How Not Lose Yourself As a New Parent
By: Dominica Morris
Motherhood is one of the most rewarding journey but also one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do in my life, pair it with the world we’re living in right now, running a family business, plus me working part-time it’s been an interesting first year of parenthood. We love Carter so much. He’s made our lives so much more exciting and fun. But boy can it be challenging trying to take care of a toddler, trying to shape them into a good human being on top of household chores, work, and everything else. By the end of the day, you’ve poured your soul into everything and everyone else, that there isn’t much time let alone energy left for yourself.
I started to resent this, I felt that the things I enjoyed about myself the most were slowly slipping away. Some days I barely recognized who I was anymore, and I started to notice that my husband was feeling the same way. So, we worked on changing this.
Accept that You Won’t Go Back to Your Child-Free Ways
The first thing we did was learn to accept our new way of life. We now have a little human to care for and things won’t ever go back to the way it was. This might sound bleak but once we stopped yearning for our old days of being able to do whatever we wanted, it made it easier to make the necessary changes to still find time for ourselves while being a parent. It also made the time we spent with Carter more enjoyable. We were able to focus our mindset on the here and now instead of the past when we could focus on our hobbies and self-development. This doesn’t mean that we’ve given up on the things we love, but that we’ve gotten more creative in finding ways on how to still enjoy them.
Say No to Activities and Jobs that Do Not Benefit You or Your Family
I’ve written a whole article on saying no and doing things for yourself, but that was during my single and child-free days, and things in my life have drastically changed since then. However, the message remains the same, it’s okay to say no, actually it’s vital to say no for your own sanity and wellbeing. We’ve learned to say no to projects and jobs that only add more to our work and stress load. Spending time as a family and with Carter is more important to us, and so is our sanity and mental wellbeing.
Become a Parenting Team with Your Spouse and Support Each Other
I find myself extremely fortunate to have a relationship where both of us are extremely supportive of each other. We both work to incorporate mindful living into our family life and we both help around the house and work together to raise our son. This has made things a lot easier, especially on days when one of us is just too tired to do our part. Caleb and I see ourselves as a team and we have the same goal, to raise a healthy well-adjusted, and happy child.
When one of us has a lot on our plate the other person will jump in and help. This has made this journey of parenthood so much easier because we know that we can depend on each other. It’s not that we’ve always known how to do this, there was some trial and error, as well as disagreements but because we both see each other as a team we were able to discuss this openly. We are able to share our feelings and how we want to be supported and that’s made this so much easier. So, if you find yourself needing more help from your partner speak up, tell them what tasks you would like them to help with. Figure out each other’s strengths. For example, I’m better at cooking so I’m in charge of dinner, my husband loves doing bath-time with Carter, so he takes care of this task. Delegating tasks based on strengths and likes will make it so much easier to do your part but will also feel like we all play a role in this family. Yes, there will be days where you might have to do the other person’s job, but you won’t do it with resentment because you know that they will do the same for you when the time comes.
Have One Day Each Week to do the Things You Loved to do Before Having Kids
We both noticed that we don’t get to do our hobbies as much as we would like. So, we’ve decided to make Sunday our “Funday”. This means for four hours we get to disconnect from all chores, parenting, and other work and just focus on our hobbies while the other person watches Carter. We then switch and the other person gets their 4 hours. For me it’s working on this blog, playing video games, reading, or just plain relaxing. For my husband it’s drawing on the beach, making music, or watching movies. During this time, we get to focus completely on ourselves. When we first did this, it was actually really hard to disconnect from our busy schedules, and taking time for ourselves felt selfish but over time we both look forward to this break, it’s exciting to have time to be our old creative selves, it’s also a time to just take a breather, and it feels so good to have a few hours to solely focus on what we want to do for ourselves even if it’s just taking a nap or reading a book.
Once my husband and I learned to let go of our past selves and openly embrace this new parenting journey, we’ve become better more mindful parents and happier spouses. While it’s not always easy we’ve learned to become a stronger team and embrace this crazy journey called parenthood.