Oh my heart! I’m an elder millennial Professional Lady queesily struggling through the end of the first trimester of my first pregnancy, reassuring myself daily that “of course this is worth it … Right? … RIGHT???” This is the pregnancy content I’ve been looking for to feel a bit less lonely in this experience. Thank you so much for this gift, Danielle.
Anyone who says "This is all lovely, but again, this whole thing has amounted to a bitchfest from a wildly privileged lady" can go write their own newsletter.
Parenting is a complicated mix of emotions, so you have a great head start. Here's the thing: data applies in aggregate, not individually. You and your child will match the data in some ways and give the data a giant middle finger in others. Which ways are which? Ah, that's the fun part!
I found "deliberate slacker mom" a useful approach but honestly that's my overall approach to life. Also, remember that your kid will always care about you (for all values of "care") so maybe keep that in mind. Though I am the mother of a 25 year old who every so often reminds me of the the things I "made" him do because "it would be good for [him]" in a kind of half-resentful, half-resigned way. Of course the other part of parenting (mostly unmentioned) is that something tragic or terrible will happen and the rest of this shit won't matter. Privilege eases, perhaps, but doesn't erase this.
Good luck on your upcoming adventure! I was a pregnant reporter, too. I didn't glory in being pregnant and didn't put a whole lot of thought into the whole mom thing. My beat at work ended up being anything to do with motherhood and sex. I finally told my editor, "no!" when, at about 8 months, he asked me to cover an infertility conference. For me, it all changed when my son arrived -- he hit me over the head like a 2 by 4 and changed everything. There were many challenges. I was also so privileged to spend many days with my little ones and to watch them become beautiful adults. Yes, we gave up things. Yes, we still suffer consequences. I clung to my career by my fingernails. And, yes, our kids aren't us. Parenting is definitely the most precious gift -- a life fulfilled. I'm one of those dewy-eyed parents -- it all happened way too fast. Decades later, I miss brushing my little girl's hair (which she hated). I miss the weight of a toddler sitting on my hip (they didn't sit long). I watch my adult children with awe. As I've told my kids many, many times over the years, one could be my leg and the other my arm. Their remnant cells stay with you forever, and, I swear, I still feel them in the deepest part of my being. Pregnancy is the start -- and prepares you so well for what's ahead. Good luck and God speed!
I feel this whole post in my bones. I have a new two month old and a job I love and thought and worried about the many things you wrote in this piece and still do.
I’m grateful there are people who are better with words than me who are going through a similar experience and can capture it better.
Pregnancy and children real do change everything in a way that has to be felt to *get it*. And from my experience I do not know how people manage with out friend and family support, money, a job that gives me and my partner parental leave. I think if there are more of us trying to make this life work, maybe we find a way to make it better for others.
Mostly (just to end my aimless ramble induced by the many feelings this post gave me) good luck! While it is very hard to navigate, it has surprisingly been worth it. I hope that is true for you as well.
The last trimester can be a really nice time: you have done it. You made a fully functioning human that can exist outside of your body. You should be proud of yourself for this. You have a little partner who goes everywhere with you, but can survive alone. I once had a lovely lady pull me aside and say "after this baby, you will not feel like yourself for 18 months, but then you will go back to normal. Don't worry". I had another baby within 14 months, so the combined time for 'going back to normal' was quite long. It did happen though, but the estrangement from your own body is real.
Not to sugarcoat it, the first five years with one or two children is very difficult. Your arms feel like they might fall off. Everything feels urgent (even relaxing, because it won't last long). But the things that cause a lot of worry (with healthy, growing children) are the most straightforward: you must love them, feed them, water them, bathe them and help them learn how to sleep for a long time by themselves. After those five years, when you don't have to be worried about what they are doing, where they are, how they are (they will tell you) things really do improve. All the years are fantastic and happy, but also overwhelming and panicky.
But your main concern seems to be what will happen to you? You will be fine. You will not change your personality--it seems (from your writing) well-established. You may be quite taken with how brilliant it is to have a baby. That is for you to enjoy.
