“I sound harsh, but can we stop? I was that mom, too. With the busy fingers. Googling all the things that could possibly be wrong with my child.”
‘Everyone was telling me something was WRONG with my baby and I had to FIX him. So, I OBSESSED about it. Oh, holy night, guys. ENOUGH.’
‘Babies ruin bodies.’ The body I worked hard for, to eat next to nothing, to exercise any indulgence out of, would all go to waste once I decided to get pregnant.’
“Loose skin, stretched skin, white lines. Abdominal separation, prolapses, third degree tears and cesarean scars. Weight gain and weight loss. Wider hips, bigger breasts. It’s all there. A body that is a far cry from what it was. ‘Babies ruin bodies’”
‘Marry the guy that does all the things’
“The guy that works hard for his family and often puts his needs dead last. The guy that goes to three different grocery stores to try and find his pregnant wife that special macaroni salad she just has to have (or the baby has to have.)”
‘SAY IT RIGHT NOW – Say the nice stuff, the uplifting stuff, the encouraging stuff, the emotional stuff. Pick up the phone. Start texting. Drive to their house.’
“I was filled with so much regret afterwards that I’d waited until after he was gone. Why do we wait? Why do we have such a hard time telling people what they mean to us?”
‘Please think about how you would feel. If your everything. Were no longer here. Please know that for some. This is the absolute most difficult time of the year.’
“Always offer us an invitation, even if we do not want to attend. Please know that we are not jealous of your joy. But that seeing others happy can be a devastating reminder.”
‘Don’t over-pluck your beautiful eyebrows. Stop trying to fight your weirdness. You don’t need to impress anyone.’ Woman’s advice to her younger self she’s now using in her 30s
“10. Don’t live by other people’s compliments. Don’t die by other people’s criticisms. Take it all with a grain of salt.”
‘I graduated college in 4 years. My friend dropped out. Another friend graduated and had a job before she could celebrate with wine.’
“I heard it takes eighteen months for certain whales to be born, but butterflies can hatch in three weeks.”
⠀
‘A mom and her son who were strangers to me walked up where I was waiting for Sam to finish tutoring. I went over to them, and peeked in the windows.’
“I almost stayed in my van. I was so close, because staying where you are is the easy choice isn’t it? But I heard a whisper, so I got out.”
‘My initial reaction was to text the teacher and ask her if she could hold one for him. He helped pick them out, so he deserves to get the one he wants, right? But then the other half of me thought, ‘No, you’d better not.”
“And then it dawned on me: This. This is why moms are so exhausted.”
‘There was a woman asking for parenting advice. She wanted to know if it was unreasonable to leave her 12 week old baby behind because they really needed ‘us time.’ She wanted to reconnect with her husband. It was so divided.’
“Everyone just focused on the baby thing. But I thought a bit more about it.”
