Your Mom could be anything. A person who is, a person who was but is gone now. Someone who was front and center at every game and recital, or never showed up the way you needed. Someone unrelated by blood, a community, an abstract concept - it’s different, obviously, for all of us. And for those of us who are moms, what that means is wholly different from person to person too. I can only speak to my experiences as a mom, so I’m hopeful that this letter blooms into something bigger, and is a host to all different kinds of stories - told with honesty and without judgement, because it’s really hard! And nobody tells you how hard, and even if they had, it wouldn’t make sense until you do it! And it’s hard in different ways for everyone. But when you are actually doing it, hearing about other people’s specific flavors of “hard” makes me feel less alone, less flawed and less generally bad at this. I should have called this newsletter “This is Hard” - that’s what she said. ; )
If you’ve been reading my other, shopping-focused newsletter, Earl Earl, you probably have some sense of me and my life. But if not, I have two kids, I live in LA - we left NYC in the middle of the night basically in the very beginning of the pandemic, a story I’ll tell another time. I work in fashion. But most days I identify mostly as a mom, despite whatever else is going on, or whatever non-parent related work I’m doing.
I’m interested in the parts of motherhood and mom-identity that make me bristle, cringe, feel seen, feel valued, feel the deepest, most insane, teeth gnashing love I’ve ever imagined. I’m not interested in parenting, I’m not a parenting expert. I’m interested in what becoming a mother (whatever that means to you) does to you.
And I think I said this, but a lot of this letter is going to be behind a paywall. I’m not asking for free submissions or free writing from others, so in order to pay them, I’ll need to monetize this thing. If you’d like access to these stories and this platform but aren’t able to afford a subscription, let me know at hi.earl.hi@gmail.com and I’ll put you on the comped list.
Anyway, since this is the first letter, I’ll start at the beginning - my intro month to motherhood.
Back in 2017, I had been married for a year. I was working at a digital publication, I felt hot and free and young and stupid in a really fun way. Things were good. I was 31, and just starting to consider the possibility of one day having kids, but I was never someone who liked to babysit or loved kids or wanted kids desperately. I was kind of take it or leave it.
But I was also thinking … maybe? And as soon as I thought *maybe*, I got pregnant. Wham! At first I was more upset than excited. I cried a lot, and I remember that night laying in bed staring at the ceiling thinking “I’ll never be carefree again,” feeling mostly scared. I know how lucky I was to get pregnant that easily, but like I said, everyone’s journey is their journey and this one is mine.
And now it gets a little dark, but I swear it has a happy ending.
During my pregnancy, I didn’t feel bliss, or a glow, or even, like, good. I wasn’t sick, I was pissed.
I hated being called “Mama” by strangers or acquaintances. I hated people looking at my belly, looking at my body, and me imagining them imagining how that belly got there in the first place. Me imagining them trying to gauge how much weight I’d gain, whether I was going to get big or big. I’ve never felt more like an object, and I was full of rage. I mean, not the whole time, but my memory is largely of feeling like I needed to burn something down. I decided I wanted an unmedicated birth, I think, because it felt like an appropriately intense ending to an emotionally intense pregnancy.
But then he was breech. I won’t get into it now (I’ll tell my birth story later), but I wound up having a truly insane rushed c-section a month early. I was dead-set on screaming my kid into the world, but instead he was handed to my husband around a sterile blue sheet.
So then we took him home! And I loved his little hands, his little head that felt like the softest underbelly of a kitten. Smelling like a warm towel straight out of the dryer. I loved how perfectly he fit on my chest, like a puzzle piece. But I did not want to be left alone with him. I felt so isolated, but I just wanted to be alone. To stay in bed alone forever. I was intensely jealous of anyone who could go grab a drink at night, dash out to pick up paper towels like it was nothing, or just walk out of their apartment without bleeding through their sweatpants or their tits leaking. I wanted myself back. I had nightmares that I had gotten Mike Tyson’s face tattoo and in my dreams I screamed because I knew I’d never be able to work again, never be myself again - that I had ruined my life. In the morning I realized that was how I was processing my feelings about becoming a mother.
I was falling in love, but I was also grieving myself deeply. I felt like the me I knew had literally died, and now I had to carry on and take care of this baby without her.
But! I felt like I would be redeemed if I could breastfeed. If I could just give him that, then all the weird dark things I was thinking wouldn’t count. Everything would be fixed if I could just nurse my baby. And because I’m me, I set out to make it happen in the way I make most things happen. With grit, research, and hardcore determination. I’m competitive and I like hard work, so I worked hard stuffing my nipple in his mouth for HOURS with him not able to actually nurse. Giving him a bottle of pumped milk at 2AM, then staying up for another hour to pump, put away the bottle of new milk, wash the pump, and crawl back into bed for an hour of sleep before I had to do it again. But I just wanted him to nurse, I wanted to nurse my baby, and I was digging deeper and deeper into this hole of wanting that so much and it wasn’t working, and I just KNEW that if it could work everything would be OK. If I could make him do this one thing, I would be good at this, I would be a natural, I would be OK.
I had no sleep. I was successful in my career because I worked hard and I felt like I was in control of my life because I worked hard for that control. All I knew was results via effort, so I approached breastfeeding and motherhood with hard work yields results attitude, and I was baffled and devastated when things didn’t turn out the way I wanted, despite my infinite sleepless nights, and literal blood, sweat, and tears. It was my first crash-course of being a mom – LOL…control….
