How your Perspectives changed on Yourself: After-Baby
That ‚sudden‘ mind shifting after-baby…
On my very first post, I wrote that I was a die-hard supporter of Simone de Beauvoir in feminist existentialism. I remember as I read her book long time ago during my bachelor study, where a woman is responsible to her existence; meaning that she has a profession where she earns her own money and therefore, would never be anxious to sustain her life because she is not depending to anyone on this case but herself.
When I was working, I wondered often what do the full-time moms do the whole day. Now I found the answer myself and yet still wondering, what are they doing the whole day IF the kid(s) are in the school already?
And guess what, all of sudden this paradigm of mine ruined. Nope, I am not blaming anyone to this. This is a very deliberate decision for me as a woman.
It all started on the decision I took to support my husband to open his own tax consulting company in another city while having a 4 months old son back in 2020. I know for this, I need to be resigned from my job which means, you can forget the whole story on Beauvoir’s principal.
We did this so that we as a family would have a better perspective and financial improvement. That what I earn from my job is not meaningful enough to be hold, in comparison to what my husband could earn. Well, somebody needs to take care the kid at home and as cliché as you want to hear, I am the one who stay at home.
I have the feelings that somehow being a SAHM in Germany is bundled with negative image included that the particular woman is lazy and doesn’t contribute (financially) in the household. Germany is one of the countries that popular with 50:50 system in the relationship; that was totally okay for me as I was so capable for this. Where I come from in Indonesia, is totally different. Women would be frowned upon if they don’t stay at home to take care kids and the husband. This is another extreme, where the husbands can demand the wives to stop to work and the wives are expected to obey them.
I have dreams and standards for myself and I will never ever willing to lower it. I was willing to work extra miles to earn them until we decided to have an extra member in our family. So I told my husband, I am pleased to give him the extra miles to working on 😊
During my first year staying at home, I found JetSet Babe through a friend and while the blog is not existing anymore, the founder became active as a YouTuber – preaching on how to be an elegant lady. While I would not agree 100% on how she views on this topic (well, I can’t be agree 100% to my husband either. Which is fine, you can’t expect other person to be exact 100% to have same thinking like you right?), I come to the point that it is totally fine to be a stay at home mom WITH conditions.
I start looking on things I have never come in my mind before. I discovered new style of clothings (less is more with much more quality products, luxury world, classic style, dress more modestly etc), I learned about etiquettes and manners I’ve never known (all I learned through my childhood was only that I should never skip 5 times prays and fasting in Ramadan so I won’t go to hell after life..), I am into table-manners and house decorations, I enjoy trying new recipes and stay longer in the kitchen, I find pleasures in taking care of the family and I started to not curse my new role as a stay at home mom! I mentioned that I was in a therapy because of my changing – live circumstances AND loosing professional work as an identity. After all, there are TONS of things to be done and the whole parenting things (how to act when my 2 yo toddle is having a tantrum, my gosh!)… I simply cannot stop to learn. I want to do everything differently from how my parents raised me and I had no idea how.
That’s why I need to invest more time to figure things out (I am explicitly talking about seeing videos and read books on parenting) while I don’t want to neglect my necessities and needs during the journey. I said to myself, I want to still looking put up together with a bit make-up on just like the days where I go to the office, then I am doing it. I won’t be the person who stays in the pyjama the whole day just because I can. It ruins my mood and it makes me not feeling ready to face the world. Although the day to day is less glamorous than my outfit (you tell me, changing diapers and entertain my kid lol!) what it counts is what I feel inside.
Whatever makes me happy and content…
Warned you that become a mom can turned the world upside down to a woman. I recognize everything’s changed as well as my husband’s life in which he slipped to the father’s role but hey, let me remind you:
Who’s the one who’ve been through the pregnancy? Mama
Who’s the one who did the delivery? Mama
Who’s the one who felt that tremendous pain? Mama
Who’s the one who breastfed? Mama
Who’s dealing with hormone-cocktails before, during, through and after pregnancy? Mama
Who’s dealing the baby blues and post-partum depression? Mama
Whose body changed? Mama
Who’s stop working 9-5, took care the baby, being isolated at home without the social-networks that she had been known in prior, and did the her homework on how she’s gaining new networks and new routine for herself? Mama
Who’s life suddenly became replaceable, the self is somehow diminished and everything was just about the baby? Mama
Again, with all due respect to the dads – they are basically just moving on with their life (with a lot mooore of pressures) while as a new mom, I felt it was too much too handle at once! Plus pandemic and covid, and definitely no helping-hands; the first year me being a mom was the darkest part of my life.
Alright alright. I will stop writing at this. It’d become too long! X)
How did you overcome the obstacles being a new mom? What was the darkest moment on your mom-hood so far?
Next I think I will to write on how to be elegant as mom in my version. Stay tuned!
