Have kids they said. It will be fun.

As a child, I loved riding my bicycle. I can still imagine the thrill it gave me to go fast down a hill with no fear of falling or injuring myself. I remember my first bicycle, with pink training wheels. I remember a neighbor helping me take them off and learn to ride without them one day after kindergarten. My memories of bike riding were some of my fondest.

It is no secret that I have really struggled with my mental health since the birth of my first son. After 4 years of really working on that, I have some realizations that I think are worth sharing. First, the baby blues may not just be a ‘chemical thing.’ For some of us who didn’t have our needs met as children, the baby blues may be something much more. Something awakened in us that we had forgotten about. Or rather, someone inside of us. The child that we left behind, lonely and broken. She reminds us that we don’t know what it means to be a good mom or how to get there.

I’ve shared in the past that my parents were alcoholics. They didn’t physically hurt me and we always had a roof over our heads, but everything else was inconsistent. You see, alcoholics are not bad people, they are unhappy children that grew into unhappy adults unable to get their needs met in a healthy way. So, they drink to numb the pain they feel from every day interactions. And when they drink, they aren’t very nice. When we are children we are taught that ‘words shouldn’t hurt.’ You know the nursery rhyme “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” That’s a load of crap. Words have hurt me. Words continue to hurt me. The words that I speak to myself. And they sound an awful lot like the words that my unhappy, alcoholic father said to me. Words that tell me I can do nothing right. That if it isn’t done perfectly, it shouldn’t be done at all. And worst of all, that I am unloveable. It makes me really sad to think my father never felt loved. It makes me really sad that I struggle to feel love. In turn, I struggle to give love.

And when I met Calvin, I was unprepared. I was unprepared for the roller coaster of emotions, that were more anxiety and fear based than love. I felt that I did not have the ‘mum gene’ whatever that might be. Yesterday, I finally realized the obvious. There is no ‘mum gene.’ There is no ‘mothers intuition.’ This is an unnatural pressure placed on women to magically know what a child needs and not expect help from others. I felt like such a failure of a mom after my first son had colic. I couldn’t figure out what he needed and felt very lonely and unsupported along the way. The lack of support triggered my feelings of abandonment. And I have been on a long lonely road ever since. Many mothers may know what I mean, others may be totally perplexed. Both responses are OK. If you have never known what it is to feel that no one will be there for you when you need them, I am very happy for you to not know that pain.

While I do remember the wind on my face and the freedom I felt riding my bicycle, I don’t remember my parents’ proud faces. I don’t remember them riding bikes with me or cheering me on. Because they didn’t. They weren’t there. That’s what having alcoholics for parents is like. They are just there. They didn’t build me up. They didn’t give me any of the unconditional positive regard that I have spent a lifetime seeking. And in fairness, they were just trying to survive and doing their best. So I do not fault them. But it still had its impact on me nonetheless.

There are a good group of us ‘millennials’ deciding not to buy homes or have children. I am a geriatric millennial. LOL. I understand that sentiment. It’s so HARD. But, having children has given me the opportunity to re-parent my inner child. To tell her that she wasn’t too loud, and she didn’t talk too much and that she could accomplish AMAZING things if she kept doing her very best.

So, yesterday, I was riding my bike with Calvin. He’s 4. He’s been riding a balance bike for the past 2 years and recently decided to switch to a pedal bike. No training wheels and he was off like he’d been doing it forever. As a family we rode our bikes to the park. And it happened. I felt the wind in my hair, the sunshine on my cheeks and my whole body relaxed. For just a glimpse in time, I felt that childhood happiness again. Without the weight of everything else that has happened in between. And I realized, I don’t need a ‘mum gene’ to be a good mom. I just have to care. I just have to show up. I just have to be there to cheer my kid on. Even if I get it wrong sometimes. I can teach my child to say ‘I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time right now.’ I can teach my child that humans are imperfect and that is OK. I can teach my child to have healthy boundaries. As long as I keep trying, he will be OK. He will feel loved.

I do have a message to the rest of my Millennial cohort. Having children is HARD. The to-do list is always longer than the hours in the day and well, you may not sleep through the night ever again. But the reward is so worth it. I have never known a purer love than that of my son. When I am having my darkest day, he is always the bright spot. And that love you feel for your parents? Imagine that times 1000 for your child.

For the rest of the world, here is my message. Moms do not have any inherit knowledge of how to raise children or talk about feelings. Men can do it too. My husband is naturally more nurturing that I am. But these ‘buckets’ we put people in cause harm. We have to stop telling people who they need to be based on their gender, race, Nationality, sexual orientation, etc. Give people a chance to be who they ARE, to show you the best of them. We have to as a society, stop criticizing each other for being different, but rather learning to cheer each other on. We all need encouragement and positive words. Children ask for love in the most unloveable ways. As do adults who never felt loved. Anger is a truly unhelpful emotion and we should always ask where that’s really coming from as it is usually what we see instead of the pain or fear we feel.

So, in 2022, let’s try to be less angry, more accepting. Try to love…..everyone, but most of all yourself.