The Intangible

One of the hardest things about motherhood is changing the way we feel validated. Most of us enter motherhood after careers of some sort, or from being a full time student. When you get a paycheck, or a compliment from someone you work with, or praise from your boss, it validates your efforts. When you make a good grade on a paper, when you get an 'A' in a class, it tells you that you are performing your best, that you're doing a good job.

When you're a mother, there is no validation of this kind. There's no one telling you that you're doing a great job day in and day out, there's no paycheck, there's no grading scale to rank your performance. There is, however, a nagging voice in the back of your head telling you all the time how much better you could be, how much more you could be doing, how much cleaner your house should be, and all the things your baby isn't getting.

It doesn't help any that there are a million different theories out there that all claim that there is only one 'right' way to deal with the varies issues in parenting, or that you have well-meaning friends and family members offering advise on how 'they' do things.

What you have to learn is that there's only so much you can do, that you still have to care for yourself as well. You must be compassionate with yourself. Validation will come, not in the form that you're used to. Some women try to force validation, by belittling the methods that other women use. I got this a lot with my first child, when nursing wasn't working. All my friends were breastfeeding with no problems, and would offer all sorts of advise, all the while looking smug at their own success. It took me years to recognize they weren't trying to be mean, they were trying to feel like they were doing something right.

Your validation will come when you find what works for you. It will come in small, intangible moments. It may be at three in the morning, as you feed your sleepy newborn, and you feel this tiny voice inside you say "This is good, this is right". It may come with your baby's first smile, or when they learn to recognize your face. When you see that for your baby, you mean safety, security, warmth, love.

In a society that puts so much stock in careers and career building, where success is measured in pay scales and promotions, it's hard to transition to the slower, less glamorous world of diapers and midnight feedings. It's lonely at first, and isolating. But you will never be as important to anyone as you will be to your child.