30 Time March 2–9, 2020
list at work, albeit sometimes because
I was finishing them in the evening.
I’d also done this before. But as soon as
my friend said it, I felt relief. Of course.
Those two words, so matter-of-fact,
validated an experience I didn’t fully
realize I was having.If you ask whether a woman has
“bounced back” after pregnancy,
people know what you mean: Has
she, after carrying and delivering a
baby, returned to her previous size
and shape? The question is not just
shallow, it’s lazy, focusing on what
can be ascertained with a glance. Less
discussed—and harder to answer—
is whether a new mom has “bounced
back” in other ways. Between changing
hormones, erratic sleep and trying to
keep alive a brand-new human while
relying on trial, error and Google, what
does O.K. even mean? But unspoken
as it may be, the expectation for many
women is that at a time when you’re
just trying to hold it all together, you
must somehow figure out how to pick
up where you left off.
Some of the pressure is societal:
for women fortunate enough to have
time off, once you go back to work,
you’re right back in it. The fact that
your baby is cluster- feeding or staging
a sleep strike is not really an excuse
for missing a deadline. But the haze
of new motherhood has a way of
warping your own perception of what
you should be able to handle. When
getting through the day requires
a certain amount of autopilot (and
coffee), there’s not a ton of time to
reflect on what caring for a new life
while meeting the demands of your
own is doing to you.
With a passing comment, my friend
helped me see my own situation more
clearly. Now when friends with young
babies confess that they’re struggling,
even though they’re getting back
into a routine, even though nothing
is technically wrong, I tell them
about the night I accidentally dined
and dashed.
Sometimes we need someone to
assure us that things are going to be
O.K. Other times what we really need
to hear is that in that moment, they’re
not supposed to be. □When Mom needs to hear
that it’s O.K. not to be O.K.
By Lori Fradkin
TheView Parenting
At a time
when you’re
just trying
to hold it all
together,
you must
somehow
figure out
how to pick
up where
you left offi had made iT as far as The sTreeT corner when iT
occurred to me that I hadn’t paid. I’d said goodbye to my
friends at the restaurant and walked out. When I returned,
embarrassed and apologetic, one friend mentioned that
another had asked if I was O.K.
“Of course she’s not O.K.,” she had answered. “She has
a 4-month-old.”
That 4-month-old was the reason I had to get home.
I needed to pump—for the fourth or fifth time that day—
and then I needed to go to bed as soon as I could, for however
long I could, before attempting to look like a pulled- together
professional for work the next morning.
My husband and I had joked about how easy that week
would be. Our older son was away with his grandparents,
which meant we had just one kid to take care of. Naturally,
that was the week the baby had a sleep regression. Every
night, I sat in the glider for hours at a time trying to nurse
him back to sleep, only to set his swaddled little body in the
crib and have him start crying again.
I had been back at work for just over a month, trying to
prove myself to a new boss. I was pumping before going
to the office, interrupting my day multiple times to hook
myself up to tubes and suctions, and then doing it again at
night. I was also trying to be an attentive mom to a toddler
who loved his baby brother but had ordered me at least once
to put him “back in your tummy.”
Of course she’s not O.K.
I knew I was exhausted, sometimes overwhelmed. Yet
my friend’s comment was revelatory. I gave birth with no
complications. I had reliable childcare. I wasn’t experiencing
postpartum sadness or anxiety. I was checking things off my