Leslie Anne Bruce - You Are a F*cking Awesome Mom: So Embrace the Chaos, Get Over the Guilt, and Be True to You

Copyright 2019 by Leslie Anne Bruce

Cover design by Chin-Yee Lai

Cover image Yoni Goldberg

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First Edition: September 2019

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bruce, Leslie, author.

Title: You are a f*cking awesome mom: so embrace the chaos, lose the guilt, and stay true to you / Leslie Bruce.

Other titles: You are a fucking awesome mom

Description: Berkeley, California: Seal Press, [2019]

Identifiers: LCCN 2018060881| ISBN 9781580058902 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781580058919 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Motherhood. | MotherhoodHumor.

Classification: LCC HQ759 .B75949 2019 | DDC 306.874/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060881

ISBNs: 978-1-58005-890-2 (paperback), 978-1-58005-891-9 (ebook)

E3-20190802-JV-NF-ORI

For my mom,

You are so fucking awesome.

I love you fiercely and I dedicate this book to you.

Now, can you please stop telling people,

Having one kid is great; having two is horrible.

Everyone knows I was number two, Sandra.

Dear Mama,

I want to tell you something you need to know right now: Youre a rock star.

Sure, that sounds like a lame saying youd see on a coffee mug in the girl boss aisle at Target, but I mean it youre a badass mama. Youre responsible for creating human life. Think about that! Thats some superhuman stuff right there. You grew a baby and, most likely, that baby has ears. And who made those ears? You did inside your body! Your baby has ears because of you. Know that, girl.

As mamas, we all have a tendency to get down on ourselves when we have bad days, and, chances are, youve had plenty of them. We beat ourselves up when we dont feel like were crushing motherhood. So, whatever feelings of guilt or shame you havewhether its because you chose not to breastfeed or because you had to go back to work or simply because youre not loving every second of mom lifeLET IT GO!

Youre using whatever free time you have to read a book on motherhood to be the best mama you can be, so youre already doing an incredible job. If youre like me, then you ventured into motherhood with beautiful ideas of what it would look like, but soon after the newborn glow began to wear off, your daunting new reality started to sink in.

Things arent always going to go according to plan. There will be days when you feel like you just cant handle it all, and maybe you cant, but that doesnt make you a bad mom it makes you normal. Remind yourself that every day you wake up with the goal of doing your very best for your baby, your family, and yourself, and that is good enough! I spoke to an early childcare therapist about the idea of good enough parenting; she said that the goal isnt to be the perfect parent but to be a good enough parent, which requires us to do our best at least 50 percent of the time. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake. I, for one, really like those odds, and I sure wish someone had shared them with me before I became a mom. But what is our responsibility to other women as they become mothers?

A few months after Tallulah was born, my good friend Julie came to visit us. I had just emerged from the haze of the fourth trimester and was finally fit for company (both mentally and physically). We sat around the kitchen table while Tallulah napped, and Julie confided in me that she and her husband were planning to start their own family.

I know you wont sugarcoat it, Leslie, she started, wide-eyed with excitement, but almost bracing herself. Just tell me how hard is it?

I laughed. Which part?

All of it she said, twirling her hand casually in the air. How hard is it being a mom?

If poor Julie would have visited just a few weeks earlier, I would have excused myself to the bathroom to begin frantically searching for leftover birth control pills to crush and sprinkle in her coffee.

Fortunately for her, I was currently of more sound mind.

I thought for a minute about how to answer her seemingly innocent question. How could I be honest with my friend without terrifying her? I knew I had the very undeserved power to shape her perspective on a monumental life event, and I wanted to proceed with caution.