Motherhood: Busting Myths and Better Late

My husband, my 4-year old, myself, my 11-month old… all of us on a double size bed. It’s a warm summer night, so the windows are open, but we’re all still sweaty here. This week, we’re staying in a little cabin surrounded by forest and sea. I’m the only one not sleeping. There’s still a lot of light outside, the birds and bees are still busy doing their work, or doing their pleasure perhaps. A soft continuous wind stirs both land and water. It offers to lull me to sleep, but I just want to savor this for a bit. I know I may regret it tomorrow, but right now, even though I don’t have any personal space in a physical way, I do have a few moments in a mental way, which isn’t something I get very often. Also, the whining sound of mosquitos at my ears keeps me on watch. These mosquitos dare not come near by sleeping babies.

I came into this motherhood thing quite late in life. It took me years – okay a decade – to decide if it was for me or not. In a way, I do wish we’d started having kids a bit sooner, so that I’d have more time to decide how many kids I want, rather than nature making the decision by default. And because I never imagined I’d love being a mother as much as I do. But in another way, I think the timing has been perfect. There have been advantages to starting this journey as the silver age loomed.

I’ll talk more about that, plus some myths surrounding motherhood that paralyzed me for too long.

As in all motherhood posts, I’m less interested in parenting hacks and much more interested in how we evolve into someone new as we uncover our instincts and that wild knowing within. Yet of course this is my experience, which leads to straight to the first myth…

Myth #1 – Take your cues from everyone else

When I was pregnant, I thought motherhood was a universal experience that I’d be able to share with all of my mama friends. Don’t get my wrong, there are some universal aspects that unite us all. But each mother’s experience is also unique. Which makes sense actually.

1 – We’ve all been molded by our own previous family experience and home life. Our parents encoded some things into us, for better or worse. Some of those things we may cherish and pass on. Other things we must let go of, and perhaps even try to overcome.

2 – As we grow up, we begin to find our own personal values, which also vary greatly. These values play an undoubtable role in how we choose to parent.

3 – We’re surrounded by an established culture, which informs both our values and our parenting styles. I spent my early adult life in America, and now 12 years of my adult life in Sweden, and I can say that there are major differences when it comes to parenting. Mothers are presented with totally different options. My partner is from a different culture, with its own nuances. Even micro-cultures play a role, like the industry we work in, the neighborhood we live in, the friends we keep, etc.

Another powerful influence is the media – the stuff we watch, the people we follow on social media and the images of motherhood they present.

4 – Lastly, every child is unique. Babies are born with very different needs that we, as mothers, have to respond to and shapeshift with. Shapeshifting is one of our superpowers. Even amongst siblings, it can be so different for each child. There are a thousand factors that can shape those early days and years.

Parenting is not a one-size-fits-all kinda thing.

The beautiful thing about this is that we have the opportunity to become our own mother – if not the mother we had, then the mother we want to be. The two may not perfectly align because parenting norms change frequently in our society. What they did a generation ago may not fly anymore, because we know more now. And because, I believe, more women are tuning into something far bigger and deeper, wiser and enduring than any cultural trend.

A personal story:

My firstborn, Axel, defied all expectations. Hated the stroller. Hated the car. Hated being swaddled. Wouldn’t take a pacifier. Wouldn’t take a bottle. Didn’t accept sleeping in a cot, baby nest or anyplace except my body. Didn’t even accept his father actually. Even as a newborn, he had to be very close to me at all times. Every shower I took during his first year of life, I had to listen to him screaming in the background. As he got older, he would throw himself out of his father’s arms and bang on the bathroom door. I couldn’t get dressed in the mornings, could barely eat a meal.

It was so confusing to meet up with mama friends, whose babies calmly sat in strollers, sucking on pacifiers, quietly entertained by the world. My baby? Oh hell no.

My own mother described him as “not a good baby”, as if babies are to be held to certain standards, although they have absolutely no way of regulating themselves and develop only in response to the environment they’re in and the care they’re receiving. She’d ask, “Is he sleeping in the crib yet? Is he laying in the stroller yet?” No, no, I would sigh. “Well he’s just going to have to,” she’d say.

