Dear Sweet Fig

When I first started on this journey, I thought deciding to become a mother would be the most difficult part of motherhood. It feels naive to admit to you now, but I couldn’t imagine a version of myself with children. What will I do on Saturdays or after work? Will I keep a job? Will I still be good at my job? Can I travel? Will I have friends? Do I have to join a mom circle? Will my old friends like the new me? Will I grow to love poop jokes and wiping bums? Will I turn into someone who nags their partner and envies their freedom? WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY VAGINA?

It was (and still is) a role and experience I couldn’t fully grasp. Sure there are books on parenting and parents who will divulge the gruesome details of delivery you didn’t request, but that information always got jumbled up and stored as various fears in my mind. I was really looking for a clear depiction –  a look into the future that showed me exactly how life would be once little kids didn’t just call me “Aunt Cap” but also “Mom”.

I took a deep dive into motherhood research hoping to obtain a better picture. I steered clear of the flowery books that would rave about what a gift you’d be to the world and stuck with the gritty ones like, A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother. I listened to podcasts about women who regretted becoming mothers, polled all of my close friends on their thoughts on motherhood, and conducted a month long Facebook investigation on every mother in my 1,200+ friend list. The research was futile. I’d only swam a million feet deeper into murkier water.

Over the next two years there were lots of little moments that started to help build a picture of motherhood in my mind. One of them I remember most was Christmas Day 2018. Your dad and I stayed in New York for the holiday. We had a lazy morning drinking mimosas and opening gifts. Then we went ice skating in Central Park and ate a fancy dinner at Augustine in Lower Manhattan. Sitting next to us at dinner was a family with two girls. One seemed to be about eleven or twelve years old and the other around eight. The eight year old’s name was Cleo, and she was dead set on ordering steak for dinner. Her mother offered to split the steak with her, and Cleo refused. She wanted the whole thing to herself.

I looked at your dad with an eye roll locked and loaded thinking, I would never let my eight year old order a $50 steak. But Cleo’s parents said, “Okay, how do you want it cooked?” She answered in a very sophisticated manner and knew both the temperature she’d like her steak and the side dish she’d like to go with it. My eye roll faded, and I fell in love with Cleo’s independence and ability to make decisions that differed from her parents. I’m sure this may sound a bit crazy to you (and btw you cannot order a $50 steak), but I realized then that children are not just the outcome of their parents’ successes and/or flaws. You have the ability to be autonomous.

Who you are, what you like, who you decide to be, and what you decide to do is up to you – not me. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to shunt the responsibility of parenting onto you while you’re still in utero. I only mean to say that I realized it’s not all up to me. We can steer the ship together, which makes the idea of motherhood sound more like a fun adventure than a solo task filled with guilt and regret.

The trouble is now – after I tackled the decision to become a mother – I realized the fears and challenges of motherhood don’t stop. You quickly grew from an idea, into a heartbeat, and now a baby that kicks and makes themselves known, and the more you become you the more I realize deciding to become a mother was the easiest part of all.

Now I have to learn how to be a good one.