying, wishing the world would fall away. There were times when the thought of having to deal with her for the entire day on my own sent me into a dizzying state of denial, enough to keep my husband home for the day. I cried every day for 2 months. I cried because my instincts weren't just there like Ii had naively believed they would be. I cried because my baby cried and I had no idea why. I cried because I had no idea what I was doing. I cried because I was so so tired. I cried for my dead mother. I cried because I couldn't stop crying.

My husband and I did not eat a meal together for almost 3 months. We did not get more than 5 hours sleep a night. If I got 6 hours of sleep I thought it was a miracle. We barely slept in the same bed, one person on the couch either getting some sleep or sleeping sitting up with the baba in arms. I felt alone, I felt scared, I felt overwhelmed.

It took 6 weeks to recognise that the crying, the anxiety, the fear was not in the normal range. And after admitting this and getting onto a little drug called Eglonyl I calmed down. I started to feel my way through motherhood and not think my way through it.

I am proud and happy to say that at 3 ad a half months we feel like a real family. I am calm, happy and relaxed; happy to spend my days kissing chubby cheeks and eliciting smiles. My husband and I eat together, sleep together and even get date nights again. Chloe is happy.

It is easy to get into the trap of thinking - that wasn't so bad, it wasn't so hard...and forget. I remember vowing to make a video diary at 3am - i can see it now, crying into the camera begging for it to be over, wishing for another life. Because that was me for a time. Its painful to admit but its true. It was hard, by the hardest thing I have ever done. So instead of a video dairy I commit these painful truths to virtual paper as a reminder to myself and as an admission to the world that parenthood is not for sissies...its bloody hard make no mistake.

Do i regret any of it? No. The truth is my love for Chloe was forged through those sleepless nights, those nights and days of despair. Caring for her through that mental anguish is how my love for her grew into the tangible and solid thing that it is now.

So why do moms forget? perhaps it is because the joy eclipses the bad, perhaps it is because the brain is programmed to remember joy more than pain, perhaps because it was so difficult it is easier to forget, perhaps it is because in the greater scheme of things those first few months are just a blip on the radar of their lives, perhaps it is because we forgive ourselves those moments of madness and move on to love and cherish them beyond belief.

So yes there is a global pandemic out there, allowing families to expand one child at a time.