Honesty: The greatest gift for a new mother
I remember following a high achieving woman who owned an awesome brand with millions of followers on social media while she was going through her pregnancy and beyond. I was 100% expecting that she would continue with the “keeping it real” style of showing up through her motherhood journey and I was so excited to have this advocate for the messy nature of postpartum and new motherhood. When her baby’s first months were posted through her on her social accounts and it basically having the theme of “this is the greatest time of my life” all while she showed up as out and about doing business things, looking fabulous, I’m ashamed to say I felt bitter. Ouch…
I made up a story in my head of nannies, a mass of actively supportive family and friends. Perhaps her perfect mother came and lived with her. Maybe she had an ICBLC on stand-by. She clearly must have had a cleaner and someone else to cook. And a masseuse.
I really hated that I felt this way, but it came down to wanting other moms to feel validated in their struggles. It is hard! I wanted our society in general to have another opportunity to get real and think about practical ways to support new families. Like, being understanding in not being able to show up like we used to and not placing unreal expectations on us.
Well, it wasn’t the time.
Then. Fast forward to her showing up on social media with her second pregnancy and she discloses that her first experience with a newborn was the hardest time in her life and she struggled with a postpartum mood disorder.
It turns out she really was a “real” person. More real than I had hoped for because she, like many, many other new mothers hid her struggles. She showed up like she was expected to. The expectations are that you can do everything and the resulting accolades seem to serve as reassurance that other people think we’re good mothers. She was probably on The Daily Mail online in a bikini weeks after giving birth. I just puked a little. When I saw her showing up in what looked like clean clothes and freshly washed hair, with a perfectly presented baby nursing behind a buddha bowl of greens with a delicious but healthy sauce dripped over it that she made, I saw what was on the face of it and didn’t see what was behind all that.
Am I ashamed I felt so annoyed about her perceived superhuman abilities in her fourth trimester, looking so perfect and happy and completely together? Yes. I want to feel happy for other women’s successes, achievements and happiness.
Am I disappointed that this opportunity to gift new mothers a realistic take on new motherhood didn’t happen? Also yes.
Do I feel disappointed in her? Hard no. I couldn’t show up to anyone as a struggling mom. Goodness, when I had trainwreck days, I didn’t leave my teeny one-bed apartment. I made my excuses and hid away. I did my absolute best to hide from the world what I was going through. How could I ask any new mom, especially one who had a much wider audience than I, to do what I couldn’t?
I am however still very sad and bitter that the normal experience of exhaustion, overwhelm and quite often depression and anxiety is still so prevalent and undersupported in our Western culture.
F you patriarchy.
If you want to see some realistic examples of people going through the early days with a baby, I highly suggest that if you can’t or don’t want to get off social media, (which would be my first ask,) you follow accounts such as @thebirdspapaya, @thepostnatalproject, @mother.ly and @happyasamother and @fruitsofmotherhood, whose post inspired this.
There must be thousands of social media accounts that try to accurately gift us the realities of what new motherhood is like. What and who is your favourite?
