The piece of advice that keeps recurring to me as I step gingerly through the minefield is this one: rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.
It sounds straightforward enough, but it takes quite a bit of emotional agility to do both at the same time – to celebrate people’s wins when you’re deep in the slog, or to enter into someone’s woes when things are going well for you.
But as parenthood loomed for me, it felt like all anyone tells you about having kids is the hard stuff: the loss of sleep, time, autonomy, even self.
All this is a great advance on the conspiracy of silence that (to some extent) once existed – the sense that it would be betraying your kids and your sacred vocation as a mother to acknowledge that you don’t exactly love everything about it, all the time.
Laments for lost sleep or lost sanity meet a sympathetic ear, but to enthuse about time with your baby can sound like bragging, or trigger an uneasy competitiveness.
