A Younger Woman Weighs In

When I had kids in my 30s, I immediately felt contempt for the so-called “sisterhood.” No one had prepared me for pregnancy and motherhood. Not one of my older female friends and relatives thought to take me aside and say, “Hey honey, before you decide to get knocked up, you might want to know a few things…” Perhaps if words like “cystic acne on your chest,” or “purple mask of pregnancy,” or “never-ending, insatiable sex drive — but only when you’re alone!” had been uttered, I might have been more prepared, or even chosen not to have children at all. Who knows?

The point is — I am grateful (I think?) for communities like The Woolfer, and their Facebook forum “What Would Virginia Woolf Do?” After having spent considerable time hanging around with the raw, honest, badass ladies of WoolferWorld, I’ve learned a couple of things about what the next stage of my womanhood will look like. Mainly: I will be dry in places that I’d prefer stay moist, and grow hair in places I’d prefer it not grow. One cannot win the battle against time, but at least one can organize the weapons it throws at you into a neat collection, rather than an onslaught.

So here goes. A list of things I’m preparing for as I stand on the precipice of my 40s:

Cultivating an Obsession With Patti Smith

Ohhhkaaaay. I get it? I mean, like, she’s really good. She’s a legend. But by my Woolfer calculations, the minute I turn 40, I am going to go Beyonce Apeshit for Patti Smith. I’m going to buy allllll the books, hunt for all the vintage records, find all her articles, and for fucks sake, I am going to post about it on Facebook all the time, as much as possible.

Perimenopausal Rage (AKA The Red Rage)

I hear that dips in estrogen can cause an uptick in rage. Honestly, with the way things are going in the world right now (you know, the death of reproductive rights, utter lack of social justice, global warming, etc.), I have so much natural rage, I can’t imagine it getting any worse from here on out. And yet, apparently, it does. SO MUCH WORSE. What I can expect: Mood swings in which I feel completely fine, to intensely resentful or irritated within seconds — to the point that no one wants to hang out with me, including my own spouse, children, or the family dog.

Everyone Getting Divorced

Like, literally everyone. I was aware of the fact that not all marriages stand the test of time, back when I was a kid in the 80’s, but lately, I see my older peers breaking off left and right. It seems like as soon as the kids hit middle and high school, people (mainly the women) are like, “So, I think we are done here? Yeah?” And then it spreads like a virus, and the whole neighborhood catches it, and before you know it, your ex-husband is sleeping with a 30 year-old who looks exactly like your younger self, and the only men who will date you are either over 70 or just slightly older than your own children (the MILF factor). I have read this story over and over, friends, and I am frightened. Is no one safe?

Openly Using the C-Words

Cunt, Clit, and Cancer! Once you’ve entered the menopause stage, you give zero fucks! So you just say whatever the hell you want, wherever you are. All the words, without whispering. I’m already pretty liberal with my swearing, but even now I draw the line every now and then. But I know that someday, I’ll be cursing, and talking about horrible illnesses like they ain’t no thang — like a Woolfer! You know why? Because by then, I will have seen and experienced some things.

Vaginal Atrophy

C’mon. It’s apparently as bad as it sounds. Probably the worst of the lot here. Perimenopause means my vagina is going to dry up, thin out, and, I don’t know . . . say “fuck you” and run away with the rest of my will to live. (I am currently stocking up on ALL THE COCONUT OIL.) This also means that sex will hurt as much as it did those first few times we attempted it after childbirth. Can’t wait for that knives-stabbing-along-my-vaginal-wall feeling again. It will be just like the old days!

Shaving my Face

You read that right. Just when I’ve completed my expensive laser hair removal sessions for the lip hair I’d had since my teens, chin hair should start to make its appearance during perimenopause. And I won’t be able to get it waxed every couple of weeks like other kinds of facial hair. It will sprout every day, just like it does for the boys (give it up for gender equality!).

Uncontrollable, Unpredictable Sweating

I used to think that hot flashes were something that only happened during the day, mostly to fussy or sensitive ladies, and lasted a few moments before they passed. Now I know that much like “morning sickness,” hot flashes can last for extended periods of time, and often hit during the night. I’ve read through countless threads about beds drenched with sweat (and not in a sexy way), and women having to sleep in separate beds from their partners because of the bed wetting (and not in a pee-in-the-bed way). Delightful.

Going Bald

Time to break out the hat collection, because, according to Woolfers, a bald spot may well be in my future. Either my thyroid will cause my hair to thin, or the stress of getting my kids into college will do it. And I look terrible in hats.

Being Up All Night

I love staying up late — to drink and be out with friends, that is. Insomnia, on the other hand? Ummm. No thanks. But when you look at the time stamp on a lot of these Woolfer conversations, it looks like these women never sleep! This seems like really adding insult to injury. Not only will I be angry, sweaty, covered in the hair that I’m losing, and too wired to sleep — I won’t even be able to listen to Patti Smith, because it would wake up the rest of the house.

Losing my Mind

Another fun side effect of estrogen levels lowering? Brain Fog! Sounds like an old sci-fi movie, like “The Thing That Came From the Shadows,” doesn’t it? Nope! It’s real shit that happens to women when they’re entering menopause. The ol’ vocabulary list becomes less robust, and short-term memory isn’t as great as it used to be. As a writer, this one’s going to hurt. Now, what else was I going to say…

Originally published here.

The Day I Gave Birth Wasn't The Best Day Of My Life

Maybe you and I have different ideas of what qualifies as a “good” day. For you, perhaps a good day includes unbearable pain, bloodletting, strangers in surgical gloves poking and prodding you, and visits from your relatives while your boobs hang out as you attempt breastfeeding for the very first time. For me, well, I’m a simple gal. If someone tells me my hair looks nice, it has been a good day.But please, nothing involving blood. This is why I don’t understand why so many women carry on this notion of the day that they gave birth as having been one of the best of their lives.

The day I gave birth to my son was definitely not the best day of my life. Not even close. It happened on a Monday morning, when my wonderful and gifted OBGYN expertly pulled my son out of me via cesarean section. My baby was placed on my chest for a quick family photo, before being wheeled away along with my proud but dazed husband. My doctor then proceeded to put my guts back into my body and sew me back into a whole human again. I still swear to this day that I could feel everything she was doing, down to the burning sensation of when she was cauterizing my insides. My body shook for a full hour after the surgery, from all the adrenaline and the drugs running through my system. I passed out and was wheeled to a recovery area where after an hour or so I woke up groggy and confused to see my father in law standing uncertainly at the foot of my bed. Does this sound like the best day ever yet to you? Me neither.

By late morning, I had hosted about 20 members of my extended family in the small partitioned area of the hospital room that I shared with another mom who had just given birth to her second baby and who was already packing to go home (I’m sure she appreciated all the extra company).My mom visited and, as usual, complained of the traffic. She was hungry and wondered what kind of snacks I might have on hand for her to nibble on, as if we were home and in my own kitchen and she had been expecting me to have prepared a nice spread. I had to explain multiple times, to multiple family members, the importance of hand washing before holding my newborn child who, just hours before, had been protected in my womb by mucus membranes. And no, a squirt of Purell did not count.

Bringing a new baby into the family is as much about other people’s egos as it is about a major life change of your own. Did you know that? I didn’t. You will find that some family members will ponder, often aloud, “How does your new baby affect ME?” In the hospital room, I found some family members openly wondering not only, “How does this baby resemble me?” but also, “What does the baby’s name have to do with me?”

and even better, “How can I somehow impart some wisdom onto you and also tell you a funny baby story about me?”It is all very exhausting when you’ve just gone through major surgery and haven’t slept since your water broke, 24 hours before.

My family, though generally decent when it comes to reading social cues, looked puzzled when the nurses came to check on “the surgery site.” This sounded very proper and hygienic when a medical professional was saying it to a roomful of cousins and grandparents, but the nurse was essentially trying to say: “We need to look at this here lady’s vagina and also at the gaping wound above it. So could y’all step out a sec please, thanks?”

And when it came time to breastfeed, I had to endure the very uncomfortable looks on my mother’s face – as if I had just jumped onto my hospital bed to perform a sexy burlesque routine instead of struggling to feed my hungry newborn.

By the afternoon, a Facebook photo that my aunt had posted of me sitting topless in the hospital bed while awkwardly trying to nurse the baby for the first time had nearly gone viral. After my sister alerted me, my husband had to catch my aunt before she left for San Francisco to ask her to kindly take the photo (which I know she only posted with love and pride) down from the Interwebs.

So all this time, a new mother is supposed to rest and get some sleep, but that is fucking impossible with visitors coming round the clock to see the baby; plus all the nurses checking on the wounds and the catheter; plus my topless photo situation (FML!). Then, I attended a breastfeeding class, where I sat in a cold hospital chair in some kind of meeting room with other weary postpartum women.

I was wearing my husband’s oversize sweatshirt over my hospital gown, bleeding buckets of post-surgery slash post-labor blood into what was basically an adult diaper.This day was still not going down as one of my best.

After the last visitor said goodbye, my husband spent some time with the baby and me before going home. This was the deal we made: he would go home and recharge so that he had the energy to help me and the baby during the days at the hospital (and with a c-section, there were many). So after he left, it was just me and this little new guy.

This part of the day – or evening rather – was actually good. Great, even. I stared at my baby’s face, amazed that he was here, that I had something to do with shaping him. The day of his actual birth had been so busy, I hadn’t had a moment to process his arrival, to even look at his face, or to take it in.

“Oh, hey you,” I whispered to him. “When did you get here?” I nursed him in the quiet hospital room, alone for the first time, and closed my eyes, focusing on the feeling of this little life in my arms tugging on my breast and on the little whimper sounds he was making. It was all so new and wonderful, and I had almost let it all pass me by without a moment of being present. I felt like a bride who had been so swept up in all the things that had been going wrong or right on her wedding day that she had forgotten to look at her husband and listen to the music and just feel the good and the love of being there together.

That little newborn boy just turned five years old, and we have had so many awesome days since that first day together.And though the day he was born was special and one I will never forget, there have been far better ones, full of wonderful memories where I was much more present (and much more clothed!)and more engaged.A lot of our best days happen in the quieter moments and on much smaller scales than one might expect: sitting on the curb eating a snack from a vending machine talking about a weird dream he had the night before, watching him enjoy the thrill of jumping over the waves at the beach for the first time this past summer, or seeing him smile with satisfaction at the end of a particularly good bedtime story that I’ve just told him on the fly.Best days don’t always have to be epic ones.

And, call me weird, but my best days most often do not include trips to the hospital or peeing through a catheter. Maybe yours do. And if that’s the case, that’s cool. I won’t judge. You do you.

Originally published here.

How To Give Your Partner Space Without Resorting To ‘Mommy Time’ Or ‘Daddy Time’

When I go out to get a coffee or a manicure on a weekend while my husband stays at home with the kids to make pizza dough or go to a playground, some might refer to this as me having some “Mommy Time” to myself. But if I stay home with the kids while my husband goes on a run, or to meet a friend for a late night drink after the kids have gone to bed, no one refers to him taking “Daddy Time.” It’s just this normal thing called “My Husband is Going Out To Go About His Normal Business.”

This is not to say that dads do not need time to themselves, too. Of course they do. Everyone needs time. In fact, the term Mommy Time implies that dads don’t ever need time off because they’re never really on duty anyway. And for most of the awesome dads I know, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So I’d like to do away with Mommy Time. Mommy Time is one of those cutesy, vomit-inducing concepts that belong in a stinking garbage heap right alongside its patronizing cosmo-guzzling little sister, Girls Nights. Mommy Time is couched in the patriarchal belief that time is a gift given parsimoniously and selectively by men to their partners, but only when they really deserve it, and only when they’ve really reached their Mom Limit and could use a Mommy Time Out lest Mom starts going mental on the family and doing weird shit like forgetting to pack school lunches and withholding sex.

My husband and I do not do Mommy Time or Daddy Time, or any kind of time that is hinged to a particular parent or gender. We give each other breaks from the kids often and liberally and we make sure to do it well before the other person is on the verge of a mental breakdown. This was not something that came naturally to us from the start, however. It took us a couple of years to get the hang of it, but with 2 kids under our belt and 5 years of parenting them together, we’ve figured out what works for us.

The first step for my husband and I in acquiring some “time” was identifying what it was we needed from the time itself. After I became a parent, there were really 2 things that stuck out as being the most important for me to have time-wise on weekends: a little extra sleep and time to tidy and organize the house before I started my day. I’m one of those people who just needs more sleep than most, and so, I’m a better person when I’ve slept 8 hours. Also, I cannot function if there are dishes in the sink or crumbs on the floor.

For my husband, “time” on weekends was time to go to the gym or for a run. If he gets 45 minutes to workout, he feels great. I can tell his whole mood is better for it after it. Our kids feel it too. So it is important to me that I give him his time, and I make it a priority in the day so that it happens that he can make it to the gym either before we leave the house or when we come back from our activities.

Back when our first son was wee, we didn’t ask each other for the things we needed. We took them, and hoped that the other person either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t resent us for it too much. I would sleep in on weekends and my husband would grumble about the late starts to our day because I couldn’t get myself out of the house till noon. And later, my husband would suddenly appear at the door dressed in gym shorts and sneakers right when I was about to do dinner and bath and bed (the hardest part of the day with a baby!) and announce he was headed for a run. This old strategy of acquiring time was what I now refer to as the “passive ask” which is when a person attempts to get her needs met at the expense of someone else without having an explicit conversation about it first, thus resulting in resentment and confusion in both parties. It didn’t work out that well.

I don’t need Mommy Time. I need my husband to listen to my particular needs of the moment and help me line up whatever needs lining up so that I can help meet them. He needs me to do the same for him. Time is one of most thoughtful expressions of love we can give each other in our partnership as parents. Sometimes it is the unexpected pockets of time that are the sweetest gifts: “Why don’t you go meet up with your sister for a bit? I want to take the boys to see the boats. We’ll meet up with you in an hour.” Or, “You haven’t seen your buddy Tom in a while. You guys should grab a drink while I do dinner.”

Sometimes we don’t need the time after all. Sometimes we turn down the offer to walk away from the hectic dinner hour, the too-loud, too-messy bath time when the kids decide to do cannonballs off the ledge of the bathtub. Sometimes we don’t mind just being together. You know, Family Time.

Originally featured here on September 21, 2016.

Throwing Away Our Stroller, I Realized: I Don't Have Babies Anymore

The day my baby stroller broke nearly broke me, too. One of our babysitters texted: "This just happened . . ." with three sad face emojis and a photo of my stroller, with the hinges completely detached from the wheels.

"It's the end of an era!" I texted my husband (more crying emojis) and explained about our stroller's demise. We were way past due for an upgrade anyway, but this stroller had been with us since our firstborn. By now—and two more kids and over six years later—it had "seen some things."

That night, I couldn't wait to cart away The Great Big Blue Eyesore that had been taking up the better half of our entryway for years. I waited until the kids were asleep so as to avoid all the questions that would inevitably ensue if they were to see me in the act:

"Where's it going?" (The trash.)

"You're throwing OUR STROLLER in the trash? What's gonna happen to it?" (Um…)

"Is another baby gonna use it?" (Hopefully not, unless that baby's parents don't intend to leave the house.)

I wheeled it (sort of, since it was falling apart more and more with every inch it traveled) down the hall, slowly and solemnly. When I reached the trash room, I gave the stroller one final, firm push in the direction of some crushed Amazon.com boxes and a chewed-up-looking wicker basket, and turned away.

But right before the door shut behind me, I felt this surprising pang as I pictured the stroller sitting there alone in the dark. Forlorn. Like it was a living, breathing thing.

Though in many ways, my stroller did have a life to it; it had soul, a spirit. It was my faithful friend since the day my first baby was born.

It remained the most indispensable tool in my Mom Arsenal—without which I would basically be housebound in a city that's not exactly car-friendly. Nearly every day, I had silently praised its extra-large wheels that maneuvered this way or that with basically the suggestion of my pinky's push, and its enormous undercarriage that could hold the family dog and a week's groceries (or sometimes an entire 6-year-old boy.)

As fast as I shut it, I threw open the door to the trash room and flung myself at the thing, burying my head deep into the sickly-sweet-smelling seat. How many ounces of milk (my own and from other animal sources), ice creams, and chocolate chips had congealed into the dark fibers of the stroller seat over the years? I inhaled the smell of it and felt intoxicated with memories:

There I was as a new mom, side-by-side with a mom friend, strolling down the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights in matching strollers (same brand, hers was yellow), as we traded tips on how best to swaddle.

There we all were, new mamas unsure of ourselves and these new roles we had, our strollers lined up while we made a picnic beside them, squeezing those messy pouch foods into our baby's waiting mouths.

The stroller smelled of memories and more—it smelled like my babies. It was sour-sweet-milky mixed with sweat and skin and boy and pacifiers. Leaving all of this behind almost did feel like leaving a living thing alone in a dark trash room, and walking away.

“The stroller smelled of memories and more—it smelled like my babies. ”

his stroller was a representation of my transformation to 'mother.'

When I got back to my apartment, I broke down sobbing.

"I threw out the stroller!" I cried, to my husband.

He smiled, relieved that I hadn't received a horrible phone call between the trash room and our apartment, and wrapped his arms around me.

"I don't have babies anymore!" I wailed as if I had lost my actual children, rather than having merely allowed time to do its thing.

““I don’t have babies anymore!” I wailed as if I had lost my actual children, rather than having merely allowed time to do its thing.”

We had already said goodbye to all the other accouterments of babyhood—from the jumparoos to the baby carriers. Even the high chair that had way overstayed its welcome simply because it looked good in our kitchen, had finally gone on to greener pastures (our cousin's house).

But getting rid of the stroller signaled my very solid leap away from the baby years and onto the kid stage of my motherhood. And while these are all good things—triumphs, really—it is hard to shake off an identity that's been with you for what feels like forever.

“But getting rid of the stroller signaled my very solid leap away from the baby years and onto the kid stage of my motherhood. ”

I toyed with the idea of going back for the stroller and holding onto it for just a few more days if only to smell the baby smell that no longer clings to the skin of my growing boys. But I knew that would be ridiculous. So I did the only thing you do when you're having trouble saying goodbye to something or someone. I found something new.

Before bed, I ordered our replacement stroller—a sporty, compact, umbrella strollermeant for toddlers and up and selected overnight delivery. I looked at the space it would soon occupy in place of its forebear. I would have a day to grieve my loss. And tomorrow, I'd strap my 3-year-old into his new, 'Big Boy' stroller (that would fit his legs, finally!) and his big brother could ride beside us on his scooter.

Honestly, mamas, change is painful even when it's good.

And the truth is, no matter the ride, we will all get to wherever we need to go.

Originally featured on Motherly.