It's always something. Some people are managing chronic illness. Some people are caregiving for a parent or other family member. Having kids isn't the only thing that takes someone away from work.
Absolutely check in with your friends who seem to be doing it well (two professionals, kid(s)) and find out their strategies. I have a friend about a decade older who is in my same industry, and she's a great sounding board and reality check. Our kids are in totally different places, and the impact it has on us in our work lives is very interesting. It's a bit of foreshadowing. Maybe.
Instead of What to Expect..., I found value in Tiffany Dufu's Drop the Ball and Lauren Smith Brody's The Fifth Trimester. I love the concept of Dropping the Ball (yay!) and simply doing less and outsourcing what we can.
When married straight woman complain about motherhood and exhaustion I just assume their husbands are useless...sorry not sorry. My husband absolutely rocks, and I could not do this whole thing (raising two kids) without him!!!
As we say in Judaism, b'shaah tovah! all in good time!
I don't try to "have it all" anymore - I feel like your sister. No one gets a 100% all the time, not the kids, not the work, not the partner. Someone - and I can't remember who - said once that for as many balls as you have up in the air, figure out which ones are glass and will shatter when dropped and which ones are rubber and will bounce (and it will change daily). Not everything with my kids is glass and not everything with work is rubber - sometimes the kid's class activity is rubber and the meeting with the CIO is glass. I have always enjoyed your writing and I wish I'd had something like this to read when I was pregnant fourteen years ago (or even nine years ago when I was pregnant a second time with a baby I STRUGGLED to conceive). I did pay a motherhood penalty in my corporate career. It sucked. I was that mom who had to run out of meetings with her hair on fire because a kid was puking at daycare or decline late meetings because I had daycare pickup. I missed opportunities to stay late at social events and schmooze managers because I wanted to be home for dinner and bedtime. Sometimes I regret those choices, but then I landed at a job with real flexibility and an appreciation for work-life balance. But I always keep in mind what's glass and what's rubber (I don't always get that right, but I try).
Thank you for this. My husband and I are 38 and are finally trying. We waited until now for many reasons. But I definitely felt that I needed to establish myself professionally and as a person. To put myself in a better position to prevent a full derailment of my career (that I really enjoy and at which I have worked very hard). But the more controversial reason for waiting-- ambivalence. And even though our therapist confirmed that many people are not 100% in the "let's have a baby" camp and go on to enjoy parenthood with normal enough children, its a strange place from which to make such a huge decision. For me, like you, the feeling that I will regret it--especially in 10, 20, 30 years--is what moved me. Also I found some comfort in openly acknowledging that I am not a baby person but that is also OK--its a very short period in the entire span of parenthood. Other than having faith that all of those "dewy-eyed" parents of grown children are not all spectacular actors, I am not sure there is a better answer than that which you provide. Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy. I have no doubt that I will continue to appreciate your reporting (full stop, no qualifiers).
I wish I could have read this when I was pregnant, 14 years ago. Your words still resonate, the Mom labels still lame, and the ambivalence makes me a messy, interesting, thoughtful person. Parenting seems to feel new all the time--I mean, I've never done this before! (I do enjoy calling myself a "new mom" of a 13 year old, just to keep the labels real.) Thanks so much for putting all of your thoughts out there. I'm rooting for you.
"The people to talk to, I’ve found, are the older parents. The most profound, unexpected joy of pregnancy is telling people with grown kids that I’m pregnant. They melt. They pause and stammer a bit, and then, dewy-eyed, unleash a torrent of joy at me." — Dad of 2 twenty-somethings, can confirm. Our kids and family experiences are (still!) the best. And, sure, there was a lot of effort and challenge at times, but a key part of getting through it was having "even-steven" co-parenting as one of our core values; and I can't imagine you wouldn't have the same with the partner you chose who also chose you.
Raising a child is as hard as you make it. Yes you may smell like sour milk, they get sick, more laundry, etc. But you take a deep breath and just go. You may have to let things go but your kid will not care. They grow up so fast just enjoy and take the time to enjoy. Congrats to you both.
