For many women, the day their children are born is not the happiest day of their lives

Sometimes there are misconceptions around motherhood. It is not possible to generalize, not all women have the same experience, each maternity is a world. Sometimes it seems that there is great pressure to live motherhood as something 100% positive, on pain of being branded as "ungrateful" or "bad mother".

Many women dream of being mothers since they were little, they have chosen the names and the number of children they would like to have; At this happy stage, they carefully choose their babies' first outfits and look forward to the "baby showers" organized by their family and friends, they carefully decorate the baby's room, they gladly receive all visitors, time stands still in the moment the doctor puts their baby in their arms for the first time.

On the other hand, there are other women who have never played at being mothers, where having a baby is not something certain in their lives; sometimes it's quite a surprise they weren't expecting and they get skeptical, confused, fearful and happy all at the same time. For many women, motherhood is an idea that takes time to process, even after having their babies, where the days become an instinctive task of care but disconnected from themselves. There are mothers who do not feel that instant connection with their little ones; They love them, yes, they take care of them, they protect them, they do an excellent job, but that connection develops little by little, over time, through the months that they spend caring for and getting to know their baby and themselves on this new side of their lives, because motherhood too sometimes is an adquirirse taste, we also have to learn to know and love ourselves in this new facet of our lives.

For some, the day their children are born is a traumatic, painful experience, where sometimes their lives are in danger and their wishes are not respected when it comes to giving birth (childbirth is an extremely invasive procedure for the mother).

Even when everything is going well the birth of a child is a difficult event to assimilate. Even when it comes to a quick delivery, without complications and an equally easy recovery; when you have a doctor who respects your birth plan and you have a partner or family member who supports you at all times and they are there to take care of you. Even then, in an optimal situation, we forget that there is an emotional plane where things are not always so simple, where confusion reigns and the shock of what is happening to the body is sometimes difficult to understand no matter how "natural" they describe it. No, the fact that women have the ability to give birth does not mean that we have fully assimilated it. Sometimes those months of gestation are not enough to understand everything that being a mother entails.

So no, for many women the day their babies are born is not the happiest day of their lives, it is an important day, of course, but also confusing mixed with joy and many other things. Let's stop minimizing this mechanical fact of the female sex as "happy" and learn to conceive it with all the complexity that it entails. Let the mother (or mother-to-be) decide how she wants to describe her experience and not feel pressured by this general convention that dictates that the day you have a child "should be the happiest day of your life" (along with your wedding day, of course, because women are taught, pressured, to always find happiness based on other people and not based on single selves). The day our children are born is definitely a very, very important day in our lives, because your life changes, it is never the same and you are not the same either, and sometimes this is good.

Motherhood is more than caring, protecting, sacrificing, and loving; motherhood is growing, improving, maturing, striving and fighting; it is happiness, it is fear, joy, confusion, mourning (because sometimes you also have to let go of that life you ​​had and the person you were). And feeling all this does not make us bad mothers, it does not mean that we regret becoming one or that we do not love our children, it means that we are human beings, complex and capable of feeling more than one thing at a time, sometimes completely opposite, and that we are always evolving and changing. It means that we are on the right track for a more honest motherhood free of taboos and social conventions that do nothing but generate unhappiness because no one is ever "the perfect mother."

So, let's stop comparing ourselves and believing the story that "the day your children are born is the happiest day of your life" (for many it is but not for others), let's accept that each mother is different and let's opt for a more frank and true motherhood, and happier, because accepting things as they are lightens our hearts.

My baby's little hand