Issue # 15

motherhood can be easy

I saw an Instagram reel the other day, someone saying there’s too much talk about how hard motherhood is. That it doesn’t have to be hard. That we shouldn’t scare would-be moms. That your life isn’t over when you become a mom.

At first, I felt a little offended. Maybe even defensive. Because it’s true, a lot of what I share about motherhood is about the hard parts. Not because I want to scare anyone, but because before I was a mom, no one really prepared me for the hard parts. It felt like being gaslit by omission, and I didn’t want to do that to someone else.

But she wasn’t wrong either. Sometimes, we do make things harder for ourselves, by assuming it has to be. By absorbing other people’s stories about how heavy it all is.

It doesn’t have to be hard. Sometimes, it really is easy.

Like when I’m sitting on the floor, and my son is using me as his anchor while he practices standing. There’s nothing hard about that moment. I sit. I smile at him. I catch him when he wobbles. I watch him beam with pride when he stands for a few seconds on his own. I feel his small head press into my chest when he rests, then pushes himself back up to try again. It’s easy. Gentle. Quiet. Like flow.

I could make it hard. I could think about what I’m not doing: the dishes, the side projects, the book I’m not reading, the spontaneous ice cream run I’m not on.

And sometimes I do. Sometimes my mind drifts, spirals even. But when I catch myself, when I take a deep breath and come back to him, to what he needs right now, it all settles again. Not always immediately. But eventually.

This is a different season. Not a worse season. Just different. The rest will come back, sunny days with books, unplanned ice cream, ideas, and projects. They’re not gone. They’re just not the centre right now.

And when I let that be true, this season feels easy.

Gentle. Quiet. Enough.

Breathing easy,

Aurooba