My husband (who is a dream) had been gently urging me to talk to my OB about all this, he knew something was wrong, and finally I did. I went to The Motherhood Center (a truly amazing place, if you’re in New York and are reading this from a similar place to where I was mentally, call, call, call them), I was diagnosed with postpartum anxiety, started medication, started therapy, and slowly, slowly started to let go of my obsession with nursing, started to feel like the old me was coming back. I got a new job, got childcare, and before I knew it, I was having fun.
Before I knew it, I was pregnant with my second kid, and truly thrilled about it. But it wasn’t like it is in the movies where you lock eyes with your infant and the you before babies doesn’t matter anymore, and life didn’t start until I had you. I liked my life before! I like it now, too, but I wish someone had told me to manage my expectations.
He's 5 now, and he’s the twin of my heart. He’s my most wonderful little companion, and the love of my life. If I had ever daydreamed about having a kid, he was that daydream. A sweet, gentle, funny, bright boy with warm smooth skin who loves dinosaurs and loves me. He’s exactly what I didn’t even know I wanted, not just because he’s mine, but because he’s him. And I won’t even get started about my second, she’s completely different, and completely wonderful. She refused to take a bottle, would ONLY nurse, so joke’s on me.
But anyway, during that really really bleak few months before I got help, I found a real community through Instagram. Women would DM me things like, “Congratulations, but it’s hard. If you ever need someone to talk to….” and I was all over them. I was texting and DM’ing people I’d never met, a few I’d met once or twice, total strangers all over the world, and I felt so much better in knowing that I wasn’t nuts, I wasn’t a bad mom, it’s just hard. Harder than anything you’ve ever done before, harder than anything you can imagine. Better, too, but at first it’s mostly hard.
When you’re in it, everyone says, Aw, yeah, well - your hormones are going crazy. And sure, yes, but also, my body was just literally ripped apart and someone handed me a totally helpless animal that shits all over me, screams all night because it’s hungry then won’t fucking eat, and I’m supposed to feel, what, good? Happy? Whole?
It’s a myth that’s passed down to us by moms of older kids who look back and only remember those cozy moments, chest naps, first laughs, or nursing her baby with eyes locked and tiny little fingers reaching up to touch her cheek. They tell us to enjoy every moment. Those enjoyable moments are very real, but so is a lot of other stuff that’s just…so hard I don’t have the words for it. It’s all part of the experience, but very few people talk about the not so sweet bits. Welcome to the club.
And I know this is a lot of ranting and complaining, I’m obsessed with my kids, and obsessed enough with being a mother to do this in the first place, I just wish I had been able to put all this into words without feeling bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, unworthy, ungrateful, shame, when it was all happening. That first four weeks. Wow.
And this isn’t to say that all of this newsletter is going to be moaning about being a mom! I LOVE BEING A MOM. I love it so much, my days are hilarious, satisfying, trying, but god, my kids, they’re the best. On Saturday I took my 5 year-old skiing all day and then at night all four of us ate cheeseburgers and took turns making up spooky stories at dinner. Hearing a 3 year-old make up a spooky story…there’s nothing better.
And again! This is just my story! Yours is different! To prove my point, I put out a call on Instagram for other people’s breastfeeding experiences in two words or less. The responses ranged from: “Fucking Hell” to “Piranha Baby” to “Beautiful Pain” to “Profound Joy”.
Some of my other favorites included, “Superhuman/Subhuman,” “Party Trick,” (I know this person, she liked to squirt her milk across the room at other people and that is just THE BEST), “Guilt Trip,” “Topless Cow,” and “What’s Happening.” I’ll post the rest at the bottom here.
So anyway, that’s how it started for me. If I did a how it started/how it’s going thing – it started as a total dumpster fire nightmare. It’s going as I have a handful of tattoos of drawings that Ellis did and sometimes I try and get both kids to touch tongues with me, and they’re my best friends. The smell of their stinky breath in the morning is my favorite smell in the world. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I had to become a new person, and at first I didn’t like her, but now I think she’s a silly bitch and I love her. I love her!!!
This is all making me think of so many things I can’t wait to write about and talk about – Your Mom jokes, mom friends (thank god for mom friends!), body image, things that have helped, things that hurt, bringing home a second kid, being pregnant with a toddler, having kids that can make up ghost stories and the moments where you start to see them going and being themselves separate from you…. I’m so excited. If you want to contribute, email me hi.earl.hi@gmail.com.
Anyway, join us, welcome, take your bra off or whatever.
I love you,
Your friend,
Laurel
Here are all those responses:
I clicked on this so freaking fast! I’m so excited for this one. For some reason your sentence calling yourself a silly bitch made me laugh out loud and then start crying? (in a good way).It’s a sentence I didn’t know I needed to hear, but I feel the exact same way. I also laugh when you use that phrase in Earl Earl too. But it hit different here. I’m in month 14 of breastfeeding my second and super ready to be done, but also not ready. My first also didn’t nurse so this was a crazy surprise. I NEVER thought I would still be breastfeeding at 14 months. I was watching Yellowstone a few months back and the new cowboy says “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.” The old cowboy said “nobody is. It has to be cut into you.” And I think about that line every day as I’m mothering my 4 and 1 year old. It just really feels like the truth for me. Thanks for writing this! Xx
My two words: ‘mother sucker’ 🙌🏽