You Want the Truth? You Can’t Handle the Truth — The Relentlessness of Motherhood

An Equally Unrelenting Father’s Day 2019 Tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLNDYCsUEzk

Part 1

There is a lot of information about becoming a parent readily available: books, posts, podcasts, and professional advice with instructions, tips, and recommendations. You can find a billion lists of what to buy for every stage, and a zillion answers to everything you ever wanted to know and probably shouldn’t ask in the first place, at least not to Google.

Other real-life parents may even tell you the truth, if you ask the right questions. But you don’t know what you don’t know, so you probably won’t ask the right questions. We didn’t.

There’s a lot of discussion about emotional labor too: that’s the unpaid, invisible, mental load, emotional burden, domestic and life management we do to keep those around us comfortable and happy. It’s taking care of the details now and planning and facilitating the future as well. Being a parent and emotional labor go hand-in-hand.

My husband and I had relatively realistic expectations about all of it. We thought we knew what we were signing up for. After all, we were late to the party, behind many of our friends, and over-prepared in so many ways.

We trained, took classes, read books, watched videos, interviewed other parents, and joined mothers of multiples. And still, it turns out we were so embarrassingly clueless in so many vital ways. As it turns out, life before kids (BK) not only bared no resemblance to life after kids (AK). It’s shocking really, how different our lives have become, in good ways and in bad. But do you know what caught me most by surprise? The relentlessness.

No one mentioned the merciless all-consuming pace. Motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood — it never lets up.

The constant intensity begins in pregnancy, or even earlier for those actively trying to conceive. Everything shifts when you can no longer view sex as pleasure, then an answered prayer turns into a frenzy of preparation, which morphs into having to pee a thousand times a day, and more each night.

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Kristi Andrus life and business coach

When I drop my kids off at school, I always kiss them and shout, BE AMAZING! Love your life, make the most of it, level up, and be amazing. www.kristiandrus.com