This is the curse of the modern mother, I figured it out. All your adult life, you spend it "doing something": wake up, go to Uni, have some studying to do; and later working, writing a paper, preparing for a lecture or whatever. Of course you spend some days doing nothing, being lazy, going shopping, being on holidays. But these are the exception, not the rule. These days you cherish, you feel sneaky, lucky for having them.
And then you have a baby. And you spend months dreaming of your glorious maternity. Of the time you will have to think, to maybe read a book, to look after this new human being. But no-one prepares you for the blending of one day to the next, of the repetitiveness of the task: feed, change, soothe, repeat. It's not bad, don't get me wrong. But it's funny when you think about it. You are not used to it, you wake up in the morning and you think: "what am I doing today?" and the answer cannot be anything you used ti do: write a paper, prepare for a lecture, whatever. The answer has to be something else, something you also did yesterday, definitely nothing worth noting per se, at least not like in your previous life.
And this, my friends, is the curse of the modern mother: it will take us time to get used to this new role, this new life where you have nothing to show for the work you did all day, nothing apart from perhaps the weight your baby put on, or the nappies you changed. And you need to learn to cherish that, you need to learn to get used to that. You need to learn to be that.
I just hope I learn to do all that before my maternity vanishes and I feel sorry that I never actually got into it, I never managed to go with the flow and learn to let go and enjoy looking after my child and clearing my mind of all the things I thought were important all these years.
And then you have a baby. And you spend months dreaming of your glorious maternity. Of the time you will have to think, to maybe read a book, to look after this new human being. But no-one prepares you for the blending of one day to the next, of the repetitiveness of the task: feed, change, soothe, repeat. It's not bad, don't get me wrong. But it's funny when you think about it. You are not used to it, you wake up in the morning and you think: "what am I doing today?" and the answer cannot be anything you used ti do: write a paper, prepare for a lecture, whatever. The answer has to be something else, something you also did yesterday, definitely nothing worth noting per se, at least not like in your previous life.
And this, my friends, is the curse of the modern mother: it will take us time to get used to this new role, this new life where you have nothing to show for the work you did all day, nothing apart from perhaps the weight your baby put on, or the nappies you changed. And you need to learn to cherish that, you need to learn to get used to that. You need to learn to be that.
I just hope I learn to do all that before my maternity vanishes and I feel sorry that I never actually got into it, I never managed to go with the flow and learn to let go and enjoy looking after my child and clearing my mind of all the things I thought were important all these years.
