Let's Get Real

Over the course of the summer semester, I had a few conversations with classmates and professors about motherhood that I have wanted to share with you.  Also recently, the mayor of NYC announced a new initiative for breastfeeding (formula ban), which I think is important education, but it forced me to write this post.  I am a proponent of breastfeeding and understand all of the benefits that it has for mother and baby.  However important education on the benefits of breastfeeding is, I feel that all these campaigns do is give me and other moms who have failed at breastfeeding another indication that we're not perfect.  I suggest that instead of putting more pressure on mothers to be perfect, we should be creating initiatives for what mothers really need, support. 

In U.S. society, we put pressure on mothers to be perfect, projecting images of "perfectness" everywhere.  The U.S. mother can do it ALL.  Breastfeed, make baby happy, get baby to sleep well, get baby to eat well, dress baby stylishly, keep the house clean, cook, 24 hours a day and all by herself.  I could go on and on about how the media portrays celebrity moms, but I won't go there.  New moms are trying match this perfection at the same time that they have no idea what the hell they are doing.  Have you ever heard, "it takes a village"?  This is the mentality I think we need to get back to (I bet the celebrities hire their village).  This image of perfection allows us to judge and I'm guilty of judging too but I'm trying to change.  We need to stop judging, even ourselves, and make more comments like "nobody's perfect" to each other.  We need to share the idea that we can't do it all perfectly, and that that is okay.  We need to get real with each other.

The first 8 weeks of the boys' lives were overwhelming and a very nice person wrote to me on Facebook, a person I barely know, but her words meant so much to me during that very difficult time.  She too is a mama of twins and I'm sure she knew what I was going through.  All she had to say was that it will get easier and that at that point for her she felt like she had been run over by a semitruck.  Part of the reason those first 8 weeks were so difficult was because of breastfeeding.  I had the boys 5.5 weeks early.  Maceo didn't even have the sucking reflex yet.  The boys stayed in the NICU for 11 days.  I pumped and fed as much as I could.  However, I wasn't getting enough supply for them.  I had to supplement with formula.  I was so disappointed.  I tried to breastfeed only for a few days to try to force my supply up.  The boys were upset & hungry and I couldn't handle it.  I never built up my supply for them and we supplemented with formula.  I breastfed for 3 months and then continued to pump for 2 more for a total of 5 months of breastmilk supplemented by formula.  I was so upset with myself as a new mom over not being successful at breastfeeding.  Everything I had heard was breastfeed, breastfeed, breastfeed and I couldn't do it.  I felt so guilty and ashamed.  Unfortunately, I know other women that couldn't do it either and feel the same guilt and shame for not being able to do it.  Now I'm okay with it, and would never judge another mother for breastfeeding or not breastfeeding after this experience. 

Looking back, what I am not okay with is the stress that it created for me and the boys in their first few months of life.  What I wish someone had told me earlier was that what really mattered was my sanity and happiness, not the freaking breastmilk.  I wish someone told me that if I didn't take care of me first, then I would never be able to give the boys what they needed, all of my love and energy.  I wish someone told me that it is totally normal to feel overwhelmed and its okay to ask for help;  that it is normal not to be able to do it ALL.  Where's the ad campaign or government initiative for that message? 

When I started back to graduate school, when the boys were a little over a year old, I finally realized what had happened to me.  Struggling to be the perfect mom, I had lost myself.  I had thought that I wanted to be a stay at home mom.  I wasn't cut out for that, at least not the way I was doing it, 24/7 never allowing anything for myself.  Once school started I had my own time, a focus other than family life and household matters.  I had more balance, and I know that everyone in the family is happier. 

No one told me about the bad parts of parenthood.  I thought of it idealistically, choosing to ignore that I would never have my "old" life back.  No one shared what a control freak I would become.  No one shared that being a stay at home mom isn't the easiest job in the world.  We need to get real with each other.  A classmate of mine said no one wants to rain on your parade,  no one wants to be the bearer of bad news to the lady with the pregnancy glow.  Well, I want to get real, parenthood is the most difficult thing I have ever done.  Maybe if we were all telling the truth, even if it's brutal, more would think through the decision to become parents.  I thought my marriage would surely end in divorce, I thought I was such a bad mom that it would probably be better if I wasn't around the boys, I thought I wasn't good at any of it.  It took me a year or more to really come to terms with my "new" life and understand that I am learning to be a parent and that mistakes will happen along the way.  I hope by writing this perhaps someone will read this post and think deeply about becoming a parent, while lessening their judgment of other parents and the choices they make.  Get real with yourself.  Share your experience, but know that it's not the same as everyone else's.  Be supportive of other moms, they want the same for their children as you do yours.  The best. 

So Mayor Bloomberg, to encourage overall family health, don't lock up formula with your "benefits of breastfeeding" campaign, but consider the unintended consequences.  Offer your support of mothers' choices and insist that they not beat themselves up over not breastfeeding excusively, for the stress that it creates is even more unhealthy than the formula.  By all means, educate about breastfeeding, but don't make it seem like the only option.  I suggest that a campaign focusing on the health of a new mother is much more important for our children's health, than one for breastfeeding is.