You're So Fucking Perfect
There's an episode of Desperate Housewives (yes, I watch that show but I watch everything on TV so it doesn't mean anything) where one of the moms finally comes face to face with the ADD medication she's been taking to keep up with her sons and she has a nervous breakdown. She's sitting in the middle of this soccer field when her friends find her. As she shares with them how horrible she feels about the kind of mom she is, they each tell her their storeis of the hard times they endured with their children and the mistakes they made. She then asks her friends why they never told her this stuff before and they tell her that no one likes to look like they aren't on top of things. The woman then tells her friends that they need to share those moments, that's what friendship is about.
I need some of that lately. I am tired of everyone around me being so fucking perfect. Their kids are wonderful. They take all their naps on time and nice and long. They sleep through the night. They eat the perfect ten to fifteen minutes on each side and latch off when done. They burp on cue. They roll over, stand up, sit up, reach out, grab or whatever else they're supposed to do by that developmental age.
Either everyone's baby is perfect or they're fucking lying.
I don't understand the value of keeping your struggles to yourself. It makes it such that we suffer alone and make everyone else look and feel like they are the only failures in the world. What's so fucking wrong with the truth? I'll go first:
My son's been on some sort of strike lately. He whines more often than he ever did. He really struggles to take naps and several times a week, we get in the car and drive around just so he can get some sleep during the day. He's been eating so much lately that I feel like both my breasts are empty all the time. Last night, I finally took him to bed with me because he's been waking up every 90minutes for the last week and I couldn't take it anymore. In our bed, he slept a solid five hours before waking up for a meal. He doesn't roll over yet (though he did once but I think it was probably an accident). He reaches out sometimes but won't grab stuff unless we put it in his hands. There are times in the day when I'd be willing to pay him a thousand dollars for him to sleep for one hour so that he can be better rested. Lately, almost daily I question my ability to do right by him. If I can't get him to sleep, what hope do I have of doing anything else?
I don't want to hear advice. I am capable of spinning all this another way. I can tell you he smiles all the time and his smiles are wide and all consuming. I can tell you he's in the 50th percentile of all his numbers. I can tell you he's been gaining weight consistently and well. I can tell you he's been perfectly healthy since the day he was born. I can tell you he's the most beautiful baby in the world. All of that would be 100% true.
But so is the other part. And I don't see why it's important to hide it. I feel like if I shared my struggles, it might help another mom who's also struggling. I remember when I was pregnant and hurt so much, I hated the fact that others didn't tell me how difficult it could be. That lasted only nine months. This is much longer. This is too long to be acting. Is it really that important to look good? What's the point of friends if not to share the rough times and to make others feel less lonely in their misery?