This was tough to read. As a millennial mom myself who had kids way young (25! 27!) and then struggled to regain a career in writing... I understand these feelings.
But it bummed me out that you, Danielle, an enlightened and smart feminist, writing for outlets I respect, are perpetuating these stereotypes about us moms. Yes, I realize the aim of this essay was to dismantle your own stereotypes for yourself (in order to make peace with your own impending motherhood), but it still makes me feel small, as if us moms who have already been doing the thankless job of pushing against the norm have failed.
Honestly, reproducing is just a fundamental human experience. We have bodies that expire. We want to extend ourselves, not just for our own selves but because, evolutionarily for our species, this is essential. Motherhood comes with so much cultural baggage, yes, and also, who the fuck cares? We get to write our own stories--especially as white women-- culture be damned.
I’m not trying to be hard on you, and I hope it’s not coming across like that. I am a former birth doula and really, truly understand how much pregnancy, birth, and caring for another human can suck and also the mental health load that always threatens us women, especially due to those extra special hormones we have.
But I do want to be honest about how this essay hit me: tough to read, humbling and disheartening. *shrug* Just hoping we’ll graduate to another tenor of conversation about moms eventually.
I'm a mom of two with a career and I find it very hard. My husband is an involved and loving father, and I believe takes on more domestic work than many other fathers (we used Fair Play methodology to redistribute work after our second was born), but I still find it tough. We live in a city with acute housing and childcare crises, however, so I think that's partially why. We are affluent, but where we live, it is much more expensive to pay for housing here than it was 20+ years ago.
I believe that the work we do to raise our children is our most important work, as tedious as it can be. The work of wiping noses, changing diapers, cutting grapes, scrubbing applesauce out of the couch, comforting, listening, caring. I believe that work is more important than my professional accomplishments, and I believe when I am dying, that I will still believe that. However, in my personal situation, if I step away from my career to do that work, I am also stepping away from giving my children other very important things. For example, while it is important that children are cared for, it is also important what neighborhood they live in (eg. the Opportunity Atlas). Without my career, my children would have to live in a different neighborhood, and we wouldn't be able to give them the same kind of education or to help them with college the same way. So I muddle on, and we pay someone else to wipe noses and give hugs and kisses for a few hours a day.
Before I had children, it wasn't clear to me the extent of how differently my husband and I had been socialized. I felt so much more pressure to be a "good mom" than he did to be a "good dad", the standard for me was so much higher than for him. And it still takes my breath away, when I step back and think about how much misogyny we live with and how pervasive it is, and even how it can ooze into a marriage and you can look at your spouse and realize that they have had such a different experience of the world. What would it be like, I wonder, to have grown up without those pressures? How free must that feel?
Women are oppressed, and the work of raising children itself - the sheer amount of work it takes - it is oppressive. When we see women doing the lion's share of raising children, while dads live their lives - that is women's oppression. When you see dad watching football on the couch at the end of the day, while mom cooks and cleans up from dinner, that is women's oppression. There are so many ways we justify it and sell it - that it's "natural" or "godly" - and if that fails, so many ways women are punished for going against those norms: if you protest that it's unfair: you're "unnatural", "hormonal" or "a bitch". I think it's incredibly rational for an educated or aware woman to be hesitant to have children, even to choose not to. I don't think this essay is a "bitchfest" at all - I think it's beautiful to see someone struggle with so many of these concepts ahead of such a profound change. To know that even though motherhood is oppressive, to still chose it.
I think there are two ways to experience stepping back from a career when becoming a mother. One is that your workplace doesn't give you the same assignments/opportunities as before; the other is that you stop being able to take assignments and volunteer for work, because of how much work you are doing at home.
My hope for women is that more moms will be able to choose, that they will have enough power to be able to choose. That more moms will be in positions where they have enough power to be able to tell their spouses that the spouses need to step up at home, so that mom can show up at work. Or that moms will have enough power that broader social supports are put in place.
