Mom Needs Help
Daily and yearly struggles that were planned to the second or the moment that resulted in unexpected outcomes, the two pink lines change everything in a woman’s life. It’s the moment of conception a women’s body stops being just hers. Someone else is growing inside of her and she has decisions to make. None of the decisions she makes from that point forward is easy and they will have consequences that will affect her for the rest of her life. Sometimes the decision is made for her, and she doesn’t get to experience the remaining journey. It’s life changing none the less and never forgotten. The journey as a whole is the kind of experience you can only understand if you go through it. But the life that happens afterwards can be shared by the world. Motherhood isn’t always biological but it’s always full of love.
Image Credit: Zach Lucero
Love transcends anything we can understand as a human beings. When you meet your child for the first time, whether it was on the day of birth, saying goodbye, or when they walked into the room knowing they were going home with you, a love is born and the words to describe it simply don’t exist. They last well after death in the hearts of both child and parent depending on who left this earth first. And it’s that love that keeps us going.
That love is worth it every time, but it doesn’t prepare us for how we will also break as humans in the process. We break to be better, but we also just break. And in the United States, there is just no help truly for the broken moms. Moms pee after giving birth after just a sneeze, they are ignored when they talk about feeling sad, and they are looked at as complaining if they say they just need a break. A break that only consists of a shower or a car ride for a 24/7 job that is never-ending. Sleep is a luxury because those kids need you even when they claim not to need you.
Then they hate you because puberty dictates that they go through the kinds of emotions that are completely confusing to both parent and child in the timeframe that lasts the length of a sentence. This idea of knowing it all shows up and it doesn’t go away until that child experiences life and parenting. Only then do they call up their mom and dad to say, now I understand. Not to say a young adult couldn’t understand life as they age but parenting is only something a parent gets. And Parents out of love forgive their kids no matter what.
Ever wonder why a mom of a criminal doesn’t always immediately turn their child in? Not hard to imagine when you look at your own child and feel what you feel. How could you turn your back on them? It’s not what is happening but that’s how it feels.
It’s how moms in the United States feel…Turned back on. Like the medical, emotional, and overall issues we experience will always be brushed off, so why bother telling the doctor? Why bother telling a friend? Why even bother telling another mom?
Image Credit: Tony Mucci
It’s just us inside who have the problems and due to the way, we are treated, the fear and shame of not being perfect and capable 24/7 hold us back from speaking our truth. The truth is we suffer, and we don’t forget the times we are brushed off and entirely forgotten about. Think about how often people ask about the kids and never once ask how mom is doing.
1 in 7 moms have Postpartum Depression and around 17 percent of new moms have Postpartum Anxiety. Postpartum Depression often starts after the Baby blues and can occur anytime between 1 week to 1 year after giving birth. Yet 25% of Moms in the United States Return to work after 2 weeks.
Physically a woman’s body after birth will have a dramatic drop in estrogen and progesterone and that is thought to be the cause of Postpartum complications. These are too often overlooked and it’s sad to say but many new mothers have decided to leave this earth by their own doing. It’s a very vulnerable time but we go back to work and have less hands-on help than ever.
Image Credit: Gus Moretta
“Women perform the bulk of housework and childcare, though three-quarters of mothers of children under 18 are employed full-time. It can leave a mother feeling she has too many balls in the air and ashamed she can't juggle them. People think it's normal to be happy all the time postpartum, and that can fuel some women to think, 'What's wrong with me?'" says Dr. Herrera
And this doesn’t end in Postpartum, Women are faced with this and struggle the whole journey of motherhood because moms are expected to be able to handle everything without complaining about it.
And moms are human, Not a Robot, A human with Physical limitations and Mental Limitations the same as a dad.
Mom Needs Help.
References:
1. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-conversation-about-postpartum-mental-health-cannot-afford-to-neglect-suicide_n_5adfaed1e4b07560f3966133
2. https://www.parents.com/parenting/moms/healthy-mom/postpartum-depression-suicide/
