If you have given birth in the past 12 to 24 months, you are all too familiar with this question. And why wouldn’t you be? It is a well-intended query about your newest, life-changing phenomenon that has certainly been your most immediate responsibility day-in and day-out.
However, it is alarming how infrequently anyone has asked about my own well-being as a mom. It is far too rare I am asked, “How are you?”
I had a 10 hour labor that wiped more energy than I even knew I had. Before I could muster the strength to cover myself up and crawl out of my pain-induced stupor, a nurse was hovering over me asking if I planned to breastfeed and began forcing my newborn to latch on my nipples.
Shortly after, the doctor came in and asked me how many feedings the baby had, seemingly blind to the tears streaming down my face.
I was exhausted, beat down, overwhelmed, and struggling to get my baby to latch. No one paused for a moment to check in on my mental or emotional state.
As the weeks and months went on, family and friends would call, text, and visit more frequently than ever before, but it was never to visit me or ask how I was doing. It was always about the baby.
As I met other moms and went to doctors appointments I was asked thousands of questions. All of them about my baby.
Meanwhile, I was fighting to cope.
If anyone had taken the time to inquire, they would have found out just how much I was struggling. They would have discovered I was scared. They would have learned I was falling apart in almost every way behind the scenes.
Some days I wanted to scream it from my bedroom window. Some days I wanted to drive to my friend’s house and break down in her kitchen. Some days, I wanted to call my mom and cry until my tears ran dry.
I could have spoken up, but it was not that easy.
As a mother, there are expectations. You have a role to play for your child and for your family. You need to be the foundation on which your home life is built.
You cannot admit that you are unhappy. Or that you hate changing diapers. Or that if you have to put up with one more 3am crying session, you’re going to get in your car and drive into the night.
Or that you feel trapped.
I didn’t want to seem cold, or ungrateful, or worse...incapable.
We need to reevaluate the way we view and treat mothers. We are more than just a vehicle to create new life and be discarded physically, mentally, and emotionally once we do so. We are more than just the mom of a newborn who must let all their hobbies, interests, and goals be a thing of the past.
So, make sure you ask the mothers in your life, “How are you doing?” And if you are a mother who is struggling to endure, speak up! Ask yourself, “Am I OK?” and do not hesitate to admit if you are not.
If a woman is not caring for herself, she cannot be expected to care for others.
