Hellobee

Motherhood has changed me. It has made me into a better person than I ever was. I’m still not the best housekeeper around and I still like to gossip with friends, but being a mom and the responsibility that comes with it has made me realize who I want to raise my son to be, and who I must be to do that.

I used to watch a lot of TV. If I stayed home stick from work, I’d watch TV nonstop for hours on end. On regular days, the first thing I’d do when I got home from work was turn on the TV. It didn’t really matter what I was watching, but it had to be on all the time when I was home. Now that I’m a mom, I almost never watch TV. I know I don’t want Liam to grow up watching it a lot, so even though I’m home a lot, and I’m used to watching TV when I’m home, I’ve stopped turning it on. The only time I watch TV now is if my husband turns it on in the evenings or on the weekends.

I’ve never been super smiley. I remember when I was a hostess at a restaurant years ago and the manager would always tell me to smile. It’s not that I was unhappy or scowling, but my regular face just doesn’t look super happy and I always felt idiotic walking around smiling all the time. Now that I’m with Liam all day every day, I make an effort to smile at him a lot. Even when he was just a tiny newborn, if he looked at me, I would smile so that he knew I was happy to be with him. Now, he smiles back, so it’s easy to keep a smile on my face.

I try not to be judgmental. This one is tough because being a mother means making lots of decisions that greatly impact an innocent life. And sometimes we feel the need to judge others’ decisions as a way to defend our own, especially if people make different decisions than we do. However, I see that I am less judgmental now than I ever was before I had a baby of my own. If I ever start to think that what someone else is doing is wrong or bad, I remind myself that as long as what they’re doing works for them (cosleeping, CIO, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, working, staying home, etc.), there’s no need to judge their choices. This motherhood thing is hard enough without us attacking each other.

Along those same lines, I also try to be supportive of other moms when it comes to things I’m passionate about. For example, I’m a big advocate of breastfeeding exclusively for at least a year. Do I think it’s wrong or bad if you don’t do it? Absolutely not. Like I said before, I can’t judge another mother’s decisions. However, I do feel that supporting my friends who are breastfeeding or who plan to breastfeed is important. I know how hard it can be and knowing I could reach out to my friends and family during those early weeks was a big help.

I’m learning to forgive. Before Liam was born, I hadn’t talked to my dad in four years and hadn’t seen him in five. But when he reached out to me after the birth of his first grandchild, I realized that I needed to make an effort to mend our relationship because not only would it affect me, but it would also affect my son. Now, we communicate through text almost every day and he’s been over to visit twice. There is still some pain there, but I think we are both handling things in a better way than we had in the past and so far, I’m glad we’ve reconnected.

Of course, I’m not perfect. There are still lots of things I need to work on, like eating healthier (getting better at this, but I’d like to work on avoiding processed foods, which is so tough), exercising more, being better with money, managing my time more effectively, taking better care of our home, etc. Still, I can feel that something inside me has shifted and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Do you think you’ve changed since becoming a mom?