Unofficial The New Normal

Unofficial The New Normal Guidance through the early days of motherhood. It takes a village to raise a child but a community o

I was reminded of this today… Imagine this world. Shabbat Shalom 🪬
13/10/2023

I was reminded of this today… Imagine this world. Shabbat Shalom 🪬

This is the thing…In my pregnancy and birth prep there wasn’t any nuanced or normalized info on what actually happens wh...
01/09/2023

This is the thing…
In my pregnancy and birth prep there wasn’t any nuanced or normalized info on what actually happens when you have a baby… of course ppl say it’s hard and your sleep is compromised, but nothing about the postpartum hormonal drop, how it impacts your mental health, your sleep, how to prioritize your rest, to nourish yourself, none of it. The cumulative effects of this gap felt like the carpet had been ripped up from under me and I crashed hard.

This email to the psychiatrist that I found when searching my mail for something else, made me pretty emotional. All these questions and the details I was tripping up over, regarding medication, just shows how o erwhelmed I was. At this point I’d tried so many other things, from supplements to acupuncture to herbal tinctures and everything in between. When all I really needed was someone to normalize this and explain what was actually happening and why it was happening. What I needed was community, a f**k you to the taboo of maternal mental health & an affirmation that I wasn’t going crazy, that there wasn’t anything intrinsically wrong with me or that I wasn’t cut out for this.

Today there’s far more resources, support and information to fill this gap. not just here on Sosh media but doctors and practitioners are starting to support their pregnant clients more when it comes to perinatal mental health and how to take care of it. The books, the articles, the art exhibitions… the narrative to normalizing this has shifted somewhat- Obvs depending where you find yourself, culturally, socially, legally, geographically.

The thing that baffles me is still the pervasiveness of ‘not wanting to scare’ pregnant and soon to be moms, especially first time mums. It’s not lost on me that since I started this page the majority of followers have either had a similar experience to me or are new mums looking for answers. (Continued in comments) 👇

I read a quote today that went something like, ‘would you rather give your first child a sibling, or a mom that’s mental...
26/06/2023

I read a quote today that went something like, ‘would you rather give your first child a sibling, or a mom that’s mentally and emotionally present,’ and it made me think of this idea of the over functioning parent.
How parenting today is so all consuming that we’re burning ourselves to ashes.
Where this really comes into play, esp for FTP and only child parents is this deep disdain of our child being bored or lonely.
I myself have struggled with this, my son has too- him being bored triggers my guilt, that I should be doing more to keep him in a constant state of happy. But as we’ve both grown as mom and son, the realization that it’s not my job to keep him entertained every waking hour outside of school and that being bored, eventhough initially it’s frustrating, is where creativity and imagination spark, is all ok. You can know it intellectually but until it lands for you, whenever this may be, and dial back the overfunctioning, the benefits for everyone are quite profound.
Knowing things in theory rather than in practice is made more difficult when society hasn’t gotten the memo you’re trying to internalize.
Ppl would often say to me but ‘he needs a sibling to play with’, ‘you’re stressed out because you constantly have to keep him occupied, just give him a brother or sister’ or my worst, but ‘he’s going to grow up lonely without a play mate’ 🤦🏻‍♀️
No Susan, he is not lonely, because he has us, with him, all the time! And no Kathy, I’m not having another kid to babysit him!
We have such a tainted view of boredom in this over stimulated over functioning world, and honestly, if him entertaining himself means watching 3 hours of Netflix on a Sunday morning so I can spend that time being bored and not doing anything productive, I’ll take it thank you very much.
The constant guilt tripping of parents to have more than one kid used to really get to me. Nowadays it just makes me laugh because of how absurd the reasoning is. Let them be bored!

Another one to add to the list of what not to say to a parent in the depths of early child rearing. Truth is, yes, in ma...
16/06/2023

Another one to add to the list of what not to say to a parent in the depths of early child rearing.

Truth is, yes, in many respects it does get easier. After a few years the urgency of breastfeeding and nap schedules falls away… But as our kids grow more independent and have to navigate this world often at school and away from us for extended periods of time, the plethora of stuff, new stuff, that’s deeper and more emotional that comes up is massive.

From behaviour, emotional and mental health and stability, to having to navigate the school environment, where they’re expected to keep up academically whilst also figuring out social dynamics. It’s a lot for them, it’s a lot for parents and it definitely doesn’t get easier. Throw in consecutive children, parents navigating the work life balance and all the physiological changes they go through as children, specifically the hormonal changes 5-10 year olds experience known as a adrenarche in prep for the teenage years - it’s the onset from adrenal androgen production from a post I shared yesterday by )… I’ve often wondered who is the parent that really has experienced it getting easier? I’m sure there are some out there but I certainly have never met them.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, we need to be more authentic in how we communicate the experience of becoming a parent because of course it is full of joy and laughter and absolute wonder, a privilege too, to witness and usher the miracle that is having children. But saying it gets easier, as a means to offer hope to struggling parents, that’s not it.

What it is, is this…, ‘Every age and stage brings intense challenges, but you get better at knowing your child as they grow into who they’re meant to be. It doesn’t get easier, but your confidence does. Tap into that because it will help you’ll figure out the different types of support you and your child will need along the way.

All feelings are valid on Mothers Day… especially the ambivalent ones. That’s it, that’s the message ♥️
14/05/2023

All feelings are valid on Mothers Day… especially the ambivalent ones. That’s it, that’s the message ♥️

Recovering anger bypasser here 🙋🏻‍♀️I’ve thought about this adage of ‘losing it’ a lot lately. The subtext being that wh...
22/04/2023

Recovering anger bypasser here 🙋🏻‍♀️

I’ve thought about this adage of ‘losing it’ a lot lately. The subtext being that when the top blows off we and refer to it as ‘being lost’, it implies a negative, like we’ve lost a part of ourselves, our control, our minds, something that is seen as shameful or embarrassing. Like we’re not ourselves.

But as anyone with a young child will confirm, anger is such a fundamental human emotion. And how we story it is so important. what if we started saying… ‘I found it!’ instead of ‘I lost it!’ how different it would feel to acknowledge it and for it to feel found, to be seen.

I’ve been thinking a lot about toxic positivity lately, especially in the context of postpartum and recalibrating throug...
17/04/2023

I’ve been thinking a lot about toxic positivity lately, especially in the context of postpartum and recalibrating through matrescence. How often I heard the common quip on the first slide, by well meaning ppl who just did not know what to do with my being real about how hard I was finding the adjustment.

Trying to make someone feel better by implying that others have it worse is erasure and for many ppl has the opposite effect. If you are one of these ppl who are feeling blinded by the ‘bright side’, who is going through something that makes it feel unattainable right now… it’s ok. There will always be someone who from the outside their circumstances are much worse than yours, always.

What I found way more helpful is an acknowledgment that this matrescence journey is hard, and so many find it hard too. Find comfort there with them in the shadows, it’s way more crowded than on the bright side.

Matrescence and early parenthood is a weird time. For so many we’ve been sold this ideal of finding ‘a village’, one tha...
07/04/2023

Matrescence and early parenthood is a weird time. For so many we’ve been sold this ideal of finding ‘a village’, one that was prevalent for many of our ancestors. The problem I’ve always had with this idea is that it romanticizes the village, which has become so elusive. And further on, a massive disconnect is that this village was organic, nowadays it’s not, you have to put a lot of effort in to cultivate it. And so the underlying motivation is to find people ‘like you’ to be in community with, people you feel comfortable with. And whilst there is value in this, I can’t help but feel that if we want to build communities, societies that are inclusive, that foster empathy and most of all resilience, we have to move beyond this.

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