I have a love/hate relationship with the whole topic of 'becoming a mother and losing oneself'. If you are a mother, and I'm intentionally singling us out from fathers on this one, there's no way you've managed to avoid reading something on the issue.
Phrases like 'finding myself', 'losing myself', 'reclaiming myself', 'recognising myself'. My 'old self', 'past self', 'true self'.
These articles invariably leave one either feeling uncomfortable at how much one identifies with the writer's excessive whinging about how she 'misses herself', or green-eyed with jealousy at glowing reports of morning yoga classes, afternoon writing classes, relaxing weekends away with her Main Man and how rewarding it's been to 'reconnect with herself'.
I do enjoy, and relate to, the main themes however. We all thought nothing would really change for us. We were all astounded at the extent to which almost everything did. We all have panicked moments of imagining the rest of our lives will reflect the drudgery and frustration of one particularly bad afternoon or sleepless night.
And we all know (and if you haven't had this moment yet I
promise you it's coming down the line) the feeling of that first yoga class, coffee with a friend, evening out with your partner, whole bottle of wine, satisfying work experience, personal affirmation that has nothing to do with being a mother. That moment that is, finally, all about ME.
It's a sweet one.
What interests me though is a fairly important conversation lacking from most writings and discussions on the topic.
You are no longer that person you 'were before'. You are now someone's mother and that has fundamentally altered your identity.
You can be someone's mother who's back into her pre-baby running regime. You can be someone's mother who's back at work and just scored a major client for her company. You can be someone's mother who danced til dawn and did back-to-back tequila shots with the abandon of her pre-motherhood self.
But you are no longer that person, bearing and raising a baby has altered your personality. Truth.
How this manifests is as unique and personal as your feelings for your children. There is no road-map. And maybe this is why women seem to find it difficult to talk about.
Motherhood can make you more sensitive, vulnerable, emotional, intolerant, conservative, impatient, empathetic, etc, etc into oblivion. Maybe all of the above.
But as with anything dealing with the heart, talking about how you're feeling to anyone other than your therapist, partner or best friend (and even then ...), is really hard.
And so women's mags and blogs and academic articles and novels chose to tackle the whole losing/finding yourself debacle instead. It's tidier, we all relate. It's easier to find something if you remember what it looked like.
To get to grips with a new personal identity in the throes of raising even newer ones and trying to remember when last you washed your hair is far harder.
I know essentially I'm still the person I was for 32 years before I started breeding. I owe it to my girls to remember, and be, that person. But the 4 years that I've been a mother have undoubtedly been the most influential on my personality, in the most fundamental ways, and to pretend otherwise is to truly lose myself.
I have to credit this fantastic post, sent to me by a friend last week, for helping to crystallize my thoughts on this ... I like what she says about moving targets ... go have a read.
