Self-care looks different for every mom, yet sometimes we try to impose our definitions of self-care onto our Mom friends or acquaintances.
I have admittedly not been good with self-care. No one would run through a list of my qualities and be like, “I really admire how well she balances taking care of her family with taking care of her own sanity.”
Do I see the value in self-care? Absolutely! However, I believe every mom goes through different seasons, where something her child or family is going through asks more of her and she needs to do whatever she feels is best in those seasons of life, whether it means some days she needs more time for herself or some days she gets none.
You always hear about mom-shaming, BECAUSE of a mother taking care of herself or time out for herself, but I have lived the very opposite and it’s difficult as well.
I didn’t expect to have an out of the ordinary first time parenting experience, but when my daughter was born with a cleft palate, hearing loss, feeding difficulties, severe apnea, required oxygen and later was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder and autism…I felt like what she needed from me in that time in our lives, far outweighed anything I would need or want to do for myself.
My life became about therapy around the clock, surgeries, specialists, always watching her breathe and praying she wouldn’t stop. I was an Army wife. My husband was in Afghanistan. I had no family and hardly any friends in our duty station and yet everyone I had EVER known kept telling me that I needed to go out. I needed a bath. I needed a nap. I needed to get my nails done. I needed to go to a spa.
They meant well. I know they did. They were worried about me. They felt bad for the stress I was under and felt all their suggestions were helpful to me. However, it tended to make me feel even worse. For starters, I literally did not have a single soul who COULD help me with my daughter, so I would be able to do any of those things. I was doing the best I could alone, to keep my head above water most days. It also felt like no one understood how much the sacrifice was MY choice. I wanted to help my daughter get healthier. I wanted to be the one sleeping next to her on the hospital floor. I wanted to be the first face she saw, when she woke up from surgeries, scared and in pain. I wanted to learn how to do all her therapies with her, so I could give her the best shot at a good future. I wanted it to be me, as draining and soul-sucking as it was sometimes.