How Motherhood is Making me a Better Person

I feel like the usual way you hear about parenthood making someone a better person is something along the lines of them becoming less selfish because now they have to accommodate someone else's needs instead of just their own. Or, something about parenthood giving their lives greater meaning. That sounds really nice, but that's not how it's worked for me. I’m still plenty selfish. And greater meaning… I’m not sure. Jury’s out on that one.

For me, what's happened is that parenthood, by being so incredibly hard, by pushing every single button I have and even creating NEW buttons, is forcing me to look long and hard at myself and try to get my shit together. I've looked at my issues before and god knows I have even tried to be better person before, but now there's a lot more at stake. I’m don’t mean my kids… I mean my very existence. I'm not the kind of person who suffers well. So I have to figure this out. Or I will not survive.

So I'm delving into psychology, I'm dipping into self help books, I'm meditating in the like, 3 minutes of down time I can manage, I'm learning about mindfulness and I'm writing this blog, which might very well be the most therapeutic of it all.

There have been small victories.

For instance, this morning, like many mornings, my 18 month old woke before the sun was up. He's quite active, so as I lay in bed nursing him, he performed a little Irish jig on my stomach (full bladder) and climbed all over me, causing my nipple to twist painfully. My first thought was- Why am I still breastfeeding at this age? I must be crazy! This has got to stop. My second thought was much more Zen- Everything is temporary.

And that was true, the nipple twist lasted 5 seconds, tops. Sure, it will probably happen again, but I don’t need to agonize over it. Or rather, I’m now in the fortunate state of mind of being able to decide not to agonize over it, where as before, little things like that tended to really spiral out of control.

A little later, while I was putting away laundry, Miles got into the fridge and smashed two eggs on the floor. I kept my cool and cleaned it up. Then came the sneak attack. As I leaned over to zip up my daughter’s dress, Tiger Baby (as we like to call him) pounced, grabbing hold of my hair.

I lost it. This hair pulling has been going on for months and it hurts like hell. Once he gets hold, it’s really hard to to get him to let go, and he always comes away from his attacks with a fistful of uprooted strands. “I’m seriously thinking about shaving my head,” I told my husband in exasperation. “Go for it. You’d look good,” he replied in all seriousness. After some discussion, I decided on a very short cut.

If you’re a parent, you know it’s not that these kinds of challenges are so hard in and of themselves, but rather, it’s their cumulative effect. It’s the fact that these seemingly small issues arise every couple of minutes, with little to no down time in-between. And that’s what’s forcing me to get creative about how I deal with myself.

It’s a process. It’s a journey. A journey that is opening the way for me to tap into a strength I never knew I had, and maybe wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.