When I was pregnant with my daughter a decade ago, I had my heart set on a ridiculously expensive designer crib. I’m usually a frugal person, but this crib spoke to me. It said, “Take me home because I exemplify all that is good and beautiful and perfect about motherhood.” Oh yes, I listened. Oh yes, I ordered. And I waited none-too-patiently for the wonderful day on which it would arrive and grace our home with its magnificent presence.
Meantime, my neighbor down the street —a no-nonsense mama of three— noticed that I was pregnant and came calling.
“I have a crib for you,” she announced. “Sure it has been through three kids, but it’s clean and safe and that’s all you need.”
“Oh thank you,” I graciously replied, “But I’ve already ordered a crib.”
“Let me guess,” she drawled, leaning against my porch post, “You got suckered into one of those ridiculously expensive designer cribs.” Noticing my stony silence she laughed, “Yeah, well, you don’t need that. Utterly stupid. Save the cash for college. I’ll bring down the crib tonight.”
True to her word, the crib lumbered down the block to my house later than evening.
Once it arrived on our porch, my husband gleefully announced that we could cancel the order for the ridiculously expensive designer jobbie.
I fumed.
I wanted the ridiculously expensive designer jobbie. I needed it. I longed for it. It was a cornerstone on which I’d build my future motherhood — a motherhood that would be filled with the peace, tranquility, and beauty that the ridiculously expensive designer crib embodied.
I probably don’t have to tell you that didn’t happen.
The hand-me-down crib stayed. Turns out, my neighbor was right: It was exactly what I needed — in more ways than one.
From the moment the pink lines appear on the pregnancy test, we moms are bombarded with images and advice of how we’re supposed to be as mothers. Books tell us what to eat. Magazines show us what to wear. Complete strangers accost us with advice. And medical personnel pummel us with the “right” ways to behave so that we don’t inadvertently doom our future child to a life of tooth gnashing and despair.
Sadly, all of this “guidance” can end-up relegating us moms to a life of tooth gnashing and despair.
Too many of us try to create the “perfect” life for our kids — beginning with designer cribs and ending with round-the-clock enrichment/sports/academic programs to (hopefully) pave the way to Harvard. We attend to every detail: assisting, encouraging, doing. We assume this is what motherhood is meant to be — an archetypal selflessness, living only for our children, to borrow from author Marcia Muller.
Funny thing about archetypal selflessness: it can be pretty debilitating.
Consider this:
Women suffer depression at nearly twice the rate of men: roughly one in eight women will experience depression in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Mental Illness. Those most affected are women ages 25-to-44 — in other words, those in their active child-rearing years. Psychologists attribute the increased rate of depression in women to both biological and social factors — pointing out that, despite our increased educational and employment opportunities, we women still are primarily responsible for raising children and that this measurably increases our stress and our susceptibility to depression.
Interestingly, study after study reveals that those with strong support networks suffer depression at a lower rate than those without strong support networks. Indeed, “the social support network is a vital piece of the prevention of depression. When that network malfunctions, it does not guarantee the onset of depressive symptoms, but it makes it much easier for the individual to develop a mood disorder like depression,” according to the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Given this, you have to wonder why we mamas don’t support and listen to each other more.
Which brings me back to the crib.
That lowly thing saved me — by teaching me to listen to, and trust, mothers who’d been there, done that, and perhaps most importantly, still retained the ability to laugh.
It showed me I didn’t know anything about this motherhood gig — and that nobody else did, either. Making it up as we go along is the norm and there’s no need to pretend otherwise.
Most of all, that crib demonstrated the beauty of motherhood cannot be encapsulated in anything physical — in fact, the physical is usually, and awfully, deceiving — and that killing myself to construct some sort of “perfect” life would end-up robbing me of any life at all (not to mention overshadowing any bits of beauty that might come my way).
This Mothers’ Day, I have but one request: Reach out and embrace your fellow mothers.
Forcing your crib on some unsuspecting mama — or accepting the one being foisted on you— could very well end-up being a lifeline.
Happy Mothers’ Day you strong and wonderful mamas!
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