“Sometimes mothers don’t shower often. Especially new mothers. I know sometimes when we say this stuff, the looks or the replies we get are met with horror… but sometimes it is the truth.
Have you ever had a baby with reflux? With colic? One that won’t let you put it down? I have. I didn’t move from the couch. I just held him all day, because that’s all my heart and mind could take. I couldn’t hear him cry, I couldn’t place him down in a cot like they say is SO easy in the books. He lived pretty much on me. He slept on me. Night time wasn’t any better, it was rinse and repeat and it was exhausting. When my husband came home from work, I’d hand him over and try to do all the things I couldn’t do during the day. Try to cook something, catch up on washing, breathe without a baby clinging to me desperately. Stare into space because that’s all I could do.
I remember finally getting the energy to shower, a place where I’d feel so tired that I’d read the shower bottles and stare into space while the water hit my back, where I was just a zombie and my husband came in and said ‘it’s time to feed him’ and I cried.
I couldn’t master baby wearing, I couldn’t bring him into the bathroom with me because he’d cry, so I’d wait until he slept to try and have a shower. Sometimes I could and sometimes it was a crying disaster. I didn’t have anyone rushing to my door saying, ‘Here, let me help you.’
And yeah, I was depressed, maybe that was a part of it, maybe it contributed to it. I don’t know.
This is just the reality for some moms.
Because moms will put themselves last. After a long day chasing a baby or a toddler or running on fast forward to try to get everything done there’s always more to be done. The babies might go to sleep, the kids might be tucked in. But she will keep going. She will keep going until she passes out on the couch.
And no, dads aren’t useless, but they’re doing other things, or they aren’t present and she’s a single mom.
But even after all that, we just keep going. We just soldier on and we can make jokes about it, dry shampoo, smelling like farms, we make jokes because we are just like that, we just put others before us. Because for some of us, showers do become luxuries.
So yeah sometimes mothers don’t shower every day, and if you can, amazing! You’re lucky! Use your knowledge or showering powers to go help the m0m who isn’t, be that person who says, ‘Here, let me help you’ instead of the one who will add judgement to an already over judged job.
And for the mamas who are having those tough days who are putting themselves last, handball that baby over to your partner, neighbor, best friend, whoever you can trust, sit in the bath, and drink some wine. You deserve it. (Hopefully I’ll say this to myself in 6 month’s time when baby no 3 comes hey…)”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Laura Mazza of Mum on the Run, where it originally appeared. Submit your story here, and subscribe to our best love stories here.
Provide beauty and strength for others. SHARE this story on Facebook with your friends and family