Motherhood Comes Naturally (and other vicious lies)

I’m not a very good liar, especially when it comes to motherhood and parenting. Early on in this parenthood gig, I couldn’t understand why anyone would lie about mothering. Don’t we want everyone to know exactly how freaking hard this is? I wondered. If I hadn’t slept in months, if I was wearing the same shirt I slept in, if I could do circus acts with my spraying nursing boobs, if my hair was still falling out in huge clumps months after I had the baby… you were going to know about it if you stood still long enough for me to tell you. (I am so fun to have at parties! The invites roll in daily.)

Okay, so ten years later, I am a little more judicious about sharing information. Most days. I have a confession to make, though. Last week, the (very pregnant) elementary school guidance counselor told me off-handedly that she was nervous about childbirth. That was a big mistake. Before I could stop my mouth, I was telling her that’s not what she should be nervous about. “It’s everything that comes after that,” I said helpfully (ominously). She gave me just a wee, tiny bit of a questioning look, and I was off to the races: “You’ll feel like you were hit by a bus. That’s normal. I’ll make you a list of things you will need if you have a vaginal birth — Tucks hemorrhoid pads you can put in the mesh underwear and Dermoplast spray for faster wound healing.”

The look of horror on her face clued me in to the realization that I HAD JUST SAID THE WORDS “VAGINAL” and “WOUND” TO MY KIDS’ GUIDANCE COUNSELOR. I took a few steps back, hurriedly muttered some niceties, and ran out of the building, baby on my hip, 5 year old in front of me, like Old Mother Hubbard who needed to get back to her shoe with her million children and her tips about hemorrhoid pads and vaginal wounds. I swear I used to be a normal person.

Okay, so I am a little TOO honest sometimes, but I think it’s still important to be real about motherhood — maybe not so much to first-time pregnant women charged with overseeing your children’s mental health, but to other new moms at least. Jill Smokler, aka Scary Mommy, does too. Her recently-released second book, Motherhood Comes Naturally (and other vicious lies) is dedicated to exploring the myths and lies we were told about motherhood before we had children and how her experiences turned out differently. Among the myths Jill details: “Parenting strengthens a marriage,” “You’ll get more sleep when they are older,” and “It gets easier.”

I’m with her. Jill uses her typical hilarious and down-to-earth style to explain why these statements just aren’t true a lot of the time. Babies are hard on marriages, in part because there is always a child in our bed or on our floor (and my older children wake up more than the baby does!). And I have always been very careful about answering the question, “Does it get easier?” The truth to me is that it does not get easier, but some things get easier and some get harder at any given moment. Things that are hard about newborns — the spitting up, the short sleep and eating intervals — get easier, but toddlers are certainly not easy. As they grow into full-fledged kids, the “work” of parenting is less physical but harder emotionally. As the saying goes, big kids have bigger problems.

Like Jill, I often reminisce now about the days when I had two under two, even though those days were HARD AS HELL, because they were simpler. I was working hard, stressed out, and lonely, but my problems were all confined to my home and were remedied by meals, naps, and diaper changes, for the most part. Now I have to email teachers, vet therapists, and face middle school. It’s a whole different ballgame, and the logistics are way more complicated. Whereas I once likened my first year with a colicky newborn to a war, I now consider newborns the easy ones.

Jill intersperses her chapters with wry lists of parenting truths and factoids such as “Decoding Mom Speak,” “Perks to Being Awake When the Rest of the World Sleeps,” and my personal favorite, “The Seven Stages of Getting Dressed for a Rare Night Out.” (“1. SHOCK & DENIAL. This is not my body.”) She also ends the book and dots the chapters with confessions from real moms from her site, Scary Mommy. Everything is really funny in that groaning, all-too-familiar way. To be honest, I’m not usually a fan of parenting books in general, and I don’t always love books for moms because they are full of cliches. But I really enjoyed reading Jill’s book because she writes so conversationally, we might be sharing war stories at Starbucks after the third grade field trip. Her experiences mirror mine. She gets me. And she doesn’t write in cliches.

The best part about the book? Lie #6, “Parents Wouldn’t Dream of Hurting Their Children.” While Jill is funny and her humor colors everything in the book, I admire that in this chapter most of all, she isn’t afraid to be real and brutally honest. She writes about how once her daughter turned three, she began the renowned tantrums and meltdowns that made Jill crazy. She talks about the rage that boils up sometimes, that makes her feel like she could burst. But she didn’t take it out on her daughter, because she calmed herself down like the rational adult she actually is. I know what she’s talking about — especially when dealing with hormones, especially if there is a new baby sibling in the house, especially if my husband has been out of town or working late and I am dealing with the third tantrum of the day over why the favorite TV show isn’t on or whether or not the child can have another pack of gummy fruit snacks (in addition to the two he had already) or why he can’t go swimming just because it is lightning outside. I don’t hurt my children, but I have felt the rage that makes me know why others with less self control do. That’s what sets Jill apart: her book is not just funny, it’s real. And it’s cathartic in that honesty.

You have to know that Jill cusses. I like that about her. You also have to know that not all of her experiences might be exactly yours. I did, in fact, think adding a third child was not exactly a “breeze,” but for us, it was not the sinking scene in Titanic that she relates it to — probably because she had her last two children close together, whereas my third child was 3.5-years younger than my second. This is a worthwhile book, and a good one to give both new and veteran moms. New moms will breathe deep, relief-filled sighs as they realize they are, in fact, normal. Veteran moms will laugh wryly to themselves and groan as they nod in recognition of why, in fact, Sharpies are never a good idea in a house with small children. The only moms I would not give this book to are those who are still pregnant with their first. We can’t let them in on all the secrets yet. Let them get over the vaginal wounds and the hemorrhoids (or the C-section scars and engorged boobs), and then they can find out the rest.

Jill Smokler’s Motherhood Comes Naturally (and other vicious lies) is available at Amazon here. I was not compensated for reviewing her book, but Jill did send me a copy to read. I occasionally guest post at her blog, Scary Mommy, and I have found her to be an extraordinarily supportive, generous writer and blogger, especially to a newbie like me. She deserves all the accolades she gets!