What Mothers Really Need: A Nap And A Turkey Sandwich

I’m not sure when this started.  Historically, motherhood always seems to be regarded as a noble status. American mothers do the whole thing backwards, in my opinion.  I have observed people from various cultures that really know how to do the whole gig well.

 

Take my friend, Tiny Hispanic Woman-Sister-Friend #1.  I will never forget the epiphany she provided for me after the birth of my third child.  I was struggling to “do it all”.  I was trying to be everything for everybody, and lost myself in the process.

 

I pulled out my cross, hammer and nails one day and started whining, “I just don’t know how I’m doing all this: working, having three kids, house work, wife work (if you don’t know what this is, call me, I’ll explain) and keeping myself in some semblance of a beauty regimen. Woe is me. Sniff. Sniff.”

 

“Well, don’t you have any help?” she asked.

“Help with what? I’m the only person that can do this?”
“Where is your family? Your mother? Your sisters? Your Aunts…”

“I don’t have help from them. They have their own lives. I should be able to do this.”

 

Shoulda, woulda, coulda…. as the saying goes.

 

She described to me how her life was after each of her children was born.  Her mother and her aunt systematically moved in to take care of everything else and, sometimes, the baby.  They left their lives to take care of hers. Temporarily.

 

It would be unheard of in her family not to do such as this:  a new mother is simply not to be abandoned.

 

Like the military and the firemen do: never leave someone behind.  The women of her family decided not to “leave her behind” to fend for herself and fail.

 

Post-partum depression in our country is documented and evidently experienced much more frequently than any other country in the world.  One of the biggest contributors is lack of family support.  Americans have a “can do” attitude that makes us think that we are always to be mavericks in ever endeavor we face.  Like the little engine that could, “I think I can, I think I can….

 

The problem is thinking is not doing in this situation.  The engine in the story didn’t run out of gas and somehow invent a rope out of vines and pull himself to the top of the mountain.  He had sufficient resources to make the trip to begin with.  Motherhood in America requires that no matter what the circumstances, you push your way through them.  Emigrating from another country no knowing the language of the land and ending up a successful capitalist happens this way---not being a mother.

 

When questioned about why the assistance from her family helped so much, THF#1 replied, “Just not being alone during the whole thing was huge.  I knew that someone was available to me that they had already been there and knew more than me.  I wasn’t alone.  The support of someone saying, ‘we know you can do this. We are here to help when you need it’ was so important.”

 

When Ben was a resident, he was the first male resident of the Pediatric Residency Program at Greenville Memorial Health System to request and be granted paternity leave.  Now, that’s progress.  Fathers that are equipped and able to be present with their spouses are ideal.  Even though it was only for 2 weeks, we learned along side each other about who this new little life was to us. 

We both felt overwhelmed, though, when he went back to work.  I didn’t feel I had the option of enlisting the help from anywhere.  I thought I could do this alone.  All wrong from every direction. 

 

I should have accepted help from everyone in my family. I should have accepted help from anyone who was willing to do so.  The problem was that I was so wrapped up with taking care of my baby; I couldn’t complete the thoughts that would have led me to those requests. 

 

I ended up becoming very close to another mother whom I met during prenatal exercise class.  We talked every day, a couple of times a day.  Our babies were 1 week apart.  She had hers on my due date! I was so upset. 

 

That relationship enabled me to survive those first few years.  I wasn’t alone.  Someone was with me during the battles I faced.  She made me stay sane.  I made her stay sane.  

 

Motherhood is not as a solo mission.  It is group collaboration.  Did my Tiny Hispanic Woman-Sister-Friend need to demand such support? Nope. It was just there.

 

Like rain, it just showed up. 

 

One conversation with another mother who happened to be from Brazil went like this:

 

Introductions were made. Names were exchanged.

“I am Max’s mom,” I said

“Oh, I am Cool Soccer Phenom’s (of course not the real 16 year old’s name) mom.”

Along further in the conversation, I disclosed that I have 4 kids.

 

Now, understand I am used to getting a variety of responses to this information once presented.  They range from, “Oh my goodness, God bless you!” to “Whoa, I bet that’s why you ____________.” That blank can be filled with ‘have so much food in your grocery cart’ to ‘have such a messy minivan’ all the way to ‘that must be why you look so tired’. 

 

Her intriguing message after that was, “I don’t know how you American women do it.  Where I come from, the woman of the house’s job was to care for the baby and manage the help: the maid, the cook and the nanny---not do everything! And I only had one baby!”

 

A long silence fell between us. I was betwicked and bewildered by the whole thought.  

 

I wanted to get on a plane to South America within the hour.

 

Her motherhood experience sounded pretty posh.  Actually, those kinds of services are readily available and very reasonably priced for even an average citizen.  They are respectable positions or careers to have and seen as so necessary for a family. 

 

I would like to propose that all women do these kinds of acts of mercy for others.  Make it a Code of Honor, if you will, not to let any woman you know as a mother “be left behind”. Sure we can’t all have maids, cooks and nannies, but we can whip up a mean casserole for someone.  We can offer to run errands for someone. We can even, dare I say it, hold someone else’s baby while they rested.

 

 

 

Did my friend’s relatives have to barrel through her door for her to accept their assistance? No, again.  They knew this was coming from the time they were mothers and were helped by their female relatives.

 

It was an expected practice of love and caring passed down for generations.

Ahhhhhhhhh…... Tradition!

 

Did she need to “go through the trenches” of motherhood to be a good mother? If she wanted to be a tired, stressed, ragged out mess, then yes.

 

I challenge the thinking of “We all did it. Now, it is just her turn.” All women need to show compassion, not elitism.

 

“She’ll survive. We did,” some of them say (including myself sometimes).

 

I say in return, “Shame on you and me for letting anyone else suffer. You should know better. After all, ‘You were there’, right?

 

I’m Roman Catholic. We are good at giving sins categories or nifty titles.  This one is “The Sin Of Omission”. It is defined as the failure to so something one can and ought to do.

 

I remember it as the Sin of Standing By and Doing Nothing.

 

Knowing that a woman is having a baby or has small children and doing nothing to assist is wrong.  I challenge us all to not let it happen, to anyone that we have in our lives or discover.

 

 

Survival should not be applied to caring for human beings. Getting stranded on a remote island in the Pacific? Yes.

Motherhood? No.

Fighting cancer? Yes.

Being a mommy? No.

 

I believe that the feeling of isolation, being completely overwhelmed, or physically exhausted should not be an accepted practice for women choosing to be mothers.  If we value children and women, it is important for everyone to not view this life-giving job as life threatening, but rather honored and protected.

 

“I just want a turkey sandwich,” I said to my husband shortly after my first baby was born. God bless him, he made me one.

 

I could talk on this topic for a long, long time.  However, to do so would just place me on the very cross I don’t need to get on.  Negatively viewing those seemingly precious times in my life and my children’s lives does no good. I do hope that somehow someone changes their mind and their behavior toward mothers because of some of the issues I put on the table.

 

I have decided to bank all those thoughts of sandwiches, clean sheets and tall glasses of water for the future.  That’s right. Whenever it’s my turn. My turn to be to another woman what she needs, what I needed long ago:

 

Just a blessed turkey sandwich and a nap, for Pete’s sake.