Motherhood Will Break You

Gosh there is a lot that I wish people would have told me before I became a mom, and specifically a farm mom. There are a lot of tips/tricks/expectation setters that I wish someone would have told me before I became a mom. But as I get asked for many of my friends’ baby showers “What advice do you have for the expecting mom?” my mind really can’t come up with anything.

Crazy I know, but the biggest things I’ve learned about motherhood are not things you can ever begin to explain to other moms until you actually go through it. And there isn’t really any advice to it either. They are more like facts. Motherhood is hard. You will go crazy and that’s 1000% okay. You will yell at your kids and instantly regret it. And so on. The best way to probably sum it up if I have to is that Motherhood will break you.

It will break you into a million little pieces. You will never, ever be the same woman you used to be. Oh but you will long for her many times, trust me. Been there. Done that. Wishing I would have spent my days of freedom more wisely, with more fun, more careless. I truly didn’t know what I had until I was shattered into a million pieces the day my daughter was born.

Man, oh man. You truly can’t describe to another momma what it’s like to instantly have to care for someone else ahead of yourself for the rest of your life. Especially as littles you have to pay extra attention to them, hold their head, make sure they don’t swallow anything. It’s a very long list. This is the initial spot where you fall to pieces just like a fragile vase hitting the floor.

Then, day by day, you start to figure out your new role. Will you be happy with it all the time, no. But you begin to realize that each tiny piece of yourself is slowly being put back together, but in a different place. You won’t be the same person you were before children – you are growing into the woman you’re meant to be as a mom, an amazing mom.

Now it won’t always be steady progress or even forward progress. I know it wasn’t for me after each time I had another child. It seemed like a took a step back and a part that I had rebuilt shattered again. Now I had to learn how to be a mom to 2 kids, to 3 kids. And as I was figuring it out, I felt more confident in my baby skills and was more learning how to adapt to the new phases with my older children – more pieces being put into place. A place I never knew existed. Skills I never knew I would have or have to have.

Motherhood is hard. It will break you. But as my kids get older and I can truly see the difference in mothering a 2 year old and a 6 year old, I begin to find a place where I can take a breath and see just how far I’ve grown. How much I’ve been put back together into a new, amazing woman that I never could have imagined. Can you do that? Even if it’s only 2 weeks into motherhood. Take a second. Take a deep breath and just sit with that. Recognize how far you have come. And I promise you, you still have a long ways to go and it will be worth it.

“Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed.” – Nishan Panwar