Motherhood is all Middles
Motherhood doesn't function as Beginning, Middle, and End. Motherhood is all Middles. Our lives, our culture, the business world - it's all set up for start and finish, goals and achievements, profit and loss, input and output. But from the moment you step into parenthood, you say goodbye to that clear cut way of thinking whether you're ready to or not.
It's easy for onlookers or well meaning support people to say "you've just got to lower your expectations" but there's no 'just' about it. Every year leading up to parenthood was spent in a 'cause and effect' way of life. You made lists, goals, intentions, you set about to achieve them, you succeeded or you didn't. I know it wasn't literally as simple as that but you get what I mean - it’s not something you can just switch off.
Then parenthood begins and now there is no start and finish, not even to your day!! Your baby, your children, change every minute. There's no 'end result' that you're aiming for anymore. Even the things we think have a 'result' like our baby learning to walk as an example - we're not responsible for those anyway. We don't set about the day deciding "today I'm going to teach baby to walk" and then Boom! “we did it!” Tick that box ✅
And when we do set intentions or goals they're more often than not interrupted or 'sabotaged', like "I just want to get to the point when baby only wakes once a night. Then I'll be able to function better" *baby eventually wakes once a night, then enters a developmental leap and wakes 525,000 times a night for a month*
The truth is, motherhood is all middles. Women are cyclical beings. Housework is a cycle too! While life is linear in a temporal sense, everything else about it cycles, or ebbs and flows, and is in a constant state of change. If we can wrap our heads around this we can start to unravel some of the conditioning we've experienced in our *past lives* (pre-parenthood I mean 🤪)
And when we wrap our heads around this huge psychological and physical shift that motherhood and matrescence brings, we begin to forgive ourselves for not finding it 'easy' to adjust. Perhaps pre-motherhood you worked in an office, where your day and organisation had clear structures and KPIs. Now you don’t know who is boss - you or the baby! You feel like you’re run off your feet but simultaneously getting nothing ‘done’. And the end of the day just brings the beginning of the night shift. Can you really blame yourself for finding this a bit of (or a lot of) a struggle?!
Some of the best *sigh of relief* aha moment revelations I’ve had, or witnessed friends have, are around the understanding that there is no end point to parenthood, to housework, to careers…to anything really (Except of course to living, an end which, if we’re lucky, will be when we’re good and ready). Babies don’t ‘learn to sleep through’ and then never wake another night in their lives. The washing isn’t brought in from the line, folded, and packed away never to be moved again. You will undoubtedly transition from one job to another, perhaps change careers, have breaks, take leave and reassess a number of times over the course of your working life.
SO…how can we adjust to this way of thinking? How can we lean in, and surrender to our lives as all middles, a cycle, a flow…? I don’t know the answer. Sorry! I’m not Yoda. But I do know that having conversations about it is a great place to start. Just acknowledging the transition from tick-boxes and KPIs to the ‘chaos’ of motherhood helps us all breath out, sometimes for the first time since #mumlife began. We can’t keep holding our breaths waiting for the *end* when things get easier. There is no finish line, lovelies. But I’m here with you in the middle. I hope that helps.
