Becoming a mom for the first time is a crazy and emotional journey, and I think that all moms kind of have an idea of what kind of mom they will be while they are pregnant. They may think they will be the “cool” mom who will let their children stay up late and eat candy. Maybe they are worried that they may be the “anxious” mom who worries about everything. With all the variations of “moms” out there, I don’t know if I ever thought of myself as becoming the “neurotic” mom.
I grew up with children all around me, and I even have a diploma in Early Childhood Education, so I kind of thought I would be more of a laid back mom who would let things go with the flow and know that everything turns out OK. Apparently, that feeling only applies to children and babies that were not mine. When it came to my baby, I wanted (needed) to be in control of everything.
My first was a daughter, and I instantly became this worried control-freak who needed everything to be done a certain way. I was sure that if she did not have a bath every night, she would get incredibly dry skin. If her diaper was not on just right, she wouldn’t sleep that night. Every slight hiccup and cough warranted a trip to the doctors. I needed to make sure everything was just right, and I was told all along that this was normal. I was also told that this is how every mom was when her first baby was born, and it would take another child for me to “lighten up.”
About two-and-a-half years later, my second child came. I was surprised to find out that it didn’t really change. My second baby was a fertility clinic baby who I worked very hard to get and he was a boy. My first boy. It was almost like being a first-time mom again, and now, I was worried about boy things. Was his private area getting an infection? Was I taking care of him right? I needed to make sure my first son was alright, especially after everything I had been through to hold him in my arms.
Just when I thought I was broken and that I was doomed to be a neurotic mom my entire life, I got pregnant with my third child. Surprisingly, I didn’t need fertility treatments for my third, and he was a complete surprise. As soon as he was born, I knew I had changed. It was like the pressure was gone. I had already cared for two babies who made it to toddlerhood, so I must be doing things right. I had been through the “boy thing” already and I was, now, a mom to three children, and I realized that I had let go.
While I still realized that I had to care and provide for my children, I realized that these little things that I was obsessing over just didn’t matter. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. What possibly made it easier was that I no longer had the time to stop and worry about every little thing that was happening. There was no time to measure a diaper and make sure it was on right. There was no time to bathe three children every single day, it just was not possible.
I also had realized that my daughter, now almost 4, was turning into her own person. While a 4-year-old absolutely still needs her mother, she had her own ideas about what she liked, what she wanted, and how things should be done.
I realized that me trying to control everything was going to hinder her growing into her own person. If I wanted to truly help her, I needed to watch from the distance as she spilled glitter all over the floor, or how she added three extra legs to her stick person. These were moments for her, and she didn’t need me to come in a make sure it was done “right.” My job as a mother is to make sure my children are cared for while they journey into their own world, it is not to build that world for them.