But I’d already begun grappling with my own early childhood. It began when I was pregnant and then became almost overwhelming in my first months of motherhood. Not that I blame my mother – she did what she thought was best, according to the parenting standards of her time and place. But those parenting norms were not okay, especially for more sensitive souls. My brothers and I were the living proof of that. While I had spent a considerable amount of my adult life trying to heal, my baby brother had not. The baby brother whom I loved and yet who hated me in return, the brother who callously hurt me whenever and however possible, who seemed to be incapable of any empathy or kindness, who got kicked out of schools, ended up in prison, who still to this day, age 38, lashes out at his own family – I wanted to hate him, and perhaps I did for a while – until I became a mother, because then it all started to make sense. Memories came flooding back, my baby brother screaming for hours on end, only to be left in dark rooms all alone because, in those days, babies were expected to sleep in isolation and become independent in biologically impossible ways. My baby brother being dropped off at daycare from 6 weeks old, where he was often ignored. My baby brother being punished in every imaginable way, from lots of physical beatings to public humiliation and more. My baby brother told his whole life how bad he was, from the moment he was born. His fussiness was often explained by ear infections or teething or “he was too hungry, I could never satisfy him” and a dozen other things that missed the truth: he was a sensitive person who was not nurtured into health and happiness. Soon his screaming became silence. Soon those feelings that overwhelmed him began to shut him down. He literally doesn’t even have the capacity to be empathetic or emotionally stable, I don’t think. His brain just wasn’t wired for it.

I grieved for him as I cared for my own overly anxious, highly sensitive baby. I also grieved for my mother who had been given few choices in her lifetime, and who, no doubt, experienced trauma in her early childhood days. I vowed to do whatever I could to respect my own child, to nurture his needs however big and overwhelming they often felt. The trauma must end here, I decided. I had no idea what I was doing or if it was “right” or not. But the risk of being wrong was far less scary to me than the risk of going against my heart and that intuitive voice that whispered, so quietly and unsure at first. But the more I trusted it and followed it, the more sure it was, the more sure I was too.

I talked about this a bit in a previous story, but I don’t think I admitted how often I doubted myself during that first year. Especially when so many advocated for a very different approach to parenting. But thankfully the universe always sent me just enough encouragement to listen and tune in, and slowly but surely I began to see Axel transform before my very own eyes. I could almost see the shifts in his brain. Beautiful moments began to outnumber the difficult ones.

Not that it was simple. The hardships were ongoing, particularly around sleep. There is absolutely no way for me to even describe the sleep challenges. If you know, you know.

There is one night I recall in particular. It must’ve been around 3 AM, and it had been an extra demanding week. The exhaustion taunted me, asking me to question everything I knew and wanted. I googled something about baby sleep, which led me to some mom blogs that were so depressing that I literally broke down in tears. It was one of those dark nights of the soul. Never had I felt so alone, so trapped. I wanted to find some joy and peace in motherhood, some support that didn’t involve strict separation, listening to him scream, or anything else that felt unnatural and distant.

Deep down I knew that I had find a way to go inside the discomfort, go through it – not constantly search for escape from it.

I set my phone aside, set the idea of sleep aside. Axel slept as long as I held him and swayed around the room. Somehow I came across a black spiral-bound notebook, opened it up. There was a drawing of a pregnant mama, her belly a swirl of rainbow. On the next page was my birth plan. Then a list of potential names we were considering (and to my surprise, the name we gave him was nowhere on the list!). A hospital bag packing list. And on the final page, a list of parenting values. I’d totally forgotten about them.

In the last weeks of my pregnancy, my midwife had asked me to envision a home/family life that I wanted. She helped me dream of myself as a mother, and of my baby as a new lifelong companion. She then asked me to create a list of the values that characterized these dreams, values that would characterize me and my little family. This seemingly simple exercise proved to be very healing, as it helped me release some of the fears I had about becoming a mother. It also helped me create a new vision for who I could be and the type of relationship I could have with my child.

“A mama who is there and truly present,” it read. “Who listens and responds compassionately, knowing that her baby is growing in unimaginable ways, that she herself is growing in unimaginable ways.”

Already by this time, I realized that I was living out my dreams. We were growing, Axel and I, individually and together at the same time.

The list of values went on, with hopes about cultivating a sense of wonder, but it ended like this: “For him to know that he matters, that I respect who he is and what he needs in order to become his true self.”

How much easier it was for me then to embrace that difficult, sleepless night and let him be there curled up on my chest while sitting up on the sofa, to let my heart find some peace and my burning eyes to find some rest.

It wasn’t the last time I returned to that list of parenting values. And of course they needed to be adjusted as he grew, as I grew.

Axel is now 4 years old and is the loveliest kid. He’s still sensitive, but in way that is almost magical. Even his preschool teachers tell me that there’s something special about him. And the sleep issues are long gone. Axel needed a lot of support around sleep for the first 2 or 3 years of his life, and during this time my only goal was to nurture his relationship with sleep. To help him feel safe and secure. We co-slept until he was 3 years old, at which point he began to sleep in his own bed. Now I’m happy to say that he sleeps brilliantly, effortlessly, even tells his baby brother how good sleep is.