Oh my heart! I’m an elder millennial Professional Lady queesily struggling through the end of the first trimester of my first pregnancy, reassuring myself daily that “of course this is worth it … Right? … RIGHT???” This is the pregnancy content I’ve been looking for to feel a bit less lonely in this experience. Thank you so much for this gift, Danielle.
Anyone who says "This is all lovely, but again, this whole thing has amounted to a bitchfest from a wildly privileged lady" can go write their own newsletter.
Parenting is a complicated mix of emotions, so you have a great head start. Here's the thing: data applies in aggregate, not individually. You and your child will match the data in some ways and give the data a giant middle finger in others. Which ways are which? Ah, that's the fun part!
Good luck!
I found "deliberate slacker mom" a useful approach but honestly that's my overall approach to life. Also, remember that your kid will always care about you (for all values of "care") so maybe keep that in mind. Though I am the mother of a 25 year old who every so often reminds me of the the things I "made" him do because "it would be good for [him]" in a kind of half-resentful, half-resigned way. Of course the other part of parenting (mostly unmentioned) is that something tragic or terrible will happen and the rest of this shit won't matter. Privilege eases, perhaps, but doesn't erase this.
Good luck on your upcoming adventure! I was a pregnant reporter, too. I didn't glory in being pregnant and didn't put a whole lot of thought into the whole mom thing. My beat at work ended up being anything to do with motherhood and sex. I finally told my editor, "no!" when, at about 8 months, he asked me to cover an infertility conference. For me, it all changed when my son arrived -- he hit me over the head like a 2 by 4 and changed everything. There were many challenges. I was also so privileged to spend many days with my little ones and to watch them become beautiful adults. Yes, we gave up things. Yes, we still suffer consequences. I clung to my career by my fingernails. And, yes, our kids aren't us. Parenting is definitely the most precious gift -- a life fulfilled. I'm one of those dewy-eyed parents -- it all happened way too fast. Decades later, I miss brushing my little girl's hair (which she hated). I miss the weight of a toddler sitting on my hip (they didn't sit long). I watch my adult children with awe. As I've told my kids many, many times over the years, one could be my leg and the other my arm. Their remnant cells stay with you forever, and, I swear, I still feel them in the deepest part of my being. Pregnancy is the start -- and prepares you so well for what's ahead. Good luck and God speed!
I feel this whole post in my bones. I have a new two month old and a job I love and thought and worried about the many things you wrote in this piece and still do.
I’m grateful there are people who are better with words than me who are going through a similar experience and can capture it better.
Pregnancy and children real do change everything in a way that has to be felt to *get it*. And from my experience I do not know how people manage with out friend and family support, money, a job that gives me and my partner parental leave. I think if there are more of us trying to make this life work, maybe we find a way to make it better for others.
Mostly (just to end my aimless ramble induced by the many feelings this post gave me) good luck! While it is very hard to navigate, it has surprisingly been worth it. I hope that is true for you as well.
The last trimester can be a really nice time: you have done it. You made a fully functioning human that can exist outside of your body. You should be proud of yourself for this. You have a little partner who goes everywhere with you, but can survive alone. I once had a lovely lady pull me aside and say "after this baby, you will not feel like yourself for 18 months, but then you will go back to normal. Don't worry". I had another baby within 14 months, so the combined time for 'going back to normal' was quite long. It did happen though, but the estrangement from your own body is real.
Not to sugarcoat it, the first five years with one or two children is very difficult. Your arms feel like they might fall off. Everything feels urgent (even relaxing, because it won't last long). But the things that cause a lot of worry (with healthy, growing children) are the most straightforward: you must love them, feed them, water them, bathe them and help them learn how to sleep for a long time by themselves. After those five years, when you don't have to be worried about what they are doing, where they are, how they are (they will tell you) things really do improve. All the years are fantastic and happy, but also overwhelming and panicky.
But your main concern seems to be what will happen to you? You will be fine. You will not change your personality--it seems (from your writing) well-established. You may be quite taken with how brilliant it is to have a baby. That is for you to enjoy.
