Soul-Starved And Trying Hard To Do What's Right

Recently, I’ve been reminded of the young mother I was over 25 years ago:
living in a three-story walk-up apartment with dingy peach-beige carpeting
and a living room so small that even our tiny Pier 1 loveseat barely fit in it—
a young mother who was starved in her soul and trying so hard to do what was right.

I often think of that soul-starved-young-momma-me when something in the present day causes me to think I’m failing my now-adult sons in some way.

And sometimes, when I think I’m failing them, I am washed all over with shame—
remembering the ways I “failed” them before.

Do you have any stories like that?
Stories that fill you with shame about how horribly you failed when it mattered most?

Mine starts with dreams and expectations
of who I thought I would, could, and should be.

You see, my son—my firstborn child—was not unwanted or unplanned.
His birth followed the loss of my first pregnancy through miscarriage,
so I had an almost desperate longing for him.

On top of that, I worked professionally in early childhood education,
and I'd been raised by a stay-at-home mom
in a religion that highly values motherhood.

I expected to love full-time dedication to motherhood.
And to be very good at it.

All this made the shock of motherhood that much more of a blow than it might have been for some.
And let me tell you, I was SHOCKED by motherhood.
And not in a good way.

If you look in my son's baby book, you’ll see a hint of the shock I felt
in the lines I wrote soon after his birth—
something to the effect of “Damn that was hard!”
(although at that time in my life I wouldn’t have cursed.)

Other people have sparkly-eyed lovefests with their newborns, I know.
If you are a parent, I hope you are one of them.
Seems like it would be fun!

But I felt drained from almost the first moment
by this being who—according to all the lore of my culture, religion, and profession—
I was supposed to love and serve unconditionally, without resentment,
and without needs of my own.

And I did love him.
But honestly?
I’m just not that GOOD.

Up until that time, I was the queen of getting things right:

• A good girl

• A good student

• A good Christian

• A very good teacher

• A very good white person
  (because I worked for poverty wages teaching in the “inner city,”
  not like those low-life money-grubbing suburban teachers.)
  

My whole identity was tied up in being GOOD.

It was my go-to tactic for addressing the unknown:
Find out the rules. Follow them. Then go a step farther.

That’s what I was doing when I let my newborn baby cry for 45 minutes
pretty much every time he cried at all
from the minute I brought him home from the hospital.

I kid you not.
I was trying to be GOOD.
I was trying to do what was RIGHT.
I had read BOOKS about it—
books that told me I needed to teach him not to be selfish… right from the start.

I was trying to do parenting right.
Really, I was.

Now you may very rightly realize that belief was way off.
But new-momma-me didn’t know that.

She didn’t know she could trust her momma’s heart—
the one that sobbed in another room while her baby cried.

She didn’t know that her new-momma heart was probably about as trustworthy as any heart could be—
having forged a connection by blood, love, and breath.

She didn’t know she didn’t have to follow anyone’s rules to be good.

She didn’t know she could feed her soul and meet her baby’s needs
by following her longings—not ignoring them.

I have judged her harshly.
For her ignorance.
Her misunderstanding.
Her not knowing.

Do you ever do that, dear reader?
Good momma. Change-the-world educator. Badass businesswoman that you are—
do you ever judge yourself for not knowing better?

Today, I look back on that new momma and—finally, finally—feel hints of compassion for her.
Not only for her crying baby.

Nourishment was all around her,
but she didn’t know she was allowed to take it in.

Goodness was already in her,
but she thought she had to find it somewhere outside of herself.

And that’s what was eating her up from the inside out—
not the little baby and his needs.

But she didn’t know that.

The thing is, her failure and her baby’s suffering are only part of the story.
And to tell only those parts doesn’t do that young momma justice.
It’s not very kind.

The whole story includes her suffering, too.
And her successes.

She was weary and drained and depressed—
and she still fed that baby.
She still comforted him.
Not perfectly, but she did her best.

She loved him. She played with him.
And yes, sometimes she looked at him with sparkly-eyed joy.

She’s not the villain in this story.

It was the never-ending drive for goodness that starved her soul.
It was the distrust of her own longings, her own wisdom,
that kept her from finding soul-nourishment—
and from providing it for her child when he felt longings of his own.

The systems and structures that tell women we are not trustworthy...
that strip us of our connection to our bodies and to each other…
that tell us to be good girls and follow the rules,
even when those rules cause harm—
THEY are the villains.

I’m just starting to see that now.

So as of this moment,
I’m not letting the villains tell the mean version of that young momma’s story.
Of my story.

I’m going to tell the story of a new momma and a new baby—
both crying together,
and figuring out life the best they could.

And I think, in the end, it will turn out all right.

Not perfect.
But good.
Good enough.

What new story do you want to tell?

Here’s to thriving,
and to rewriting the narratives shame tried to steal.

With love,
Deb