Putting the Me Back in Mommy

By Bryn Wilson

Dreaming wistfully of a business trip, just for one uninterrupted night’s sleep? Amazed that your newest child was conceived, since you’ve worn nothing but maternity sweatpants to bed for the last three years? Can’t remember the last time you introduced yourself by your own name, not as your child’s mother? Absolutely worn out putting conference calls on mute so that you can use your breast pump? It may be time to reclaim your “me.”

This book is an outgrowth of the perpetual and passionate conversations that mothers all over the country are having. Situated around the author’s decision to leave her position at a law firm and her search to regain her “me,” Putting the Me Back in Mommy considers the ways in which mothers lose themselves among the demands of work, home, and family life after the arrival of kids, using data and anecdotes to make clear—in poignant and humorous ways—the tensions of modern motherhood. It offers a number of strategies, large and small, for reclaiming oneself in the midst of these highly pressured years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryn Wilson
• Release date: Jun 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301816804

Bryn Wilson

Bryn Wilson is currently a stay-at-home mom to her three children. She previously worked as an employment attorney. She received her J.D. from NYU and her B.A. from the University of Michigan. Bryn and her family live in Mooresville, NC, the best kept secret thirty minutes north of Charlotte.

Book preview

Putting the Me Back in Mommy

Bryn Wilson

Copyright © 2013 Bryn Wilson

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-1301816804

Cover Design by Gina Mann

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

A NON-TRIVIAL PURSUIT

WHO AM I?

WHAT DO YOU DO?

TIPPING THE SCALES: WORK-LIFE BALANCE

MARTYRDOM MOTHERHOOD

THERE’S NO I IN DADDY

OPERATION RECLAMATION

THE GRASS IS NOT ALWAYS GREENER

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

REFERENCES

PROLOGUE

It’s Just Another Manic Monday —Bangles, ‘80s Music Group

I always said I’d be a lawyer when I grew up. I’d also have a cute dog, be married to a handsome, good, successful guy and have two children; I just didn’t imagine that it would look quite like this:

Most obvious, of course, was my protruding, thirty-weeks’ pregnant belly; my two daughters and husband were still sleeping upstairs. Over my right shoulder were a laptop bag and a bulging purse, whose contents included the frozen entrée that was to be my lunch. In my left hand was the dog’s leash, to which the dog was attached; I was taking him to doggy daycare because that was his only hope of getting exercise that day.

It was, however, the contents of my right hand that put me over the top: a bowl of oatmeal. Breakfast most often consists of a bowl of instant oatmeal, made with milk instead of water, with a handful of almonds and raisins thrown in after cooking in the microwave. And this delicacy is usually eaten in the comfort of the driver’s seat of my minivan.

I had set the alarm for earlier than usual, because I was particularly busy at work. The week was already shortened due to Thanksgiving, and we had five out-of-state family members coming in for the holiday. My whole family was still sleeping as I walked out the door at 7:00, so I didn’t want to open the noisy garage door—and thus let in some light—until I’d already closed the house door.

In trying to do all of this—without spilling my oatmeal—I fell down some portion of the three steps from the house into the garage. Fortunately, from the second I hit the garage floor, I knew that the baby was totally fine. Unfortunately, I also knew that my left foot was not. And, in spite of my best efforts to avoid just this, I woke up the entire family screaming for my husband to come help me.

Is this a lesson in being careful what to wish for? Perhaps. But, somehow, in checking off the boxes of what I wanted out of life, some larger part of me had faded out of existence. And it was time to get that person back, the me who is not mommy, wife or lawyer.

The biggest external restructuring came when I quit my job as a part-time, mid-level associate at a law firm after our third child was born. (I am the first to admit that being able to leave my paying job is a huge luxury, and I am grateful for it.) Consequently, the entire family’s home life was restructured. At some point since, this book came into being. Part memoir, part—hopefully—self-help, it sets forth the challenges and conundrums mothers face which result in the loss of a distinct me, separate from you as mother and employee (and wife).

In my research for this book, I very purposefully avoided the negative and divisive commentary on the issue of modern motherhood. Not only is this book not another battle in the mommy wars, it is not even intended to advocate my particular choices as better or right. Look, we all love our children. The book emanates from a fundamental premise which seems applicable to working and stay-at-home moms alike: most of us have lost our mes.

This book is designed to help you make room in your life again for yourself, alongside your roles of mother, wife and employee. In addition to keeping a log of how I spent my time, and through examination of personal and familial obligations and priorities, alongside some historical perspective and current data, this book is the culmination of my efforts to put the me back in the mommy that I now was and am.

A Non-Trivial Pursuit

Feminism Has Led To A Happiness Crisis Among Educated Women. —30 Rock

Lying there on the garage floor, with a broken foot and a congealing bowl of oatmeal, I felt pretty far from being that woman who has it all: the career on a part-time basis, the great husband, the kids. The fact of the matter is, I felt like I had so much that I was trying to accomplish on a daily basis by virtue of having that career, husband and kids, that—if I did manage to get it all done—there was no time left to do anything else. Having had so much autonomy to select my career, my marriage, and whether and when to have my children resulted in a high personal expectation that those self-directed choices would bring me happiness. And, truth be told, I was not feeling very happy.

Even as I first conceived this book, I had the nagging question, Why am I not happy? I wanted these children. I love my husband. I really enjoyed my work, and I liked contributing financially to the household. Heck, I only worked part-time. In the macro sense (to borrow an economic term, which I have no real business throwing around), I was happy on the global level. I had fulfilled some significant professional and personal goals, namely being a lawyer, wife and mother.

In the micro sense, however, I was not experiencing much happiness on the quotidian level. I had intense moments of joy and love and laughter, which accompany parenting (and marriage), but they were not sustained. I was not experiencing unhappiness per se—I was not really experiencing; I was just shifting from task to task, trying to get everything done. That discord between one’s micro-happiness and one’s macro-happiness is really what this book, this exercise of putting the me back into mommy, seeks to help synchronize.

Arguably, nowhere does one’s micro- versus macro-happiness diverge more than with respect to one’s children. On both the macro- and micro-levels, the enormity, intensity and euphoria that characterize how I feel for my children continues to overwhelm me at times. Shortly after having our first baby, I said that one has known neither love nor fatigue until one has a child. I occasionally call my middle daughter by the slightly bizarre nickname of Face, because her visage is so lovely and special and powerful to me.

The all-consuming joy and love which my children cause within me is so omnipresent that, somehow, I almost manage to take it for granted. I forget to reflect on how amazing they are and how much richer my life is for having them (macro) when my son has thrown himself crying onto the driveway or my eldest daughter is biting my youngest daughter’s hand because she wasn’t listening to my questions (micro).

Study after study has shown it: parents are less happy than non-parents. (And marriages with children are less happy than marriages without.) Take a weekend morning, for instance. For us, it starts too early with the hope that the other one will get up with the kids. For my college roommate and her husband, they sleep until about 9:00 [1] and then create a lovely brunch, including hash browns from scratch. Which would you rather? If the question is, Did you do anything leisurely today? or How many times in the last week did you and your partner engage in sexual activity?, non-parents might answer in the affirmative and with a larger number, respectively, suggesting that with more leisure and more sex, non-parents are happier than parents.

And, yet, if you ask most of us, we hinge the highest