The Motherhood Manifesto

“No one told me it was going to be like this” is probably the Millennial mother mantra. Becoming a mother in the modern world is like being tossed into the deep end of the pool with your baby, while the weight of every other person’s opinions and judgments are tied around your ankles. Your parents are having drinks at the far end of the yard, glancing occasionally with scorn while posting your baby’s picture on Facebook. Your best friends are taking shots at the tiki bar and choose not to hear your muffled calls for help over the music. And your husband, God bless him, is passed out on a pool floatie from sleep deprivation as he tried to wade over to you. How is this the “piece de resistance” to the anticipation, the longing, the celebrated choice of becoming a mother? No one told me. What the actual fuck?

I thought I knew the kind of mother I would be when I got pregnant the first time. I read the books, took the hospital classes, observed the moms around me. How hard could it be? My mom did it five times! I worked with kids and felt so prepared. But then I drowned, and I lost sight of the vision I had for myself and my family.

Now, three kids in three years during a global pandemic later, I’ve learned to swim. Weights and all. I’ve got clear eyes and a heart full of rage. Not unlike the mass shooters that want to punish the people and systems they feel have betrayed them, I want to burn the whole place down to protect the women that come behind me stepping into the adventure of motherhood. But rather than senseless violence that doesn’t actually achieve any of the intended purposes laid out in the notorious manifestos of those cowardly criminals, I will enshrine my legacy with words on the page and regulated nervous systems in my children.

In the dreariest days of my second newborn, who never slept anywhere but on my chest, while my 17 month old ran wild, I often found myself sitting in dark rooms in rocking chairs in a state of near delirium. I have never been a poetry person, finding myself too impatient to either write or read the artistry and subtlety it requires. But in that dark room I penned a small poem for my girls in my head as I grasped at the very thin straws holding onto my sanity. It read:

We are strong.

We are kind.

We lead with our hearts,

And with our minds.

We may be tall,

But we don’t look down.

We help lift others

Off the ground.

The simplicity, intended to be easily absorbed and repeated by small toddlers still grasping for real words, settled easily in my tired mom heart. My 99th percentile in height little girls would grow up knowing that they are powerful, but their strength is best known in community.

Now that I can (almost) breathe again without a tiny baby attached to my breast at all hours of the day, I can flesh out more of what that little family mantra means to me with five years of AP Extreme Parenting under my belt. Parenting the way that aligns with your spirit and sense of self if often an act of resistance. Conforming to the expectations of Momfluencers and the never-ending list of “parenting experts” available at our fingertips 24/7 is draining at its best, devastating at its worst. Defaulting to how we were raised can often be an easy path to not having to think too much about your role as parent, but I don’t know many Millennials that cite their childhood as idyllic.

For me - safe and secure attachment is my top priority. My kids will never be afraid that I will hurt them, abandon them, or degrade them. Actual unconditional love, not just “I love you as long as you’re not gay” or “I love you as long as you behave in a way that is most convenient to me at all times”

. My children do not exist to please me, and they will owe me nothing for the care and devotion I am pouring into them as children. In fact, they do not even owe me good behavior while in my care. Would I prefer that? Of course. But to love a child is to acknowledge their humanity, and recognize they worth as inherent and equal to mine without caveat.

Second, my desire is to build a life that is counter-cultural, so that my kids can have a childhood that is unhurried, disconnected, and co-created by them. Allowing them to be people that do not grow up and have to “find themselves” in their twenties because they were never forced to abandon themselves as kids. From the outside, that might mean out kids are a little weird. They won’t have cell phones or constant internet access, they won’t be signed up for every possible extracurricular, and as of now, they won’t be attending traditional school settings. I loved school as a kid, but I think it was because it was a place to be seen and understood, which I didn’t feel at home. I am excited to follow the ever-changing interests of my kids and challenge them with real life experiences as the foundation of their education.

And finally, my dream is for my kids to grow up outside of any “bubble”. I hope to travel, be outside, and live in different places so consistently that the labels we often give ourselves as identities become too numerous for them to cling too tightly to. For too long, those labels stuck to me constrained me and prevented me from trying new things. I felt like I always had to be what I was in high school, or people would judge me as fake or a wannabe, but frankly they ain’t paying my bills (except my sweet husband who did in fact go to high school with me, LOL).

Needless to say, I have a lot to figure out in motherhood still and my journey has really just begun. I wish I could say I have more answers, but I do know that I’m staying afloat now. Despite limited support systems and societal systems intended to exclude and inhibit me, I will continue to parent in resistance. Now if only someone could help me cut the damn weights off my ankles, I might even thrive.