I Miss My Old Life Before Kids

Hi friend,

A few months ago, I quietly introduced something called Dear Danielle.

Very few people saw it.

Since then, hundreds of you have joined Pretty Serious, and I realized many of you don’t even know it exists!

It’s honestly one of my favorite things I’ve ever created.

Women write to me anonymously about the things they feel like they can’t say out loud, and I answer the way I’d answer a friend sitting across from me over coffee.

This was the very first letter I answered.

I wanted to share it with you before I start answering new letters again.

Dear Danielle,
I feel so guilty for saying this but I miss my life before kids.

I love them and wouldn’t go back and undo having them but I miss me. The me who could just… exist without being needed every five minutes. The me who didn’t feel like my brain was open in 47 tabs at all times!!

I miss being rested. I miss getting dressed without it being a whole production. I miss having time that was mine, like truly mine not “time to catch up on errands while also thinking about dinner.”

And then I feel like an asshole for even saying that, because people would kill to have what I have. I wanted this. I chose this. So why am I so upset and why do I keep feeling this low-grade grief? Sometimes I look at old pictures and I don’t even recognize myself. She looks like she belongs to herself. And it makes me want to cry….and I do! I cry in the shower, in the car…

Is this normal? But if it’s normal how do people live this way…because it feels terrible. I feel torn in two or three or four all the time! How do I stop feeling like the worst mom and human being ever for missing my old self? Sometimes I just want to run away for a day and catch my breath.

— Anonymous

Hi friend! I want to start with the part I wish someone had said to me.

You’re describing something incredibly common that almost nobody gives Moms permission to say out loud, and I completely relate. I have felt this way too. There were times I had panic attacks in the shower because I felt so overwhelmed by the loss of my old life, my old self, and the guilt of even feeling that way at all. I’ve experienced a lot of anxiety over the years because of that guilt, because when you love your child deeply AND miss yourself, it can make you feel confused, ashamed, and like something must be wrong with you.

What I want you to hear is that missing parts of your old life doesn’t mean you don’t love your child. It means something changed, dramatically, and a part of you misses what was. Me too.

Truth: Missing your old self is grief not a betrayal. (Imagine that!)
And grief feels especially confusing when what you lost came packaged inside something you also deeply love.

Okay….so I’m going to talk to you the way I would to a friend who’s sitting across from me with tired eyes and a brave mouth.

This is normal. Not “normal like you have to just accept it and suffer,” normal like, “Of course this would happen when your entire identity, body, schedule, and nervous system got rearranged!”

The reframe:
Motherhood is a gain, and it’s also a loss. (Truer words were never spoken)
You gained a child and a new love, and you lost the version of life where your time and attention belonged to you in the same way they used to. Both can be true at the same time and recognizing so doesn’t make you ungrateful but honest.

And the guilt, that “I should just be grateful” voice, that’s Good Girl Conditioning. It’s the conditioning that says, “If it’s good, you’re not allowed to feel the hard parts.”
But Motherhood is not a gratitude test, it’s a transformation, and that transformation comes with grief!

What’s actually happening underneath:
That grief shows up in sneaky ways, because it’s not the kind of grief people show up with casseroles in hand for.

You’re grieving things like:
autonomy
quiet
spontaneity
having a body that isn’t needed all day
being able to finish a thought
being able to exist without feeling “on”

And because nobody names this as grief, you end up naming it as a personal problem.
So you start thinking, “What’s wrong with me!?” when the truth is, “Something ended, and I miss it.”

I have 1,000% felt this way too, and have absolutely assumed that my own guilt, frustration, and confusion were personal failings instead of part of a much bigger, much more human experience. I’ve been there. And when you can reframe the experience as, “Something ended, and I miss it,” it becomes a very different story, and a much kinder one.

The move (three steps that actually help):

Step 1: Stop arguing with the grief.
You don’t need to convince yourself you’re fine. What you need to practice is not shaming yourself for being human.

Try this sentence:
“I can love my child and mourn what I lost. Both are true.”
Just letting that be true will soften the guilt.

Step 2: Give your old self a Good-Goodbye.
Not a dramatic goodbye. A conscious one.
Pick one specific thing you miss:
Quiet mornings, spontaneity, feeling cute without effort, alone time that isn’t “productive.”

Write this, quickly:
“What I loved about that was: ____.”
“What I’m afraid I’ll never get back is: ____.”
“The new version I’m willing to create is: ____.”

This is how you stop spiraling in comparison and start building the next version on purpose.

Step 3: Reclaim one micro-identity, weekly.
Not daily. Weekly. We’re not doing perfection here.

In my memoir, Good Girl, Bad Mom: For Every Mom Who’s Ever Felt Imperfect, I call these Slivers of Self-Care: tiny, realistic acts of self-care and nervous system support that help steady and stabilize you inside a very busy life. Not big, glamorous, aspirational self-care but real-life self-care. Like, “It’s a regular Tuesday self-care.”

Choose one thing that makes you feel like you again:

• a 20-minute walk with a playlist that belongs only to you

• one coffee out alone, even if it’s in your car

• one outfit that makes you feel like a person

• a class, a book, a hobby that isn’t “useful”

• one protected hour that is not errands, not catch-up, not helping someone else

Your nervous system needs proof that you still belong to YOU!

Script (if you need support to get time back)
If you’re partnered:
“I’m noticing I’m grieving how little time feels like mine, and it’s affecting me more than I expected. I need one protected hour each week that’s truly mine, not errands, not catch-up, just to be a person. Can we pick a time and make it non-negotiable?”

Say it calmly…as a fact, not a plea or beg.

One next action in 10 minutes
Open Notes and write:
The old-self thing I miss most is: ____
The smallest new version I can create this week is: ____
The day/time I’m claiming is: ____

Then calendar it. Treat it like something that matters, because it does!

Oh friend, you are not failing….you’re becoming.
And your old self isn’t gone, she’s just not the only version of you anymore.

I hope this has felt supportive.

Warmly,
Danielle

If there’s something you’ve been carrying around that you wish someone would answer honestly, just hit Reply.

For the next week, I’m opening Dear Danielle while I gather letters for next month’s column.

If I choose your letter, I’ll always ask your permission before sharing it publicly, and it can remain completely anonymous.

You don’t have to write it beautifully or perfectly….just with heart!

No question is too small.
No feeling is too messy.

I’d love to hear from you.

xx,

D