Unbelievably, I turned 50 this year and became a mother to a beautiful baby boy. Before he was born I read stacks of books on parenting and asked all my girlfriends – young and old – about my crazy worries:
- “If you have a family bed, how’s your sex life?”
- “Do you let your baby cry?”
- “What happens if you can’t breastfeed?”
- “Does a soothie give a kid buck teeth?”
- “What happens if you drop the baby?”
I felt anxious and overwhelmed, spiraling into insecurity. Clarity arrived, as it always does, during a morning run: I’ll mother as I do everything, trusting my Style Statement – Refined Treasure.
I’m letting go of doing it right and embracing doing it my way – a little old-fashioned mothering (refined) mixed with a little hippy mama (treasure). I’m seven weeks into motherhood now, truly amazed and exhausted. Our baby starts the night in the traditional way, sleeping next to our bed in his crib until the wee hours of the morning, giving me hours of refined beauty-sleep. Then he joins us in our bed for cuddles and his last feed of the night – treasured time.
My awe of motherhood has expanded and my judgments of others’ parenting skills have washed away, replaced with compassion for one of the hardest and richest experiences in life. My Style Statement both grounds me and gives me the freedom to be accepting of others’ styles. When I’m being true to myself and honoring individual styles of parenting, working, and playing, my life is more graceful.
Article by Carrie McCarthy
Flickr photo: Sleep Like A Baby, by peasap
What a treasure!
This is beautiful. Beautiful photo. Beautiful post. It makes such perfect sense that you’d turn to your Style Statement for guidance in this most important role. And I adore the sentence: “My Style Statement both grounds me and gives me the freedom to be accepting of others’ styles.” I still had you at around age 45, obviously taking this from something I’d read previously and then leaving you in a time warp. And I won’t even say you don’t look 50, although my goodness, you don’t! I’m striving NOT to get caught in the trap of not wanting to look my age (and yet feeling so giddy when someone says they can’t believe I’m 40). I waited until I was 35 to have my son. I truly believe that our young ones will help keep us young (as well the flip side at times — exhausted). It’s work, but oh so worth it, and oodles of sweetness and fun.
Huge, giant, happy, overflowing, shiny congratulations!
You sound incredibly joyful and enamoured with motherhood. Congratulations Refined Momma!