When my second child was born, I already knew what kind of mother I was. I didn’t have to figure all of that out again. I kept Bastian very close and responded quickly. He just turned 1, and I can count on one hand how many terrible nights there have been, and while he wasn’t nearly as anxious and sensitive as my firstborn, he has quite an intense personality himself – and doesn’t sleep any easier than his big brother did. But this time around, my instincts were already there, and they just happened naturally without much contemplation or complaint.

I became the mother that my kids needed – not the kind of mother that everyone else is, or thought I should be. And that was not always easy, let me tell you. People love to criticize. But what works for one family may not work for yours. It’s more important to know who you are and who your children are. Respect them – and yourself – so that you can create the family experience and home life that feels right to you.

And please, please, for the love of all things good, think twice – no, think thrice – about ever going against your heart. We will not teach our children empathy and compassion through our instruction, but through their own experience.

If you find that your parenting style is countercultural, and if that feels hard, then seek out resources that resonate with you. I identified a couple of people I could always turn to. I started following women on instagram and youtube who encouraged and emboldened me. I reached out more often to our midwife, Karina, who was like our guardian angel, especially at my most desperate moments. I learned to search the internet with terms like gentle parenting, attachment parenting, respectful parenting, positive parenting, etc. Although I can’t say that I fully subscribe to any of those parenting styles, they were more along the lines of what felt right to me, or at least they could lead me in a better direction.

We don’t to have to belong to this parenting camp or that parenting camp (and if you’re a parent, I don’t have to explain). Because if we can find a way to follow our hearts and that intuitive knowing we all embody, then we won’t waste any energy comparing with others. We won’t doubt ourselves or need to justify ourselves to anyone. We can move confidently and lovingly forward, assured that we are giving our babies what they need most.

Every mother – in privilege or poverty, in the east or west, north or south – yearns for this. And we can all do this in our own way. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Myth #2 – Babies need a lot of things

I had a lot to say about parenthood before I even became a mother. I’ll never do A or B. My kids will definitely X and Y, but not Z.

And then I ate a lot of my own words.

A small example: I had a friend who pushed her baby in a stroller along busy highways. Oh how I criticized her when I was pregnant myself. Said I would never push my baby through those loud, polluted places. Only lovely side roads, forest and park trails for us. Ha! First of all, Axel was a terrible sleeper. He refused the stroller, so there were no calm walks through the park, stopping on a bench to read a chapter of my book while he slept peacefully in a stroller. I carried him in wraps and baby carriers until he was well over a year old, bouncing and shushing and walking for hours. He also hated quiet areas and would only settle with lots of white noise, so you know I was out there by loud highways, carrying him through construction sites or whatever it took to keep him settled.

But seriously, this is called the art of adaptation. And I had to do a ton of adjusting the first time around. Mostly in my mind. Because my expectations had been formed by the images presented by society, which had little merit in reality. And because mothering does not happen in the mind – there is just no way to intellectualize it.

For me, the first years of mothering boiled down to two simple things – following my instincts and following my baby. Axel needed constant closeness in order to feel secure, and so I carried him, and it was cozy, and when it was over, I was sad. I actually missed it. My body missed it, especially my chest. There was an imprint of my son there. But eventually he began to prefer the stroller, and so I adapted once again. Bastian also preferred the carrier, but I complained so little, knowing how fast it goes, wondering every day if it would be the last day he would want me to carry him.

Same with the crib. I actually sold our crib when Bastian was just 3 months old, because it was already clear to me that he wasn’t a crib baby either. It felt totally natural to keep my babies close to me both day and night, so that’s what I did. When the buyer came to pick up the crib, she was very confused. What’s wrong with it? she asked. Nothing, the crib is perfect and totally unused, I told her. My babies just don’t sleep in it. She was convinced that something must be wrong with the crib, because why wouldn’t a baby like it? Well, why should all babies love the crib? The crib is a very new phenomenon. For most of human history, babies have slept with their mothers – and still do in many parts of the world. But I’ve written about night sleep before…

The point is – babies need very little. Just us really. Yet it can feel like the hardest thing to give, right? Modern society does not support a natural parenting style whatsoever. Not even in those first weeks, when even the father is expected to report back to the office as soon as possible. There is no one around to hold the baby when we need to bathe our bloodied, opened bodies. No one to bring meals so that we can stay nourished in those sensitive days of healing and bonding with our baby. It’s even rare for people to ask about the birth, though it is, for many of us, a defining point in our journey.

