Before our daughter was born, I had a pretty full life. If I think of my identity as a pie, the pan was completely full. I had healthy slices of Wife, Employee, and Me—my personal interests, my relationships, and my health. I figured the same would be true when I became a mother. Once our little girl arrived though, every aspect of my life changed. How and where I spent my days changed—from doing workshops in an Internet company to doing dishes at home. Who I interacted with every day changed—from well-dressed adults to babies and the occasional mother or nanny in the park. How much I got to be with my husband changed from hours a day to minutes or none at all. How frequently I could exercise or read or go out with friends changed from nearly every day to once in a blue moon. How people referred to me changed - from my own name, Kristin, to “Kate’s mom.” The things I lost as a result of those changes—my name, my career, my paycheck, my colleagues, my time with my husband, my own interests—were all things that were deeply important to me and felt like major losses. Unexpectedly, I found myself puzzled, “Who am I now?”
Many mothers I talk to share that same sense of loss. Did you know that women take on a larger Mother identity much faster than men take on their Father identity? And that women with six-month-old babies who have a larger investment in the Mother identity actually have lower self-esteem? (Cowan) Yet, few mothers want to admit that the children we adore often also bring on this profound loss of self. The appearance of the Mother piece of pie presents us with a psychological pie dilemma we have to solve to find ourselves again: How do I integrate this huge new piece of who I am into my Identity Pie without making a big old mess? How do we find an answer to the question, “Who am I now?”
To help with that dilemma, here are four remodeling tools from my book, This is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today.
