Trisha Ashworth - I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood

Reinventing Modern Motherhood

Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile

Text copyright 2007 by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.
ISBN: 978-0-8118-7166-2

Some names in this book have been changed at the subjects request.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

For Alex, Pierce, Julia, Sam, and Emily; we simply adore you. And for Paul and Eric, for being what matters most.

CHAPTER 1 The Fake-Cupcake Problem
(Why We Needed to Write This Book)

CHAPTER 2 I Love Being a Mom; I Just Hate Doing It
(Align Your Expectations With Reality)

CHAPTER 3 You Can Have It All. Just Not All at Once
(Make Peace With Your Choices)

CHAPTER 4 Am I a Bad Mom If I Dont Buy Organic SpaghettiOs?
(Lose the Judgment)

CHAPTER 5 I Count the Hours She Spends With the Nanny and Make Sure I Have More
(Let Go of the Guilt)

CHAPTER 6 Just Give Us a Rule Book. We Cant Read Minds
(Tell Him What You Need)

CHAPTER 7 When You Say Mom, It Leaves a Lot Unsaid About You
(Honor Your Whole Self)

CHAPTER 8 You Know What? It Aint Gonna Happen
(Just Say No)

CHAPTER 9 Oh My God, I Dont Want to Color Right Now
(Live in the Moment)

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?

You secretly wish you had your own apartment.

If you have to play Go Fish one more time, you will definitely poke your eyeballs out.

You lie to your friends about how much babysitting help you have.

Next time your husband goes to Home Depot to help you, you think he should just stay there.

You feel guilty that you like going to work so much.

You worry about whether your sons lunch box is the right one.

You dread the question What do you do all day?

You consider a trip to the dentist your special alone time.

You plan to get control over your life next week.

Reading before bed feels like a luxury.

You find that slowly browsing the aisles at Target, by yourself, is better than therapy.

IF YOURE SITTING DOWN AND READING THIS, THEN YOU MUST not be having the worst day ever. Or maybe you are. Whatever kind of day youre havingyou couldnt love your kids more, or you couldnt be more eager to jump in your car and speed awayweve been there. Between us we have five kids, two husbands, two dogs, three-quarters of a career, steadily improving skills at negotiating with toddlers, and way too much stress. This book got started on one of those nights that followed one of those daysdog poop tracked into the house, wild children in the aisles of Target. Laser-eyed, we watched our clocks until 4 P.M. Then we each poured ourselves a glass of wine and picked up the phone to call each other.

As we talked, our kids tattooed one another with permanent markers and played in the dog-food bowls. Whateverit really didnt matter. We discussed our days, and within ten minutes wed laughed, cried, whined about our husbands, wondered what happened to our sex drives, snapped at the kids, wished we had passions, and questioned why we sometimes felt like bad moms. Were you a bad mom if you screamed at a four-year-old for getting up twelve times in one night? Were you a good mom if you stayed up late baking fifty cupcakes for the next days ballet recital? Would passing off store-bought cupcakes as homemade really be a terrible offense?

Meanwhile we were trying to turn the three ingredients in our respective refrigerators into some semblance of dinner. And our husbands, whod finally come home, were looking at us cross-eyed for yet again being on the phone. Granted, blabbing while the kids trashed the house might not have looked so good from their position. But immediately hanging up to resume our roles as moms would not have been a good idea, either. These phone chats were our salvation.

Why did we need these daily chats? Because we needed to vent. Badly. Our husbands didnt understand the fake-cupcake problem. Nor did our mothers. Nor did our kids.

Our chats started five days after one of us (OK, Amy) had her first baby. It wasnt prettymassive exhaustion, recurrent mastitisand what did one of her closest friends do? She pulled that dirty motherhood-perfectionist trick.

Oh, really? Youre having a hard time? I always felt great. That never happened to me.

Click.

So we began talking to each other. Our lives werent identical. Years earlier, before motherhood, wed both established careers, but one of us was now a stay-at-home mom, and the other a part-time working mom. Still, we felt exactly the same way: questioning our choices, grappling with guilt, and wondering if the other mothers we knew were struggling to keep it together, too.

Once we started being honest about how we felt, it was addictive.