Being a mom is a mother of a career

I was out for a hike with my 2-year-old the other day when I spotted another mother toting her own little baby boy. We approached each other warily, trying to determine friend? Or are you the kind of mother who will only make me more aware of my own inadequacies?

After we exchanged niceties and complimented one another on the beauty of our sons, she mentioned that this baby was her first child and that she was just enjoying being a mother so much.

"I loved my boys from the first second I saw them," I told her. "But I think being a mom is really, really hard. Especially when they're under a year old."

She looked at me, kind of cocking her head and arching her eyebrows with her mouth all twisted up, as I waited for her to say, "What dost thou talk about evil baby-hater mother?"

But instead, she let out this long deep sigh that made it seem as if she'd been holding her breath since she gave birth three months earlier and said, "You're the first person who told me this was hard!"

That was all it took. For the next 40 minutes, she barely took another breath as she talked about getting up a hundred times in the middle of the night, and how she hadn't sat down to eat a meal since her son was born, and she was so tired, and she hated going to work and at the same time, she couldn't wait to go to work and sometimes her son cried and cried and she couldn't get him to stop and she missed talking with her husband without interruption and going out with her friends.

We parted ways, never having even exchanged names, just two moms of young children, passing one another in the midst of our busy lives. But the conversation we had was more than just passing small talk. It was an affirmation from one mom to another that being a mom is hard in so many ways.

I spent the first 15 months of my eldest son's life feeling overwhelmed and wondering what I had done and when it would get easier. I also spent a lot of time wondering what was wrong with me because every single mother I met told me how they had found "their calling" and that motherhood was one big hootenanny after another.

I, on the other hand, was staggering through my son's first year developing an understanding of why sleep deprivation is considered a form of torture, and trying to figure out how to balance work, my new baby, and what was left of my life.

I wish that one mother had taken me aside and said, "You know what? It's OK that you'd rather have a root canal than go to the park. And it's all right that you can't motivate yourself to teach your baby sign language or that without nap time, it is very possible you would commit yourself."

But nobody told me those things. And it took me a long time on my own to come to terms with the fact that as a mother I will still occasionally lose my temper and I will never enjoy craft projects and that sometimes, I think child-rearing is just plain monotonous. Let's face it: reading the same book dozens of times over the course of a day or playing with sidewalk chalk isn't as intellectually stimulating as, say, coming up with a plan to save the world/company/community as many moms I know did pre-baby.

The most important thing I've learned is that admitting all of this doesn't mean that I love my children any less. That bears repeating: I don't love my boys less just because the thought of another glitter art project makes me want to flee. I don't love my children less because I like going to work. I don't love my boys less if I oh-so-occasionally put my needs before theirs.

All it means is that being a parent is hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done by far -- and I know I can't be the only one who thinks this way. Maybe we all need to start being a little more honest with one another. Maybe we could lean on one another a little more instead of pretending to be skipping through motherhood by ourselves without a care in the world. Maybe then we wouldn't need to get our motherly affirmations from complete strangers we meet on a hiking trail.

Sara Groves is a weekly columnist for the Independent Record. Check out her updated blog online in the "Community" menu at helenair.com.