This could be another myth: It doesn’t matter how the baby got here, only that baby is here and healthy.

–– which has some truth to it, of course, but isn’t entirely true. Not for mothers who feel some disappointment, trauma or grief about their birthing experience, and not for mothers who feel enormous power and joy after their birth either.

In all cases, society tells a woman that our experiences just don’t matter that much, downplaying the enormous thing that childbirth can be for us as well.

Consider the rituals we have surrounding motherhood. In the not so distant past, we had ceremonies to honor the profound rite of passage a mother takes on every level of her being. The physical transformation is miraculous – no one can deny that – and yet it doesn’t even compare to transformation that takes place on other levels.

Our ancestors acknowledged a woman’s role in creation and saw birth as a gateway into motherhood. They came around her, telling stories, offering blessing, helping her embrace the power of her body, the power of her instincts. They came after the birth too, celebrating her just as much as the new baby, creating a safe, peaceful space for her to heal and bond – and perhaps most importantly, helping her bid farewell to the world she was leaving behind.

These days, what sort of rituals do we have? Baby showers. Where people bring a ton of stuff that you’ll “need” to make up for the lack of all above. I don’t mean to sound critical, it’s just the way things are!

“Our custom of baby showers is a hollow remnant of rituals originally designed to help women prepare for the transformation of self during birth.”
Pam England, Birthing From Within

But it’s also an opportunity for us to ask, how can we better prepare ourselves and others for the role of motherhood? How can we better support women who are entering this great phase with fears, mothers who have undergone an unfathomable loss or trauma and are still grieving, new mothers who are struggling with the enormous shift in identity or the shocking demands of parenting?

What sort of rituals do we want to create? Well, we can ask friends to come around us in different ways. Instead of creating a baby list of all the stuff we think we may need, we can create a mama list of all the support we think we might be able to use in our postpartum days. Be brave enough to ask our community for small favors, or even a blessing. A bit of love and support that can boost us physically, mentally or emotionally.

Because what a baby needs most is us. And if baby needs us, then that means we have a lot of needs going unmet. And for those of us with other children at home too, it’s even harder to meet all of the needs of a growing family.

This is the opposite of how things are done today, I realize. We’ve been conditioned to focus all on baby instead of mama. I know firsthand how uncomfortable it is to ask for help, the uneasiness people feel when you ask for a family meal instead of a baby present, because the former is too personal, and our society is all about impersonal stuff. And motherhood is something we honor once a year in our culture – again in an impersonal, almost commercial way.

The good news – your home does not need to look like a preschool if you don’t want it to. You do not need a freshly-painted, magazine-like nursery. You do not need an extra salary to buy a dozen pieces of baby furniture, or an extra room for storing them all. These are not things your baby is asking for. What your baby is asking for is you. Get ready for it.

But also get ready to astonish yourself. You can love more than you ever imagined. You can expand more, experience more, let go of more, be more, and love more still.

The relationship you can have with your baby is nothing short of extraordinary. The systems are marvelously adaptive, so fine-tuned in our bodies. Motherhood is one of the only chances that we, as women, still have to be utterly wild and instinctual. Even if no one sees it, those moments you sneak away with your baby, just the two of you bare-skinned, belly to belly, the baby crawling up to your chest, you kissing all over that little body, which still fits into yours so perfectly. These moments are off the charts glorious, intoxicating really! I don’t know how women get through motherhood without them.

Or without those mornings waking up with your baby, peering in those big eyes, pure love and innocence, those eyes that are oriented toward you as if you are the brightest star in the sky, a whole constellation by which he navigates the world. And you are, mama, you are.

Myth #3 – The postpartum stage lasts 6 weeks, tops 12 weeks

“When a woman gives birth, two are born – a baby from the womb of its mother and a new woman from the womb of her former existence.“
Marianne Williamson

Physically, it took our bodies 40 weeks to grow a new life, and the process is insanely magical yet kinda mind-boggling. Everything transforms – hormones, heart rate, the position of our organs, blood volume, taste and smell, milk production, just to name a few! – and it will continue to transform for many months after you give birth.

Not to mention the process of healing from childbirth, which varies greatly. Could be 6-12 weeks, could be 6-12 months.

I didn’t heal quickly after my first birth. Though I barely tore and only needed one stitch, there was some exposed tissue that never healed over, and there are no words to describe the pain I was in. It was far worse than childbirth! I couldn’t even sit in a chair until around 6 months postpartum. And every time I went to see a gynecologist, they told me that the only remedy was time. Give yourself a year, they whispered, as if it was a secret. One of the gynecologists even cupped her mouth with one hand as she said it to me. “A woman’s body really needs a full year to recover.”

