Boomers: Please stop being weirdly macho about parenting
A reflection on parenthood then and now
“You’re going to be tired for the rest of your life,” the only grandmother in my class tells my friend, a youngish, first-time mother who has just admitted to nursing her eight-month-old at 40-minute intervals all night, every night. Everyone laughs, but nervously.
Of course, she is tired. We all are. It’s a time-worn trope of new motherhood, widely understood by parents and childless adults alike. This much I can accept.
What I find more challenging is the frequent “your life is over now” messaging coming at me from folks my parents’ age. I’ve only been a mother for one year, but of course my life has changed, in ways I both expected and ways I never could have imagined. I can no longer walk out the door without a second thought. I can’t sleep in, can’t drink too much, can’t take a day off from dishes or laundry, it would seem. My joints hurt, and I can’t say they would hurt less if I had become a mother at 15 or 25 instead of 35. My days are nearly constant work, keeping our toddler fed, clean, entertained and safe. The song and dance required at every nap time.
I love it, I love my baby, but it is a time and energy suck to be constantly switched on. And I took the transition better than my husband, who…
