No one was more surprised than I was at how quickly and easily my daughter and I bonded. The day she was born – by unplanned C-section after my ex-wife endured a 30-hour labor – I was a wreck. I hadn’t slept in more than two days, had barely eaten, and was scared to death that neither of them were going to make it out of the operating room alive.
By the time everyone was safely resting in recovery, I was neck deep in my first real panic attack. I was so overwhelmed. My brain had shut down, and it felt like I was watching my life unfold from 30,000 feet away. Then my mother pressed my newborn daughter into my arms, and it was like I got struck by lightning. I opened my eyes, looked at my daughter, and I was her mother. It was that simple.
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Sometimes I’m still surprised that I am a mom. When my ex-wife and I agreed, a little over seven years ago, that we wanted to start planning for a baby, I always told myself I’d make a great secondary parent – always ready to lend my hands to the work, do what my partner needed, be a team player, but never the captain.
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I didn’t think I wanted to have kids that badly. By contrast, my ex-wife very much wanted to be pregnant and always said she wanted to raise a family. So, it all worked out – or so we thought.
We spent the better part of three years saving, planning, researching, hoping, and praying for a healthy baby. Fortunately, after four (mostly) uneventful rounds of IUI and my ex-wife’s textbook 39-week pregnancy, that’s exactly what we got. Unfortunately, our baby didn’t come with any instructions on how to be a two-mom family; she also didn’t bring us the cheat codes to healing generational trauma.
Growing up, I was taught that motherhood means sacrifice – it means making yourself as small as possible so as not to take up space, resources, or oxygen that could be used by others. That’s what I thought being a mom meant. I thought if I put everyone ahead of myself and poured everything I have into my child, that made me a good mom. Turns out that was just a recipe for resentment and burnout, which led to the demise of my first marriage.
My daughter is turning four this month, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be her mother. Being a mom is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even harder than surviving a global pandemic and a messy divorce in the span of five years. To me, being a non-carrying mom means making the intentional choice every second of every day to show up fully and authentically in my daughter’s life.
Many of my childfree-by-choice friends (whom I love dearly) see choosing to be a millennial parent as truly asinine. Carrying the collective weight of our generation’s trauma AND choosing to spend thousands of dollars per month on childcare when I could have been gallivanting across the world, securing writing residencies, and eating my way across Europe? What the hell is wrong with me?
Blow like an elephant
A couple of months ago, my daughter had a cold. I was dreading the routine of daily humidifier use and, possibly, having to suck the snot out of her nose (yes, parents really do have to do that. I promise we are even more disgusted by it than you are). But before any of that could happen, something miraculous did.
We were on the bus on our way home from school, and my daughter announced, “Mommy, I need to blow my nose!” With a sigh, I pulled a pack of tissues out of my pocket and held one up around her nose.
“Okay, blow!” I said, not expecting much. But for the first time, I could actually hear her exhaling through her nose.
“Okay, good! Blow again.”
She tried, but with less success. Just as I saw her start to get frustrated (as almost-four-year-olds are wont to do), I had an idea.
“Try again! But this time, blow like – like an elephant!”
I saw her tiny mind working, and then with a look of quiet resolve, she did. And it worked. My almost-four-year-old actually blew her own nose. Like, 100% successfully.
I’m almost embarrassed to express how much pride I felt in that moment.
With a squeal, she did it again. And again. And again. The smile she beamed up at me in that moment was magic. Now, every time she blows her nose, she proudly declares, “Look Mommy, I blow my nose like an elephant!”
I’d do anything to preserve and protect that joy – even let her watch Cinderella for the 100th time when I really just want to watch Top Chef reruns.
Becoming whole
It doesn’t matter how I came to be her mom – whether I gave birth to her, or my ex-wife did, if she was adopted like her cousin, or the stork dropped her off on my doorstep. Blood doesn’t make a family – love does.
Love, as defined by bell Hooks, means taking actions that put the best interests of others ahead of your own. That’s what I did when I made the hardest decision of my life: divorce my daughter’s other mom in order to live a happier, healthier life that makes me whole.
Being whole allows me to show up fully and authentically for my daughter and make choices that preserve and protect our joy.
Jálynn Castleman is a Black, queer, neurodivergent writer, mom, and professional nerd whose work explores her experience navigating the intersections of motherhood, divorce, and healing from her third-story walk-up in Brooklyn. Visit her at www.jalynncastleman.com.
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