Why do we try to be Wonder Women anyway?

Yesterday at the grocery store as I was checking out, through the windows I saw a woman putting her baby into the baby seat of a cart.  Clearly she was a new mother, and clearly she was having trouble getting the baby strapped in.  When she'd adjusted the straps and made sure everything was okay, I saw her take a deep breath and then look towards the doors of the store.

And being her flooded back to me and I knew just what she was thinking and feeling.  She was already exhausted ... for to get from her house to the doors of the store was monumental.  From all appearances, I would guess that the baby was less than a month old.  While the new mom had showered and dressed in comfortable clothing, that was all the attention she had put into herself.  She looked tired, her hair was that half-wet messy look and I knew what she was trying to do.

Be fricking Wonder Woman

.

What is up with us?  Why do we feel so damn obligated to push ourselves?  It was almost 5:00 p.m. and I knew that she had woken up that morning with one goal:  To get to the grocery store.  She wouldn't make dinner that night -- she wouldn't be able to.  And there is no doubt that while her husband would be pleased to see that she had actually purchased groceries (no doubt she really needed diapers!) he would be disappointed that she hadn't done MORE that day.  You know, like the pile of laundry that kept growing, or even make the bed.  And WHEN WAS SHE going to make dinner?  

When she woke up, after waking up countless times throughout the night to feed her baby, she would be exhausted.   There would be no aaaaaah, I feel like a million bucks type feeling, but that heaviness that cloaks you when you know that every thing you do will make you feel inadequate.  She would feed the baby, change the baby, and after taking care of a few needs of her own, she might, just might have found some breakfast and a moment to herself.

But the baby would be calling for her at some point, and after feeding the baby again, with the goal of getting to the grocery store in her head, she would bathe the baby and dress him/her in an outfit that was clean and perhaps her favorite.  (I always dressed my babies in my fave outfits when we went on outings ... and any stained, messy thing when we were home, since they went through five or six in one day!)  Then after feeding the baby to sleep she would get her own shower.  Of course, since she hadn't had a chance to do laundry because she had been out of laundry detergent for days, she would have to put on the same sweat pants and sweatshirt she'd been wearing for weeks because it was all that fit.

Which would depress her greatly and cause her to throw herself on the couch with anything she could find in the empty cupboards in an attempt to comfort herself.  And then she would wonder, should she go to the store now?  While the baby was asleep?  Or did she wait until the baby woke up, was fed again and then go?   But the fact that no one was needing anything at that moment would cause her to stay anchored in the couch.

By late afternoon she would change the baby from the outing outfit that had been soiled and put on something less than what she had pictured and then get the baby and herself into the car.  This may or may not make her cry.  Hauling the heavy carseat, making sure the diaper bag was packed with enough clothes, diapers and incidentals to get one through very real and potential incidents like diaper blow outs and projectile vomiting and then having to run back to search the house violently for a pocketbook that hasn't been seen in awhile all add up to such an overwhelming stew.  I am stressed just recalling it.

The baby may or may not have cried at the tops of its lungs the entire ride.  It may have slept.  It's a crap shoot getting in the car with an infant.  And it is all made so much better by the fact that for everyone's safety an infant must ride in the middle of the backseat backwards so the mother has no idea if the child is dying when it is crying as though it is dying, or just airing its lungs.  In fact, my neck just started to ache as muscle memory made  me crank my neck to check to see what I could ascertain about the situation by staring at the top and back of the carseat.

Your only option was to shake the car seat, to mimic a rocking motion, though in fact you were far too stressed to be gentle.  Which would then alert you to the fact that you did NOT attach the car seat properly because there is no way it should be moving that much.  Which would make you more stressed and more likely to be in an accident in which said backward infant would somehow find a way to hurl itself through the windshield, because were you not told that infants become projectiles when they are in accident?  And what are the chances of a deranged new mother with no sleep, no food and no brain cells having an accident?

Why don't we have help for months after we have babies?  Why do we feel compelled to believe that we are capable of taking care of not only ourselves, but a new being AND a husband who believes that now that you FINALLY have that baby out of you, you should be so damn thankful you will cook meals out of the sheer joy of not being pregnant?  Who believes that now that you are no longer pregnant, you really have NO EXCUSE not to return to the person you were before.  When the truth of the matter is, it is nearly 22 years after I had my first child and it hasn't happened yet, so it's not likely it will happen in WEEKS.

As I watched this woman it awakened so many memories for me.  Not only did I know how she felt, but I knew that it wouldn't stop being overwhelming for her for years to come.  And that it was highly likely that before she found some type of equilibrium, she would add another baby to the mix anyway.  So why even try to save her?

I guess I just don't understand why we pretend that it is all so easy and that when we get together with friends we share our birth stories and the trauma of that -- but overall we are so hell bent on being the wonder women we're supposed to be, we downplay the fact that everything is just so damn hard.  So hard.

So I'm not going to be Wonder Woman anymore.  And the next time I see a woman like that, or even that very same woman, I am going to go up to her and say to her that she looks beautiful.   And that she should ask for help and take any help that is offered, because she is not being judged on her accomplishments of the day (and if her husband is, then leave him home with the baby while she shops and tell him to finish up the laundry, clean the house and make the bed and see what HE gets done!) and that really, we women -- we are the ones who believe we are never doing enough.

And I have NO IDEA what this woman is thinking.  But there is no doubt in my mind, she has Wonder Woman Syndrome too!  (Or her husband gave her a Segway when she complained that the grocery store was too far to walk to and since HE had the car ...)  Note that she has the wet hair, but is BRAVE enough to wear white pants.  But she did forget one small thing.  Socks for the tot.