Adapted from a recent online discussion.
Dear Carolyn:
This will be my first Mother’s Day as a mom, and I’m already not enjoying it due to the pressure I feel to balance time with my husband and baby, time with my own mom, and time with my in-laws — including both my husband’s mom and his stepmom, who cannot be grouped together. Everyone is local, so there’s no card-or-phone-call-easy-way-out fix.
My husband is fine with disappointing pretty much anyone except me and wants us to just shut ourselves in to celebrate alone on Sunday, but I would feel terrible doing that to our moms. My mom and mother-in-law have already both called me to try to parcel out my time — really the baby’s time — but if I say yes to everything they’ve requested, I’m left without a moment of downtime all weekend, and barely any time to be alone with my own new family.
I know it won’t be like this every year, since the landscape of the family will shift and the newness of the baby will wear off, but I feel so depressed thinking about how a day that’s supposed to make me and others feel good is inevitably going to lead to someone’s feelings of disappointment or overexertion or rejection. Do you have any good suggestions?
— Balancing
Say no to everything. Not because it’s Mother’s Day and/or Your Day or whatever, but because that’s what you want right now and you feel like your life is out of balance and you want to focus on your husband and baby. Love sometimes gives orders, yes, but it can also take them. And the adults you disappoint can handle disappointment. Be fierce.
To: New mom:
Send the baby and husband along to events with his mom and stepmom, and enjoy some much needed me-time as a mother’s day treat to yourself.
Have one and only one thing with your own mother. One hour, max. Your husband does not need to come. If she’ll pout about this, have something delivered, such as flowers or treats, so she doesn’t feel “abandoned.” If she wants solo grandbaby time as her present, then I say go for it; free baby-sitting so you and your husband can go do something fun.
Lower your expectations for this holiday. Your child is an infant and cannot make or buy you presents and won’t be able to for years. Other than the three-way parent tug of war, which I imagine happens even on normal weekends, and being unable to find reservations at any restaurant, it’s just like any other weekend.
— Anonymous
Dear Carolyn:
How do I make the Mother’s Day ads stop?!?! My mom died, I have a less-than 1 year old, and I just don’t want to do anything. I completely lost it yesterday at a sweet Mother’s Day card they sent home from day care. Can I just turn off the radio and TV (and %@&! Facebook) and bury myself under the covers every Mother’s Day from here on out?
— Under the Covers
Of course. But you won’t need to. Maybe you will this year, maybe next year, yes, maybe at odd times when you least expect it — but the “lost it” phase does pass. Hang in there, and love that baby. I’m sorry about your mom.
— Washington Post Writers Group
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