If that’s true, then why the hell do we feel pressured to be back to our old size and shape, back to our old life and ways, just a few weeks after birth? Where is this myth coming from, and why are we perpetuating it?

So I’ll echo them, but instead of whispering it as they did to me, I’ll shout it: GIVE YOURSELF A YEAR.

No, I’m going to take it even further: GIVE YOURSELF A LIFETIME.

Because becoming a mother is so much more than a physical process. It’s a complete overhaul. It will ask you to begin again, and then again, and again. Your very identity may be in question for a while – and possibly later too as your child grows.

Motherhood has been a process of breaking through many barriers, cutting straight to the core of who I am – of who I had to be. And it’s been the ONLY thing powerful enough to break through.

I once visited a friend who’d just had her second child. She remarked that her life was “on pause” for a year. Axel was just a small baby then, so I internalized what she told me. First, that becoming a mother demands a short pause on who we are, how we live, etc. And secondly there must be something about that 1 year mark. I’m not sure what it signified for her exactly, perhaps going back to work, perhaps going back to girls night out? Not sure. But I’ve now been a mother for more than 4 years, still only a blip of time, but already I know:

There is no short pause. For me, there is only a before and after.

I will be a mother for the rest of my life. And it is more than a title. It’s a sense of being, and belonging.

Of course the immediate demands of mothering do get easier as our babies grow and naturally become more independent. Here in Sweden, most kids start preschool around the age of 2, so that definitely offers some freedom back in the sense of space and time to oneself. A mental and physical break from having little people hanging on your body and calling your name constantly. But, as any mother of older children will tell you, the journey is really only just beginning. As our children continue to grow and evolve, so must we.

I know so many mothers in the postpartum stage who begin to long for a career change. I think this desire is indicative of something – that we can’t go back to who we were before. And yet for most, there is no choice. The pressure of ‘returning back’ comes from all directions in today’s society – and the idea of evolving forward is quickly shelved.

And I get why. Money and responsibilities, security and all that.

But what if we began to listen to mothers in this very special space just after childbirth? Again, it’s one of the few times in which many of us gain access to our inner knowing.

When I’ve taken the time to listen, I’ve heard some incredible business ideas, projects and visions that would bring so much value to the world. What if these ideas were invested in, and women were given opportunities to actually realize the dreams they dream while in this special, liminal, almost supernatural space of bringing life into the world and nurturing that life into health and well-being?

If we could, I honestly believe this world would become a very different place. We might finally begin to experience the balance of masculine and feminine energy that we’ve all been missing for far too long.

Perhaps becoming a mother later in life has had its advantages.

I had more than a decade to focus on my career. My partner and I also had a decade together before children to prioritize our marriage. By the time we became parents, our careers and our relationship were solid. We could let a year pass without any date nights or much alone time together, remembering that we’d had so many years for that before, that we’d have so many more years after.

He never pressured me to be the same kind of person I was before. Which would have been impossible, though I know that many women do feel that pressure.

Neither of us felt the desire to go back to achieving in the way we had before either. Before parenthood, we worked pretty much around the clock. We were apart of launching companies, apps and experiences that won awards and that many of you out there may use on a daily basis. It wasn’t as satisfying as you may think. Instead of breaking through the barriers to our true selves, as parenting has done, our professional lives were merely building them. In fact, the more we accomplished, the more we had to continue accomplishing in order to silence those inner voices, those inner longings. Rest was never an option, because we couldn’t allow all of those things to catch up with us, you know?

In my late 30’s, as I going back and forth about having kids or not, I talked to a friend who had also begun her parenting journey around age 40. “Of course there are some physical disadvantages,” she told me. “But on the other hand, I can take parenting more seriously now.”

At the time I didn’t understand why this was an advantage, but now I do.

Taking it seriously, because when we become parents, we become responsible for another life. And the degree to which we’re able and willing to nurture that life is critical, particularly in those early years. We are human, yes, of course. We have to give ourselves some grace and permission to be human. Yet we’re also an undeniable force in shaping their future – the very future of the world.

I have the greatest respect for those in the thick, gooey, exhausting days of motherhood – yet I also have the greatest respect for those who in, knowing what it takes, choose not to have children. Often these woman are deemed as selfish, unwilling to sacrifice themselves, which is ridiculous. I see it as a selfless, responsible decision taken as seriously as it should be. Bravo and a lot of love to these women. Stand in your decision proudly.

I know this post has become very long – thanks for reading! I’ll end with a few words by Patti Smith that have been ringing true for me lately: