Feral Feelings: Waving, not Drowning
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Illustration by Nhatt Nichols [/caption]
By Amber Autumn Leaves Huntsman
Dear Feral Feelings,
I am a mom of a wonderful 4-year-old I love very much, but I am drowning in the stress of being a mom, and I don’t know what to do about it. Every day I am awash in chores, tantrums, errands, and emotional breakdowns (mine, to be clear). I love my kid, but I don’t always like being a mom. I feel guilty for feeling this way, I have a loving partner and good support system, and I know so many parents are doing it all alone. But my child doesn’t want to be with anyone other than me, so it’s like I can’t even use the support I have. I am resentful of the demands for my attention, which I’m sure my kiddo feels. I am really stuck. Any advice you have is appreciated.
-Exhausted Mom
Dear Exhausted Mom,
Upon reading your question, I recalled the 1957 Poem, Not Waving, But Drowning, by English poet and novelist Stevie Smith.
When I first heard the phrase, “I’m not waving, I’m drowning,” it was out of the mouth of a new mom. Babe in arms, she sat next to me sobbing in our postpartum support group. I didn’t know back then, over 20 years ago, that she was referencing a poem, but I found the image striking. She had, with very few words, described the experience of an entire room of new mothers. Each one of us underwater while the whole world smiled and waved. No one seemed to know we needed help. Because we weren’t supposed to be drowning. We were supposed to be happy. Content. Just waving.
It was experiences like that one, and my own experiences as a mother, that initiated me into working with mothers professionally. At this point in my career, I’ve worked with thousands of mothers. Young mothers. Mid-life mothers. Adopted mothers. Mothers in comfortable homes with extensive support systems. Mothers in cramped apartments balancing full-time jobs with daycare pick-ups. Mothers living in tents under overpasses at the edges of the city, separated from their children by the state. Mothers who never wanted to be mothers and mothers who fought for their motherhood. Moms of every spectrum and circumstance. And many used words like you did, Exhausted Mom. “Drowning”. Or “sinking”. They said they were “lost at sea” or “swimming against a current.” Water, specifically the ocean, is a theme I see come up for mothers over and over again. Especially in the early years of parenting, drenched in tears, sweat, milk, and amniotic fluid.
It is in this ocean of early parenting that I see you, Exhausted Mom, with your arm in the air and your head underwater. Let me now, instead of waving at you or grabbing your hand as if I could save you, join you underwater: This experience of raising a young one is overwhelming, frustrating, confusing, tiresome, scary, and laden with emotion- Yours and your child’s. You not only feel your own overwhelming feelings, but you feel your child’s overwhelmed feelings. And, what’s more, you can feel your child feeling you. And therein, the guilt. The dark, heavy guilt all around you, swelling with the waves. I can give you the advice to allow your support system to help you more, which may make a big difference in how exhausted you’re feeling. Sure, your child may not want to be with anyone other than you. However, you may benefit greatly from that time away, and in turn, so will your child. Your child is not being hurt or traumatized by your absence, even if they cry and inspire currents of guilt to pull you lower. Though I give you this advice, and I do believe it could be helpful to take some space from your mother role, I believe there is an even more powerful medicine available to you. Some months ago, a mother very much in your position asked me, “What do I do if I can’t keep my head above water?” She, like you, was drowning. I sat with her question for a moment, calling up the voices and experiences of the mothers I’ve witnessed, and replied, “You become a sea creature.”
Motherhood is, at its core, a transformative experience. You never return to the land of who you used to be, so struggling against the tide is futile. Even if you could return to the land, where everyone sits waving, they wouldn’t understand where you’d been. But, if you stop struggling and let yourself drown, you can surrender. You can let your body relax under the waves and realize that, actually, you can breathe underwater. Guilt implies you feel that you are doing something wrong when, really, you are just in the inelegant process of becoming a new creature. If you open your eyes and look around, you’ll see an entire ocean of mothers down there with you, becoming whales or seals or salmon. Crying and striving and surrendering. I cannot alleviate how difficult this process is for you with advice, but I can encourage you to connect to other mothers in a space where you can be seen and heard. When we feel seen in our struggles and see others in theirs, the guilt fades. We accept ourselves more fully and forgive ourselves for not living up to the mother we thought we’d be. And, then, we can finally learn to swim.
Do you have a problem that you think Feral Feelings could answer? Send them to feralfeelings@jeffcobeacon.com
