Welcome back!
For those of you who were lucky enough to catch the first-ever episode of The Mommy-Muse Is In: Empowering Your Journey into Motherhood, you may already have laughed, cried or gasped at award-winning author Vicki Glembocki’s raw exposure. In honor of the paperback release of The Second Nine Months: One Woman Tells the Real Truth about Becoming A Mom. Finally, here are some of Vicki’s supremely honest words:
What inspired you to write this book?
I was hunting desperately for this book after my daughter was born, but it just didn’t exist. I was looking for someone, somewhere to say, “Having your first child is hard. You will feel inadequate and frustrated and angry and afraid. You will wonder if you’ve made a mistake having a baby.” Basically, I wanted to hear, “Vicki, you are not the only new mom who has ever struggled with this transition into ‘motherhood.’” But no one said this. No books, no friends, no Baby Story episodes. So I was left feeling like I was the only woman on earth who didn’t have the maternal-instinct gene.
What was so hard about becoming a mom?
Everything was hard.
First of all, there is no life transition that is bigger than becoming a parent. Not getting married. Not having someone die. There is nothing that changes your life as completely as “Yesterday? No baby. Today? Baby.” “Yesterday? No baby. Today, human being that relies on you for its entire existence.”
This, I think, is the real Mommy War, what’s behind all the “going back to work/stay at home” issues that we read about—the battle is internal. For me, it was this battle over what I thought motherhood should be versus what I was really going through. How could I admit there was a difference? I had no choice but to get it right. I certainly couldn’t let anyone think I was screwing up. But the face I put on—that things were fine—only made the battle worse and only made me feel more alone.
Do you think this is how all moms feel?
No. I think all moms feel some of the stuff I write about—being torn over going back to work is a good example. But I was a perfect storm—I had a baby who cried a lot; I’m a relentless perfectionist and over-achiever; and I’m obsessively self-analytical. So my experience was extreme. But this is my story. I don’t claim it’s any more than that.
I did not write this book to “help” other women. I didn’t write it to say, “this is how it is, period.” I wrote it because I wished I had a friend at my Baby and Me group who talked as frankly about becoming a mom as I do in this book. That’s what this book is. This book is the equivalent of the friend you meet at Baby and Me who says, “I swear to God I’m going to kill my husband if he comes home late one more day,” or “When she’s crying like that I just can’t help but think shut up.”
What’s been the reaction?
Some people have said, “Thank you for writing this” or “Thank you for making me laugh, because this is a funny book.” Dealing with a human being that’s suddenly eating food out of your body and having your boobs hanging out all the time? That’s funny stuff. Having to put on a bathing suit with your coworkers just four months after having a baby? That’s funny. But, it’s also raw. One mom said I should be “institutionalized.” Another said, “How could you do this to your family?”
I admit lots of things that people have never heard a new mother say before: that I’m not sure if I love my baby, that I’m afraid I made a mistake having her. I admit that I accidentally let her fall out of a swing. I admit that I was on the verge of shaking her. I don’t hold back. And that makes people very uncomfortable.
Why do you think people feel uncomfortable?
The role of “The Mother” has become idealized in our culture. It’s so wrapped up in these images of bliss and joy and “the best thing that ever happened to me”-ness, that women are afraid to talk about it in any other way lest they be judged bad moms. That’s certainly how I felt. And so, when I DO tell the truth about how I was really feeling, I’m challenging all these notions of “motherhood.” Some mothers are offended. I wrote an article about this for Philadelphia Magazine and a reader wrote in saying that the magazine was irresponsible for publishing this story and that I should be investigated. I wrote back to her and said: “You are exactly why women don’t talk about this stuff. They are afraid of being judged for being honest.”
Want more? Check out tomorrow’s edition of The Official Mommy-Muse Blog for Part Two. In the meantime, you can listen to the episode in its entirety here: The Mommy-Muse Is In: Empowering Your Journey into Motherhood.
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