ARTICLES
Time doesn’t mind!
– Claire’s Blog
It is irony, this mom-ing thing we do. Just the fact that sleep deprivation is a genuine form of torture makes our
role as ‘nurturing mother’ ludicrous!
I have concluded that this irony lies in our physiology. The supernatural calling of being a mother arrests every part of your body ‘till you’re oozing everything from milk to lullabies. Instinct causes you to growl inwardly (or sometimes even outwardly) at the shop attendant who calls your baby boy a beautiful girl and hell hath no furry like a mother who needs to breastfeed while standing in the queue at the Woolies customer service counter, 10 returns and one entitled customer long.
The elementary skill of counting naturally happens all day – counting poo, counting smiles, counting the number of hours between feeds, counting the number of hours they have slept. One ball goes up in the air after the other, from bath till bed and the juggle even happens while in bed! It’s not all instinct sadly, my new mom self can testify. Tightly swaddled into a cocoon and perched in the corner of the couch was all I knew to do in order not to break my new baby. We’d sit and stare at him from a distance while the couch did all the bonding. There is just so much about parenting to contemplate, to learn, to remember; it’s overwhelming to say the least. However, in all the chaos of remembering vital keys for my baby’s survival I could never remember how many hours I got to sleep. It’s optimistic to think a mother would even remember to feed herself.
Apparently my brain has shrunk 8% from being pregnant and in addition to being sleep-deprived I pretty much feel like an intellectual invalid on most days. How is it that the hugest responsibility is left to the ones with the smallest, most tired and overloaded brain, and the lowest energy levels?
While I can just imagine your silent agreement as you read this as a mom, I do
believe there is a hope that should be shared; a hope that keeps us from being trapped by our physiological limitations. This hope is found in the rewarding fruit of time. Time doesn’t mind the struggle. Each day that my children get older and develop more they become more easily manageable. Difficult daily tasks get easier and the things I tried so hard to remember
each day quickly become second nature!
Time is a bitter-sweet thing, and it just doesn’t mind.
So in light of this tug-of-war between what I need to know versus what I have the capacity to know, precious time is the rope. It is the measure of things. Time doesn’t mind either way. Over time your knowledge grows with your capacity and your capacity with your knowledge. Every moment builds on the last. Like a jigsaw puzzle the picture comes together one small piece at a time.
So when you feel overwhelmed as a mom and you’re struggling to see a way forward, remember time is a great teacher. You only need to manage one day and that day is today!
