The Unrealities of Parenthood
Lies Lies Lies! All of them!
I always wanted to be on House Hunters so before the ink was even dry on our mortgage application, I went online to apply. A producer wrote back right away claiming she wanted to help us get on the show and then she promptly crushed my soul. No, not because they eventually rejected us (that’s a different story,) but because her dirty, little secret proved everything I thought I knew about the world was a giant fallacy. House Hunters is a sham. You can’t be cast until you have found and are under contract to buy your dream home. How would I ever trust again?
Imagine my devastation upon discovering years later about another reality sham: social media was also a lie!
But how can this be???
We have become a society of over-sharers who have trampled over boundaries like a pack of border collies through a paper fence. I’ve seen pictures of kids in utero whom I will never meet in real life. I’ve seen marriage proposals for weddings I will not attend. I’ve seen pantless photos of a co-worker’s wife! (Granted the photo was taken approximately seven seconds after she had given birth but still—they took and then posted a picture of a pantless woman seven seconds after she had given birth! Boundaries, people!)
Don’t get me wrong, I love a well-targeted Instagram ad as much as the next girl, but when I was a new middle-aged lady mom I fell for the carefully façade presented by acquaintances and influencers and they made me feel like a colossal failure. It took months— LIES!—okay, years to figure out those curated moments were not in fact the whole picture.
There are lots of realities about parenthood
You will be exhausted
You will do many loads of laundry
You will be tempted to pay a stranger large sums of money to swaddle your child in a cheesecloth, stuff them in a bucket filled with vegetables, and take photos.
But there are more unrealities than Vanderpump spin-off shows. If you find yourself falling for these delusions, take a deep breath and step away from the computer!
They are LIES!
All of them!
I’ll Never Be Prepared!
The font of parenting know-how I bellied up to was fed by the eternal spring of mommy blogs, 80’s sitcoms, and Huggies commercials. And believe me, I thought that was dissertation-level research.
Sourcing so-called “parenting advice” is easy. The hard part is deciphering what advice will actually work for you.
But don’t sweat it too much because no matter how much you try, you’ll never be totally prepared. And there’s not much you need to know other than feed that kid, dress that kid, and never ever post pictures of your baby in a car seat unless you want 400 internet strangers to lecture you about the height of the harness straps.
I Can’t Keep Doing This
You know that pair of jeans that make you swagger like you’re smack in the middle of a Tarantino movie music montage? Becoming a parent is the opposite of that. Babies are the ultimate confidence sucker. Zero swagger. Nothing makes you feel less secure than not meeting the needs of a tiny, dependent human. And what do they know? They wear socks on their hands and don’t see the humor in passing gas and hiccupping at the same time. Come on, babies! Comedy gold, I tell you!
Oh yes, you will feel like you’re in way above your head. You will think you made a big mistake, or the hospital did letting you go home with a baby. You will be so burnt out that you find yourself jealous of your friend’s grandmother’s dislocated hip because she gets to stay in traction. Aw man, how relaxing does that sound?
But here’s the truth: You are doing it. Just the way it was meant to be done. Bumbling, blundering, and completely without grace. Don’t worry. They won’t remember when you dropped a tube of butt cream on their head or that time you called them a dickhead1.
Everyone is Better at This Than I Am!
My friend gave birth three weeks after me and we used to text each other on the daily about the foibles and hardships of parenting.
“THIS SUCKS,” she texted two minutes after getting home from the hospital.
“Yep,” I wrote back. “But I hear it gets better.”
Of course I didn’t want my friend to suffer, but I admit it was comforting to know I wasn’t alone. (Hello, My Name is Misery and I would love some company!)
Then one day she posted a picture of her daughter asleep in her arm and the words, “Heart bursting. Could not love this little angel more.”
Wait, what? Just yesterday that little angel was tearing the nipples off her body. Weren’t we still in the angry, regretful, frantic phase? Seemingly overnight my friend and ally had gotten her sea-legs and left me lolling around in the surf like a sputtering mer-mom who keeps accidentally sticking her head through the boob part of her nursing bra.
NOT A LIE!
Didn’t other babies have blow-outs and tongue ties? Didn’t other moms spend hours attached to breast pumps and reek of black licorice from all the milk-increasing supplements they were ingesting? Didn’t other parents shout every “S” word at each other in the middle of the night trying to remember which one would make their inconsolable baby sleep? Of course they did, but that’s not the picture most people want to convey.
Now a baby dressed in cheesecloth with a piece of iceberg lettuce on their head on the other hand…
It’s Not Normal to Be Afraid of a Baby
Umm, yeah it is. If Fear Factor and Survivor had a baby, know what it would be? A BABY!
When you look into your newborn’s perfect round, unable-to-focus eyes, you will be filled with more love than the pages of a Nicolas Sparks novel.
LIES!
Sometimes you feel an all consuming, bone-chilling, deep level terror. Parenthood is like starting any new job. You’re scared to use the bathroom for fear you’ll spend the rest of your career wandering the hallways trying to find the way back to your desk. (No? Just me?)
The good news is you get on-the-job training. The bad news is your new boss can be a needy, little jerk with poor communication skills. The really bad news is you’re not getting paid or taking a vacation. Oh, and quitting is out of the question. And wow— there’s so much poop! Like surprising amounts of poop… And it’s going to get on you…
Doesn’t that make you feel better?
This Is My Life Now?
Yep, this is your life now. But more like a phase of your life. The only thing predictable about being a new parent is that there is nothing predictable. Newborns change on a dime. You won’t always be woken up every two hours by a crying, hangry human. You won’t always be tethered to your home because you’re sleep training and everyone knows STROLLER NAPS ARE NOT REAL NAPS! You won’t always be riddled with anxiety, fear, and self-doubt. (Actually scratch that. That never goes away.)
Soon enough when you ask yourself that question, it will motivated by how incredibly lucky you feel.
XO,
Shelly
I know this to be true because I asked my son. He has no recollection of it happening in the moment but is still pretty pissed after-the-fact
It was a long time ago, but it's all coming back to me now. All of it. Including the blowouts. And the butt cream. Thanks a lot, Shelly! (This is great!)
Oh, the laundry. It never truly ends.