"A Child Is Born And All Previous Life Flies Into A Hole." Why Is It Impossible To Prepare For Motherhood?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Author: ANASTASIA RUBTSOV

And emotionally immature parents don't exist

“We are forced to do something completely different from what we have studied and what we have been doing until now, but something new. Strange. Exhausting. And, let's be honest, boring. Psychologist Anastasia Rubtsova argues how we are experiencing an internal conflict around motherhood, who finds it easier to play a new role, and why emotionally immature parents are a fictitious construct.

Emotions do not ripen, they are not watermelons

Recently a friend calls, says:

- I am reading a book about children who grew up with emotionally immature parents. Finally, I understood everything! We all grew up with immature parents, here's the thing! That is why it is so hard for us to live.

It's like my child says: "Mom, I watched a video on YouTube, they say that dragons definitely exist, they can be tamed!" I understand the burning desire to believe in dragons.

I'm sorry to disappoint, but …

I have reason to believe that there are no “emotionally mature parents”.

First, no one has ever seen them. This already says a lot.

Secondly, the "maturity" of emotions is an absolutely invented construct. Emotions do not ripen, they are not watermelons. Emotions arise in response to a stimulus. In what form they come out - depends on our individuality, and not at all "maturity".

From temperament. From the norms of the social circle in which we grew up. From the degree of internal conflicts. From our physical condition - that is, how tired we are, do not get enough sleep, get sick, feel sucked out or touched.

These factors, like the instruments in an orchestra, are of unequal weight.

Temperament, for example, is the first violin, it is impossible not to hear it (a sensitive, fast and empathic person experiences motherhood much worse than a slow and unresponsive person - although in some articles it is written that it should be the other way around).

At the same time, the temperament cannot be altered, re-educated or trained.

And our physical condition is like a drum - we don't always hear it in the orchestra, but don't, damn it, underestimate the drum. It bangs so hard that it won't seem a little.

But the internal conflict around motherhood - I don’t know what tool, think up yourself. Cello. The flute. Oboe.

But it is also hard not to hear him.

No one is interested in our knowledge and self-realization

No matter how we prepare for motherhood, we still enter it unprepared. Because we prepare ourselves with our heads, but we fail with our whole bodies. And suddenly they are forced to do something completely different from what they studied and what they have been doing until now, but something new. Strange. Exhausting. And, let's be honest, boring.

Imagine that you have been studying economic models or ancient literature all your life, and well, or accounting and fashion theory, or whatever you want, you have studied it. And they studied. And then they took you out into a clear field, gave you a shovel and said: "Dig!" This is the first time you see this shovel. You do not understand which side to press on it, it bends and slips out of your hands. You have bloody calluses on your hands, and most importantly, you cannot explain to yourself why to dig and where to dig.

If you dig long enough, you can get used to the shovel, and even become akin to it, and strengthen the muscles of the back, and even somehow philosophically comprehend what is happening. In terms of explaining something to himself, a person has no equal at all.

But this takes time. A fair amount of time.

Until this happens, the need to dig causes a huge internal protest and despondency, even to the point of depression.

We somehow do not even think about how the mother's role differs from everything that we are taught and prepared for. What list of values does the world bestow on the growing person? Learn, work, improve, be attractive, take risks and be successful, do what is interesting.

Ok, we say, and we begin to somehow move in this direction. And often the birth of a child is seen as another step on the path to self-improvement and self-realization. And then oh.

Then the child is born, and this whole list of values, all the previous life just flies into a damn hole. Where we ended up, no one is interested in our knowledge and self-realization. Society no longer praises us or scratches our ears for how effective and creative we are. It is also unclear why and for whom to be attractive. And you no longer have time to do what is not interesting, but even necessary. Sleep, wash, go to the toilet.

And the main conflict here unfolds between the former professional role and the new, maternal one. It hurts the more interesting our life was before children, and the more successful we were professionally.

All this is terrible pain, grief, and everything goes to hell. Sometimes this story is mitigated by oxytocin and the help of loved ones.

We are just living people

Can this conflict and this hole be considered an indicator of "emotional immaturity"?

No, this is a real, unthinkable contradiction.

Or those in whom this role does not conflict with anything feel much better in the maternal role. Who managed to give birth to a child early, or did not put a lot of effort into education and profession.

Are we going to assume that these people are "more emotionally mature"?

I would not risk it.

Or, again, there are people of phlegmatic temperament. They are resistant to all kinds of stimuli. Born this way. There are not many of them in the population, but they are, and some of them are women.

Sometimes they are not very lucky at work. The modern ambitious world requires quick reactions, high productivity, and the ability to quickly establish social connections. And for those who are resistant to stimuli, as a rule, not everything is very good both with creativity and with speed (this can be easily explained from the point of view of physiology).

But in motherhood they simply have no equal. These are the very mothers who are not annoyed by the endless "drink-pee-let-let-let-let-I won't go-I won't go-I won't go". Someone who reads the same book twenty times in a circle with divine calmness, picks up the same fallen toy, listens to a twenty-minute screech about “I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want-ooh-ooh”. Who is not unsettled by children's colic, tantrums, lack of sleep and broccoli puree smeared all over the kitchen. They can play nice or make Easter cakes, and they are not enraged.

Can they be called “emotionally mature” as opposed to everything else, “emotionally immature”? Considering that it is impossible to teach this to everyone else? Considering that this does not give them advantages everywhere, but only in one area of life?

In general, I would look with apprehension at those who talk about emotional maturity. As well as emotional freshness. Emotional turbulence. And stuff like that.

Because it's often a meaningless set of sounds.

And we are just living people. Ordinary. Terribly imperfect, in some ways strong and beautiful, in some way helpless.

Children of the same living parents (who also had their own temperaments, life circumstances, internal conflicts and social circle, yeah). Parents of the same living children (with temperaments, internal conflicts and so on, you get the idea).

And there is a lot of beauty in this hymn to life, that's what it seems to me.