What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing

I am in the middle of What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Stadlen, and it is the most validating piece I have read about motherhood since becoming a mother. Since making the decision to stay at home with Eliza, I have been plagued with the idea that I am not "doing enough," and this book addresses how my house may be a disaster and I never got to the laundry today, but I am most certainly doing enough when I am mothering a baby. It also talks how there are no words to describe the types of work that mothers do with babies -- that multifocused attention, the multitasking of shopping with a toddler (you're not just shopping, you're socializing a toddler to the world by communicating with them about their surroundings and enforcing social norms), the communication with a pre-verbal child. She names plenty of work that mothers do, and certainly is validating to hear why I can still be so tired after a day at home with Eliza.

What I also really appreciate about this book is the naming of the identity shift that mothers go through after having a child. I remember going over to watch the 2010 Rose Bowl at a friends' house. They have a little boy a few months older than Eliza. Not that I care about football, but the whole time I was there I did nothing but care for Eliza, making bottles, feeding her, changing her diaper, making sure she was entertained. If I talked, it was about my child. We drove home that night and I just couldn't believe what my life had become. No longer would I be carefree or travel lightly. I didn't want to go back to who I was pre-baby, but I also realized that there wasn't a way back. That door slammed shut when my child was born.

It has taken me a while to really incorporate this mama piece of myself. For a while I felt like I couldn't connect all the pieces of my personality together, that they were all separate and disjointed and impossible to integrate... perhaps to make room for this mama piece; I don't know. But I remember thinking that it was impossible for Carefree, Silly Meghan to co-exist with Mama Meghan. And I didn't know which of those pieces I was when I was all alone, doing whatever it was I wanted. I wasn't all of them, and I wasn't none of them, either. While I'm still not sure how I'd primarily define myself, my psyche is capable of owning and integrating that mama piece these days. I recognize that I wear many hats and have many personalities, and it feels less like chaos and more like I have a well-equipped toolbox at my disposal. I am so happy to see a book actually naming, or at least describing, this struggle -- my only wish is that I had read it when I was going through this identity shift.

Eliza is napping; the house is quiet. I have been feeling the need for some spiritual centering in my life lately, and I think I'm going to attempt to right myself in the cosmic realm while I have a few blessed quiet moments alone.