Having a Child Changes Your Life

The Gift of Motherhood: 10 Truths for Every Mother
by Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.D.

Inspired by her relationship with her own daughter and informed by the numerous parents and teens she's helped in her family workshops, Cherie Carter-Scott culls the ten truths she's observed about this special role:

1. Having a child changes your life.
2. Motherhood is an experience unlike any other.
3. A mother has many roles.
4. If you honor your children's essence, they will blossom.
5. Love shows up in many different forms.
6. As your child grows, so will you.
7. There will be highs and lows.
8. Remembering to care for yourself is essential.
9. There is no such thing as a perfect mother.
10. Motherhood is a process that never ends.

Part tribute, part handbook, The Gift of Motherhood exudes Carter-Scott's vitality and wit, offering moms a way to celebrate the joys and navigate the rough spots along their journey. Though every mother walks her own path and every child is unique, Motherhood shares certain universal truths. This gem of a book acknowledges and affirms that the experience of being a mother is astounding, overwhelming, miraculous, and above all, a gift.

Your reality is transformed the moment your child arrives.

Welcome to motherhood: the single most profound and transformative rite of passage a woman can experience. Of course, there are other major turning points throughout our lives — puberty, graduations, career achievements, marriage — but none can really compare to the experience of welcoming a child into this world and being responsible for its care. Motherhood is the most precious gift as well as the ultimate responsibility . . . and the doorway to the most extraordinary love you have ever known. It stretches you beyond what you ever imagined you were capable of. It can be a source of supreme fulfillment and, at times, a source of some of the deepest heartbreak.

To say that motherhood transforms your life forever is something of an understatement. The moment your child is born, your life undergoes seismic changes; however things were before this tiny creature arrived, they certainly are no longer that way. It turns your life, your schedule, your perspective, and your relationships inside out, backward, and upside down. You feel a love that is different from anything you've ever felt before. What mattered before seems less significant as a whole new set of priorities arise, and you experience life in a totally new way. When you assume the new identity of "mother," within an instant your world is never quite the same again.

It's difficult to anticipate what will be on the other side of the changes, or what your life will look like after a baby arrives. You can plan, prepare, speculate, and imagine, but what it comes down to is this: no one knows exactly how their life will change when they become a parent. They only know for certain that it will.

So many women I've counseled over the years express real fear at the magnitude of the changes a baby can bring. While most of them were thrilled at the idea of becoming a mother — something many of them had dreamt about for years — there were still twinges of fear or even panic when they thought about how much their lives were about to change. One client described it as "nine months on the diving board, not quite knowing what you're about to plunge into."

On the flip side of fear lies excitement — even exhilaration. There is the spiritual sense that you are making a contribution to the eternal circle of life, that you are joining the ranks of an honored sisterhood. You are crossing a threshold in your life, and you will now be able to give all you know to another living being. There is anticipation of the rewards: the sweet kisses, the warmth of a grateful hug, precious finger paintings and the glitter Mother's Day cards, the pride of seeing them make strides both big and small. My friend Laura swears she could make millions if she could just bottle and sell the expression of pure delight on her three-year-old's face when she searches and finds her mother among all the other moms waiting outside nursery school. That moment alone makes all the upheaval and change worth it.

Motherhood opens the door to a whole new range of experiences. Whether you approach it with trepidation or excitement, it will change your life in more ways than you can imagine.

The Rhythm of Your Life

When a child enters the world through you, it alters everything on a psychic, psychological, and purely practical level.

— JANE FONDA

Each of us has a rhythm to our lives. It's the framework we set for the notes we play out each and every day. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you have a specific rhythm to the way you presently live your life. It's what makes you comfortable, and it comprises all the patterns to which you and your mate have become accustomed. You know when and how you take your coffee or tea, what you will do on Saturday night, which movies you plan to see, how much time it takes you to complete your workout. Hopefully, your life runs smoothly most of the time as all the parts flow together in harmony. Then along comes baby, and suddenly none of them flow quite the same way anymore.

It's hard to describe how radically life changes when you bring a new baby into the mix. Amy was among the first in her group of friends to have a baby, and whenever she was with her friends she was keenly aware of how different her life was from before. She and her husband, Phil, used to go out at least once every weekend with their friends to dinner or a movie, yet once Zach was born, it wasn't quite so easy. There were baby-sitting arrangements to be made, cellular phones to be left on in case of an emergency, and they got tired much earlier in the evening (due to the fact that they had been up the whole night before with Zach). Their friends would order a few drinks with dinner, but Amy refrained because she was nursing. Amy's friends would talk about going to a spa for a girls' weekend, and she knew she wouldn't feel comfortable leaving Zach until he was a little older. Amy and Phil began to notice more and more that they had entered a new life phase, and that the way they had run their lives before would need to evolve.

The first few months with a newborn are when the changes are most apparent. That time can be something akin to spiritual ecstasy and logistical chaos. There is nursing and/or bottles to be made, cries to calm, diapers to be changed, lullabies to sing in hopes of putting the little one back to sleep at 3 a.m. There is an endless array of stuff: blankets, strollers, pacifiers, and toys everywhere. As your child grows, suddenly your schedule is filled with play dates, doctor appointments, and swim and tumbling classes, as you and your partner try to juggle all this new baby activity with all the grown-up parts of your life. Where before your bag may have held your lipstick, keys, credit card, and Palm Pilot, now it is bulging with diapers, wipes, pacifiers, and bottles. The Practice is replaced by Sesame Street; sushi is eclipsed by mashed bananas; "dry clean only" is traded in for wash-and-wear. You can't even name the latest movie, let alone see it, and you probably haven't thought about sex or romance in ages. You may not even recognize the life you are presently living, and you're not sure how things changed so radically so fast.

Almost every mother I've spoken to has had an experience that somewhat resembles this scenario. I had a newborn almost twenty years ago, and although some specific elements have changed, the general idea is still basically the same. Although some fortunate mothers experience a very smooth transition from being childless to having their firstborn, the majority of women I know experience significant upheaval. No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that we are different, it's impossible for our lives to go on as usual right after the baby is born.

Copyright © 2002 by Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.D., is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller If Life is a Game, These are the Rules; If Love is a Game, These are the Rules; If Success is a Game, These are the Rules; Negaholics; and If High School is a Game, Here's How to Break the Rules (combined sales of more than 1,000,000). Founder and chair of the Motivation Management Service Institute, Inc., she conducts corporate and public seminars worldwide, dividing her time between California, Nevada, and the Netherlands.