‘How does it feel to be a parent?’
‘Not very different, for now. It feels like a truncated experience because the nanny is doing so much.’
‘Chores and duties aside, do you feel fundamentally changed as a person?’
(thinks) ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Would you take a bullet for her? I know the correct answer is yes, but deep down, how does it actually feel?’
(thinks) ‘I’m not sure yet either. I think yes … but I’m not fully sure.’
I don’t know if I would, either. People describe motherhood as this instant gush of mothering instinct and I-Would-Die-For-You mother’s love at the first sight of the little thing that just exited your body, slimy and wrinkled and pink. While I do love her, and she is undeniably very cute, she still feels foreign. Like she could be anybody’s baby; nothing feels proprietary (yet). Perhaps like all human relationships, this one, too, will take time. Maybe the motherhood experience is different for everyone – but of course it is, I’m just unacquainted with the normal extent of deviation. Is anything normal? Life in the past 12 days have been about timings and schedules and right breast and left breast and how many days has it been since she pooped and which formula brand is better and what’s this funny spot on her little face? I am tempted to flow with my instinct, but have to admit that when it comes to caring for the little thing, I actually have close to none. Mothering doesn’t feels instinctual, or human nature; it feels like a set of skills to be learnt, knowledge to amass, habits to build. When my cluelessness feels overwhelming, I remind myself that she, too, is learning – learning things as basic as how to do a poo. It’s humbling to think that I myself was once so new to life that something that feels so natural now, like dropping a poo, had to be learnt. Likewise, I hope what feels like an insurmountable curriculum now will one day become second nature.
Perhaps my problem is a need to optimize motherhood. I’d been reading Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror’, of which my favourite of the anthology is the essay ‘Always be Optimizing’. The essay revolves around the rise of Barre and athleisure in the US, positioned against the evolving face of feminism and, correspondingly, the newly insidious ways that society dictates how women should act, look and be. But the root of the problem, she suggests, is the need to optimize the female experience. And maybe I’m doing the same thing here with motherhood. I do feel the need to do things right, and to get them right quick. I take it as a personal insult that the baby cries in my arms, but is soothed the moment the confinement nanny takes over. I get frustrated easily when the latch falls through. I despair at the way the hours shoot by every day of confinement, making me feel like I’ve done and accomplished nothing except constant breastfeeding and sitting through many, many Youtube videos.
The thing that’s really killing me, though, is not the crying, or the sore nipples, or the night feeds. It’s the sheer monotony of confinement. Each day blends seamlessly into the next (thanks to the night feeds) and it feels like a groundhog day situation where I do the same things, eat the same foods, and spend the hours between feeling hot and sweaty because of the sheer amount of heat piled up in my system.
There are moments of reprieve, and tenderness. Today I looked at her suckling and thought about how she will never be two weeks old again. This is it, the here and now. She’s growing by about 200g each week, mad! Then there’s the little singsong sounds she makes while nursing, or the way she sporadically breaks into a small smile. Moments like this make me feel a little better.
Well, I suppose there’s no alternative now but to dive head in. Wish me all the best!
Medium Delirium 