Back to the grind

Ivan returned to school/work this week and even though I’m still on maternity leave, I feel like it’s ‘back to the grind’ for all of us since I’m on my own with Mariah again.  The summer holidays were a much-needed respite for me to have an extra pair of hands around the house and left me dreading the school year.  But we all survived our first week and I’m feeling optimistic that the next few months will go well too.

Before summer holidays started, Mariah wasn’t able to entertain herself for very long.  But now that she’s able to sit and crawl, she can enjoy the satisfaction of her independence while I often have my hands free to keep the house in order.  A friend of mine asked what all chores I have, since I make them sound so endless on this blog.  In fact, it’s really not a lot – just keeping up with laundry and tidying…but with a baby around, everything seems to take twice as long!  Plus, since anything I try to do seems to get interrupted, I feel like my days are full of several partially completed tasks.  This in combination with my sleep deprived ‘baby brain’ result in me walking from room to room holding bits and pieces of various projects, without ever finishing any of them.  Since I’m a task-oriented woman (whereas men are typically process-oriented), it’s been quite an adjustment to develop a certain level of comfort with my new life of chaos.  At first, I tried desperately to fight against it by pushing my body to its limits and trying to do as much as I possibly could each day.  But I’ve realized that this attempt to regain any sense of control just leaves me spinning like a hamster in a wheel – trying hard, but truly never getting ahead since there is no ahead. 

Since many women like myself are now establishing careers before starting families, I think it’s an emerging generation that suddenly feel like failures when we try being stay-at-home moms since we associate success with a different type of productivity.  At work, I used to take great pride in starting and finishing tasks, doing paperwork, and even receiving the occasional affirmation.  At home, I feel like I’m caught between feeling busy yet bored at the same time.  My tasks are mundane and monotonous – changing diapers, making food, feeding baby, cleaning up, tidying, and then doing it all over again.  And whereas my work days used to be 8-4, parenting is 24/7.  I often catch myself grasping for mind-stimulating things that feel more like work (such as this blog!), since we live in a society that doesn’t validate how truly challenging and important the work of parenting is.  I used to envision maternity leave as a break and wished I could afford to quit my job to be a full-time mom.  And now I can’t wait to return to my day-job, since I’ve realized that being a mom is the hardest thing I’ve ever done!  It reminds me of the movie ‘Marley & Me’ when Jennifer Anniston & Owen Wilson wondered why no-one had warned them how hard parenthood would be until they remembered everyone tried to but they never listened.  Despite all the warnings and advice people shared when I was pregnant, I truly wasn’t able to process the information until Mariah arrived since like childbirth – parenthood is just something that you won’t fully understand until it happens. 

But through all my complaining and venting, please be rest assured that as most parents say ‘I wouldn’t change a thing!’.  One of my goals with this blog is to be open and honest about the tough side of being a new mom since I think that’s important for non-parents (and new parents alike) to hear.  However, it’s not to scare anyone out of parenthood since it is also undoubtedly the most rewarding and amazing job I’ve ever had, despite the challenges.