It's always something. Some people are managing chronic illness. Some people are caregiving for a parent or other family member. Having kids isn't the only thing that takes someone away from work.
Absolutely check in with your friends who seem to be doing it well (two professionals, kid(s)) and find out their strategies. I have a friend about a decade older who is in my same industry, and she's a great sounding board and reality check. Our kids are in totally different places, and the impact it has on us in our work lives is very interesting. It's a bit of foreshadowing. Maybe.
Instead of What to Expect..., I found value in Tiffany Dufu's Drop the Ball and Lauren Smith Brody's The Fifth Trimester. I love the concept of Dropping the Ball (yay!) and simply doing less and outsourcing what we can.
When married straight woman complain about motherhood and exhaustion I just assume their husbands are useless...sorry not sorry. My husband absolutely rocks, and I could not do this whole thing (raising two kids) without him!!!
As we say in Judaism, b'shaah tovah! all in good time!
I don't try to "have it all" anymore - I feel like your sister. No one gets a 100% all the time, not the kids, not the work, not the partner. Someone - and I can't remember who - said once that for as many balls as you have up in the air, figure out which ones are glass and will shatter when dropped and which ones are rubber and will bounce (and it will change daily). Not everything with my kids is glass and not everything with work is rubber - sometimes the kid's class activity is rubber and the meeting with the CIO is glass. I have always enjoyed your writing and I wish I'd had something like this to read when I was pregnant fourteen years ago (or even nine years ago when I was pregnant a second time with a baby I STRUGGLED to conceive). I did pay a motherhood penalty in my corporate career. It sucked. I was that mom who had to run out of meetings with her hair on fire because a kid was puking at daycare or decline late meetings because I had daycare pickup. I missed opportunities to stay late at social events and schmooze managers because I wanted to be home for dinner and bedtime. Sometimes I regret those choices, but then I landed at a job with real flexibility and an appreciation for work-life balance. But I always keep in mind what's glass and what's rubber (I don't always get that right, but I try).
Thank you for this. My husband and I are 38 and are finally trying. We waited until now for many reasons. But I definitely felt that I needed to establish myself professionally and as a person. To put myself in a better position to prevent a full derailment of my career (that I really enjoy and at which I have worked very hard). But the more controversial reason for waiting-- ambivalence. And even though our therapist confirmed that many people are not 100% in the "let's have a baby" camp and go on to enjoy parenthood with normal enough children, its a strange place from which to make such a huge decision. For me, like you, the feeling that I will regret it--especially in 10, 20, 30 years--is what moved me. Also I found some comfort in openly acknowledging that I am not a baby person but that is also OK--its a very short period in the entire span of parenthood. Other than having faith that all of those "dewy-eyed" parents of grown children are not all spectacular actors, I am not sure there is a better answer than that which you provide. Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy. I have no doubt that I will continue to appreciate your reporting (full stop, no qualifiers).
I wish I could have read this when I was pregnant, 14 years ago. Your words still resonate, the Mom labels still lame, and the ambivalence makes me a messy, interesting, thoughtful person. Parenting seems to feel new all the time--I mean, I've never done this before! (I do enjoy calling myself a "new mom" of a 13 year old, just to keep the labels real.) Thanks so much for putting all of your thoughts out there. I'm rooting for you.
"The people to talk to, I’ve found, are the older parents. The most profound, unexpected joy of pregnancy is telling people with grown kids that I’m pregnant. They melt. They pause and stammer a bit, and then, dewy-eyed, unleash a torrent of joy at me." — Dad of 2 twenty-somethings, can confirm. Our kids and family experiences are (still!) the best. And, sure, there was a lot of effort and challenge at times, but a key part of getting through it was having "even-steven" co-parenting as one of our core values; and I can't imagine you wouldn't have the same with the partner you chose who also chose you.
You totally get it. Thank you.
As always, I enjoyed reading your work. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Raising a child is as hard as you make it. Yes you may smell like sour milk, they get sick, more laundry, etc. But you take a deep breath and just go. You may have to let things go but your kid will not care. They grow up so fast just enjoy and take the time to enjoy. Congrats to you both.
