How becoming a mother changed me in an unexpected, negative way (and how I plan to make it better)

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

Becoming a mother comes with many changes. Most of them are expected at least on some level, although you cannot truly imagine, how it would be until you live it. For example, you know that you won’t have so much time for yourself anymore, you will be responsible for another person. Your daily schedule will change. Your body will change. Also, your needs, wishes, and dreams will change. You will change as a person.

And I did change. In many ways, I still stayed the same or even became truer to myself. For example, as an introvert, I had a great “excuse” not to meet people or communicate with them as much. I changed my daily routine a lot, I wasn’t really able to get up at the time I wanted and start the day on my terms. Also, the change in roles was quite turbulent, as my parents, lovely as they are, still saw their little daughter in me. It came with a lot of clashes as I tried to establish myself in the mom’s role in the first couple of months and they would, probably unknowingly, try to push me back into a child’s role. That was hard for me. I always used to be a positive optimistic person and usually nice to people. And that is the change I want to talk about. I became a mom and since then, although I’m usually happy around my daughter, I have become a grumpy person, always criticizing someone, complaining about something, being negative, and lacking a sense of humor. A person you want to be around, right? Well, even I couldn’t stand myself that way.

So I decided, I wanted to reverse and head in a new direction. First of all, I tried to find out, what happened, and why I felt that way and defaulted into looking for negative every time and everywhere. I feel like I have this little bubble with my daughter, where I try to be the best possible version of myself. Sure, there are some mishaps. Sometimes I’m angry or more often rather desperate. But mostly we spend our time happily together and I’m sure it will be even better when she starts to talk (hey you – more experienced parent – don’t laugh!). And I think that’s a part of it. But I feel it started right when she was born because I was very protective and also had (at least for my surroundings) unconventional ideas about being a mom of a newborn baby. I felt like a baby belonged with his parents for the first few weeks and for me, it was crucial we would get used to being a family of three at first not getting disturbed by anyone. I wouldn’t let anyone else hold her for the first month. Except for my husband of course and also the nurses and doctors when necessary. And I was criticized a lot for that. I also felt scrutinized on every single decision – how often do I breastfeed, how do I change her diaper, what clothes do I put on her, what does she play with, how do I put her to sleep… I felt constantly attacked and our little family bubble got disrupted. My defense was a counterattack which resulted in many quarrels.

My husband also mostly stays in my positive bubble, but the situation is trickier with him. My daughter is little, doesn’t understand things, and never has bad intentions. My husband is a grown-up man. But mainly the whole situation is tough. He has a full-time job and works from home. We live in a small apartment and don’t have a dedicated office, so he sits at a desk in the living room, which also happens to be the playroom. That means he’s disrupted from work often. Almost every weekend, starting a few weeks before our daughter was born, he’s out there at our property building our dream house with his bare hands. Well, that’s a lie, he usually wears gloves and he uses various tools. Anyway, when he comes home, he is often physically tired and of course, it’s also emotionally draining, because he’s in a situation where he does things, he has never done before, he learns new things and he has to make difficult decisions on important things. He has a lot of responsibilities and worries a lot. It’s only understandable he’s not able to help me as much as I would need (and on the other hand when he comes home he doesn’t find quite a beautiful quiet haven he might need). But that leaves me kind of helpless sometimes. I’m sure we could figure out something which might ease the situation for both of us, that is maybe a thing to think about. And also, it hopefully won’t take much longer. But it is what it is right now. I try not to be too demanding (although after about a year I started to insist on being able to take a shower every day) and not to complain. But because there are issues I’m not bringing up to not be demanding and I try not to complain about them bothering me, these negative feelings are kind of bottled up. And I need to let them out. But I cannot really, I don’t want to slander my husband in front of others. And also – I tried a couple of times to say something to my parents in defense and oh boy. No matter what I say I’m always ending up being a terrible wife out of hell while he is the sweetest saint angel. I can’t win there, I stopped trying.

Ok, so now I have all those negative feelings pushed out of the bubble and I cannot complain about things that bother me. I guess my solution is to find any number of substitute problems, that are socially acceptable to complain about and complain the heck out of them. That doesn't sound reasonable at all, why would somebody do that? Why didn’t anybody tell me? I guess what you don’t do yourself… Ok, Janka, it is silly of you to find problems everywhere just to complain about them, when other things are bothering you and you are not even trying to find a solution. There.

The next step must be to find the solution. I thought about this a little bit already. Recently I watched a video by Ali Abdaal[1], where he summarized a book The Greatness Mindset. Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today by Lewis Howes. And he talks there, amongst other things, about writing one’s own obituary as a means of checking your purpose and goals in life. I didn’t quite do the whole exercise, but I sure don’t want to be remembered as an annoying, grumpy, always complaining hag. I’d rather have people remember me as a loving and kind, maybe even gracious and elegant person. And how would such a person behave? They probably act calmly and reasonably. They would show emotions, but wouldn’t probably let the emotions overwhelm them. And they would never react in strong emotions, they would take a step back and probably wait a while to calm down and react first they were poised again.

Now I know how would I like to act, it remains to figure out how to get there. It seems like recognizing one is becoming overwhelmed by emotions and reacting accordingly is the key. The first option is to process the emotion and calm down quickly. That sounds like it needs some training. The second option is to recognize the emotion and walk away. From the discussed and emotionally loaded topic, or just literally walking away, it depends. And it’s always good to bear in mind, the other person is most probably not trying to make me feel bad on purpose.

This still sounds quite abstract, let’s come up with a more actionable plan:

1.      I would like to meditate daily. That would help me to recognize emotions more quickly and learn to let go, and overall, it would bring more calmness to my day. That doesn’t necessarily sound realistic right now. But I might try it first thing in the morning right before getting up, with a risk of falling asleep again. The second option would be when my daughter sleeps in the afternoon. I usually have a long list of things I need to do, but I might try to spare 5 minutes. Plan B for meditation not happening or just as an addition: Acting more mindfully while doing usual things, being in the moment with my daughter and husband as often as possible.

2.      Stopping when feeling emotions and asking myself. “How do I feel? Why do I feel that way?” If I don’t want to stay in the emotion: “What would need to change for me not feeling this way?”

3.      When communicating with somebody and feeling overwhelmed by emotions, stop, take a deep breath, exhale fully, think again, and then respond.

4.      When communicating with my family and friends, remember they mean well and so do I.

5.      Think more, speak less.

6.      Take note of all of these instances and check for progress.

It looks like we’re up for a little experiment.

[1] Abdaal, Ali: 6  Steps to Unlock Your Full Potential, [Youtube video], 9. 1. 2024. https://youtu.be/MFXWY8TqSWw?si=ltvBt9HUxCqYKEgv