Motherhood is a crucial event in a woman's life. A lot of effort is needed to adapt and get the maximum possible satisfaction from this new phase so full of emotions.
Last update: May 25, 2022
Motherhood is a phase of life characterized, almost in equal parts, by extreme enthusiasm and stress. It presupposes the break with the previous identity and the birth of a new role: that of mother.
And although this new role is welcomed with great desire and hope, having to take on new responsibilities, new interests and even unknown feelings can become distressing.
As in any other field, when you undertake something new, you always do it as a beginner and with the weight of the expectations of others.
Being a mother and a father means going from taking care of yourself, worrying about your health, your body, your well-being to having to do it for another being as well. A being who occupies the top priority for most of the time.
It is an immense, splendid and unconditional act of love, but which at the same time breaks the identity that had been acquired up to that moment. The truth is that motherhood forces us to give up some parts of us, or at least put them aside for a while.
This renunciation involves a "you are not that important anymore", even if it is not entirely true. But not having so much time or resources to take care of yourself, or to carry out the same projects as before, inevitably you can feel neglected. And this can fundamentally affect one's self-esteem.
Motherhood, a new identity
What are the most affected areas?
Being a mother means reinventing yourself in many ways. It is healthy, as well as desirable, to continue to keep your spaces private and try not to put aside or abandon your identity or interests. But inevitably there will always be plans, projects or events that will have to be abandoned because they are simply incompatible.
The good news is that giving up does not mean making them disappear entirely from your life, but rather modifying them, creating a new ego. Some of the areas where motherhood forces us to reinvent ourselves are:
Social relations
Friendships are one of the vital components that are most affected by the initial phase of motherhood. Unless most of the friends have children at the same time and therefore are all forced to take on this new role, the most frequent consequence is that changes occur.
The projects hardly remain unchanged. The time available is no longer the same as before and, therefore, there is less willingness to devote to travel, parties or evenings until late at night.
Availability and motivation are also slowed down. Generally, the mother feels tired most of the time and when she has a free moment she takes the opportunity to rest. The social sphere, therefore, will inevitably undergo changes.
You also start interacting with other mothers, as you have more interests in common, more topics to talk about, and children can play together. This, however, it does not mean that old friendships should be abandoned. The ideal would be to keep them both.
The sphere of work
To this day, reconciling work and family remains a utopia. Breastfeeding and baby care in general make it extremely difficult to combine profession and motherhood.
As a result, many women find themselves forced to leave their jobs and abandon their career expectations. Others do not give up at all, but find themselves immersed in a tsunami of daily stress and anxiety. In any case, the woman who was a worker before maternity has now taken on a very different role.
Self-care: can it be reconciled with motherhood?
This area is almost completely set aside for dedicating oneself to the care of one's child. Physical or personal well-being is no longer as important as it could have been before.
It is natural that the mother no longer sees herself as attractive, as lack of time puts this aspect in the background. The effects of pregnancy and childbirth cause many women to face physical upheaval.
Rest and recreation
If the woman first came home from work, took a shower, got comfortable and watched a series on Netflix, with motherhood all this comes to an end. There is another being to look after, wash, dress, play, feed and put to bed.
Even the concept of free time, as we specified in the first point, changes radically. Activities become much more relaxed, and are typically done early in the morning and with different people who understand us and with whom we can empathize.
The couple and motherhood
The couple becomes mostly a "team of childcare workers". This role should be minimized, remembering to reserve time for yourself. Life as a couple, inevitably, is no longer the sameIt's harder to go out for dinner alone, have a non-stop conversation, and find time to have sex.
We are suddenly catapulted into a dimension made up of pediatricians, diapers, toys, walks… which, we repeat, force us to reinvent ourselves and take on new responsibilities.
What can we do to preserve our identity?
It must be clear that we will always remain ourselves. That is, the identity is not erased out of thin air. Within our limits and our abilities and with a good dose of realism, we must do our best to preserve ourselves and not be overwhelmed. It also indicates maturity to accept the reality that many things will change and that we will have to adapt, whether we like it or not.
It is up to us, for example, to ask for help. Without abusing it, of course, but there are also grandparents, uncles or babysitters. It is desirable that the child spends most of his time with his parents, but family harmony is based on the emotional stability of the parents.
If not, it is best to ask for help, find each other, take a breath and go back to your children, without guilt.
Another option is to alternate tasks within the couple. This must always be done with love, without blaming who did what, who did it the most, etc.
Although motherhood can be a very difficult phase, it remains an important evolutionary step, such as the transition from childhood to adolescence. The difference, in this case, lies in the fact that it is a free choice. It is important to start becoming attached to this new condition, to accept that there are things from the past that will never return, but that there will be just as many new ones from which to derive maximum satisfaction if we know how to exploit them.