This was tough to read. As a millennial mom myself who had kids way young (25! 27!) and then struggled to regain a career in writing... I understand these feelings.
But it bummed me out that you, Danielle, an enlightened and smart feminist, writing for outlets I respect, are perpetuating these stereotypes about us moms. Yes, I realize the aim of this essay was to dismantle your own stereotypes for yourself (in order to make peace with your own impending motherhood), but it still makes me feel small, as if us moms who have already been doing the thankless job of pushing against the norm have failed.
Honestly, reproducing is just a fundamental human experience. We have bodies that expire. We want to extend ourselves, not just for our own selves but because, evolutionarily for our species, this is essential. Motherhood comes with so much cultural baggage, yes, and also, who the fuck cares? We get to write our own stories--especially as white women-- culture be damned.
I’m not trying to be hard on you, and I hope it’s not coming across like that. I am a former birth doula and really, truly understand how much pregnancy, birth, and caring for another human can suck and also the mental health load that always threatens us women, especially due to those extra special hormones we have.
But I do want to be honest about how this essay hit me: tough to read, humbling and disheartening. *shrug* Just hoping we’ll graduate to another tenor of conversation about moms eventually.
I'm a mom of two with a career and I find it very hard. My husband is an involved and loving father, and I believe takes on more domestic work than many other fathers (we used Fair Play methodology to redistribute work after our second was born), but I still find it tough. We live in a city with acute housing and childcare crises, however, so I think that's partially why. We are affluent, but where we live, it is much more expensive to pay for housing here than it was 20+ years ago.
I believe that the work we do to raise our children is our most important work, as tedious as it can be. The work of wiping noses, changing diapers, cutting grapes, scrubbing applesauce out of the couch, comforting, listening, caring. I believe that work is more important than my professional accomplishments, and I believe when I am dying, that I will still believe that. However, in my personal situation, if I step away from my career to do that work, I am also stepping away from giving my children other very important things. For example, while it is important that children are cared for, it is also important what neighborhood they live in (eg. the Opportunity Atlas). Without my career, my children would have to live in a different neighborhood, and we wouldn't be able to give them the same kind of education or to help them with college the same way. So I muddle on, and we pay someone else to wipe noses and give hugs and kisses for a few hours a day.
Before I had children, it wasn't clear to me the extent of how differently my husband and I had been socialized. I felt so much more pressure to be a "good mom" than he did to be a "good dad", the standard for me was so much higher than for him. And it still takes my breath away, when I step back and think about how much misogyny we live with and how pervasive it is, and even how it can ooze into a marriage and you can look at your spouse and realize that they have had such a different experience of the world. What would it be like, I wonder, to have grown up without those pressures? How free must that feel?
Women are oppressed, and the work of raising children itself - the sheer amount of work it takes - it is oppressive. When we see women doing the lion's share of raising children, while dads live their lives - that is women's oppression. When you see dad watching football on the couch at the end of the day, while mom cooks and cleans up from dinner, that is women's oppression. There are so many ways we justify it and sell it - that it's "natural" or "godly" - and if that fails, so many ways women are punished for going against those norms: if you protest that it's unfair: you're "unnatural", "hormonal" or "a bitch". I think it's incredibly rational for an educated or aware woman to be hesitant to have children, even to choose not to. I don't think this essay is a "bitchfest" at all - I think it's beautiful to see someone struggle with so many of these concepts ahead of such a profound change. To know that even though motherhood is oppressive, to still chose it.
I think there are two ways to experience stepping back from a career when becoming a mother. One is that your workplace doesn't give you the same assignments/opportunities as before; the other is that you stop being able to take assignments and volunteer for work, because of how much work you are doing at home.
My hope for women is that more moms will be able to choose, that they will have enough power to be able to choose. That more moms will be in positions where they have enough power to be able to tell their spouses that the spouses need to step up at home, so that mom can show up at work. Or that moms will have enough power that broader social supports are put in place.