Advice to a New Mother

I was at a baby shower for a new Mom who, that day, had reached 37 weeks. Such an accomplishment, those first 37 weeks. She’s already mothered her young one, already sacrificed for (his or her, the parents don’t know) sake, has curtailed her activities and her work, even to the point of bed-rest for the last two months. She already knows her child’s rhythms, feels the movement, can no longer be awake or asleep without being yoked to the needs of this new life. She, who is not that far out from her own childhood, having a baby at an age that seems so young these days, who is yearning for the safety and security of her own mother, has already crossed over into Motherhood, and I don’t think she knows that yet.

After the requisite sharing of birth stories (including one birth horror story with a detailed account of watching the doctor come with scissors to cut her sister’s episiotomy), it was time for lunch. Then gifts, which were shades of yellow and green, with one exception from an aunt who provided a blue pajama set and a pink pajama set and the receipt so the parents could return whichever one they wouldn’t need. Bottle warmers, blankets, diapers, a boppie, baby carriers, a plush giraffe, hand-knitted booties so small that it defies reasoning to imagine a foot so tiny it will fit snugly in it, pacifiers, hooded bath towels, more baby blankets, outfits, a musical play mat with an overhead mobile, and baby-sized wash cloths that looked like they would be used for a doll. Finally, there was a photo/sound book, with a page for the baby’s grandmother and each of the aunts, so that the baby could flip through the book and look at their pictures while hearing the sing-song, melodic cooings and greetings from women who already love this baby. A Playmobile precursor to Skype, I suppose.

Now there was only one thing left – it was time for chocolate fondue, and the talk turned to passing along information to help the new Mom. The advice ranged from the philosophical (“it goes by so quickly”) to the sanity-saving (“make sure you meet with other Moms”) to the practical (“just call me a day in advance and tell me you need me to come by”). Life lessons imparted between the reaching and crunching and oohing and aahing over yummy morsels dipped in warm, swirling chocolate. Of course, when it was my turn, my advice was a bit longer than a sentence or a sound bite. A teaching moment, probably. Will I ever just speak like regular people? Maybe, but it seemed important for me to tell her something that I don’t think mothers often hear.

Babies cry, I said, and your baby will cry. Many times you’ll be able to soothe your baby, and sometimes you won’t. Even at the times you can’t soothe your baby, stay with him or her, hold her, speak softly and remind him that you’re right there, even if you can’t fix whatever’s wrong. At the exact moment when you get frustrated that you’ve tried everything, that you are exhausted, too, and you can’t take it one more moment, and every fiber in your being wants to push that baby away, give it to someone else to handle for a bit, walk out of the room and let the baby deal with it on it’s own, that’s the moment to breathe deeply and remember all you have to do is be there with your baby and let your baby know you’re there.

Funny, that my advice would be to prevent those moments when mothers temporarily abandon their children, leave them alone to handle something they can’t. Force them to endure not only pain or discomfort but the isolation of experiencing pain by themselves. That I want to undo our entire cultural misconception about what mothering is supposed to do . . . but I’m at a baby shower, holding a strawberry in my hand, too impatient to put it on a skewer before its chocolate bath. Mothers should contain our children, accompany them as they grow and develop, get to know these people we bring in to the world, socialize them, of course, but there’s not much else to do but be present in a useful way. Instead, we have a whole slew of mothers interested in being present when their kids are happy, invested, in fact, in making them happy, but needing to flee when their children are upset. And worse, mothers who punish their kids for moments of discomfort, unease, fear or sadness. Mothers who shame their child for the “failure” of disrupting chronic happiness and gratitude, as they themselves were shamed for failing to take away their own parents’ pain.

Happiness, I wanted to tell this woman, is nice, and it will come, but don’t get so hooked on it. Don’t over-value it. Happiness is part of your new life, but so are confusion and fatigue and fear and worry and sadness and loss and excitement and joy and boredom and awe and anger and surprise and contentment. Embrace all of these, I’d have added, if my mouth wasn’t full of the chocolate cake square I’d just coated with warm chocolate. Hold your child when he or she’s in pain – it’s way more important than videotaping your child’s first step. Soothe your child and teach him or her that pain always recedes, that it’s just a matter of time. I’d have gone on to a complete, “This, I Believe” essay, if I hadn’t been pulled to dip a piece of pineapple next, on the way that children will attach most strongly to the adults who are there for their moments of sorrow and disappointment and fear, and help them understand that they will survive these moments with the parent’s love intact. That if you want to be a Mother who has a life-long relationship with your child, one that your child actually wants to participate in, the focus should be on leaning in to those moments we can’t fix, joining in the temporary suffering in a way that deepens the bond rather than frays it.

My final advice, had I not returned to the tiniest square of chocolate cake and one, just one, pretzel, would have been this: Happiness, yours or your child’s, comes through living a full and rich life. You can’t and won’t make your child happy (and your child won’t and can’t make you happy) but you can absolutely be there to participate in the happiness when those moments come. Show up for happiness, sure, but stay through the rest.

Image adapted from backofthebox.com