Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) by Jill Smokler

Author:Jill Smokler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

Lie #15

IT GETS EASIER

I went grocery shopping by myself for the first time in six years. I spent an embarrassingly long time in the detergent aisle opening each one and inhaling the heavenly scent of peace and quiet.

—Scary Mommy Confession #228532

When you see a new mother attempting to maneuver her oversized stroller through a too-small door, while her baby is screaming bloody murder and she is carrying three bags of groceries and looking like she is about to lose her mind, you will no doubt be tempted to rush to her aid, hold the door, and tell her gently that things will get easier.

STOP. Don’t you dare.

I mean, hold the door for her and help with the bags, of course, even offer to buy her a cup of coffee, if you’re so inclined. But please, whatever you do, do not go telling her that things will get easier. They won’t.

Go ahead and tell her that she won’t always be walking through life in a complete haze or sterilizing baby bottles for the rest of her life. Tell her that there will be a day in the not so distant future when she won’t be covered in spit-up, or still futilely trying to master the correct way to swaddle. She won’t always be unshowered and mentally exhausted and ready to cry at any and every moment in time. But parenting doesn’t get any easier, and you know it and I know it.

You know that sinking feeling when you start a new job and on the first day you have that moment when you start to wonder what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into, and if it’s not too late to get out? That’s kind of how I felt my first few weeks on the job of motherhood. I wasn’t sleeping on a schedule that I dictated, my days revolved around feeding and changing and burping, and I still felt like a live science experiment gone bad. This was the light at the end of my nine-month-long tunnel? I wanted my money back, thank you very much. My husband would come home from work and I’d be torn between wanting to hear about his day, for the first adult interaction I’d had in hours, and resenting that he got to have adult interaction all day. I was an absolute mess.

My experience with my subsequent children’s early days was an entirely different story. After reacquainting myself with adult interaction, I’d decided it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Dealing with school parents and playdates with painfully awkward conversation, and getting my decisions critiqued by people I barely knew? Being home alone with a sweet baby during rounds two and three didn’t seem so bad at all. What had my problem been, exactly?

Once my first baby grew up a bit, I also gained an appreciation for just how easy those early days truly are. They were undoubtedly draining, but there was nothing challenging about them. In most cases, a newborn can be soothed with one of three things: a clean diaper, a bottle, or a boob.

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