How the first five years of motherhood kicked my ass
My two sons are now 15 and 12. Becoming a mother absolutely turned my life inside out. Looking back on my motherhood journey so far, I can say that the first five years really kicked my ass and I survived to tell my story.
In 2007, at the age of 29, I gave birth to our first son, Jalen. We welcomed our second son, Max, three years later. During this time I was working full time as a Technical Program Manager (TPM) at Amazon, in Seattle, USA. Despite my life long dream of being a mom, nothing could have really prepared me for what was to come.
When Jalen was born, both of my parents were still working. And they lived a three hour drive away. My in-laws were both retired and lived in Seattle. As traditional, first generation immigrant Chinese parents, they felt it was their obligation to provide us with much needed childcare when I was to go back to work. With this knowledge, we felt a huge weight off our shoulders. I returned to my job after my maximum state allowed unpaid 16 weeks disability (yes, disability) leave. Here’s a taste of my typical day after I went back to work. During this time, we were temporarily staying at my in-laws while we were prepping to move into our newly purchased house:
5:00 am — 6:30am: first feeding of the day, depending on when Jalen wakes up. Then I put him back down to sleep.
8:00 am: I get up. Usually, Jalen is still sleeping. I pump, then get ready for work.
9:00 am: I leave for work around 9am. Jalen’s Grandma gives him a bottle of pumped milk when he wakes up.
12:00pm: I come home from work to feed Jalen. It only takes me about 10 minutes to get to Grandma’s from work. So after I feed Jalen I still have time to eat a quick lunch.
3:00pm: Jalen’s Grandma gives Jalen a bottle of pumped milk.
6:00pm: I come home from work and feed Jalen. Then pump.
9:00pm: I feed Jalen and put him down to sleep.
11:30pm: I wake Jalen up for his last feeding of the day then he goes back to sleep. I go to bed.
I did all this while I worked my demanding, 40+ hour week job at Amazon. At the time, my husband was working full time at a job that required him to travel about 50% of the time. He had to have a suitcase packed and be ready to get on a plane with a mere three hour notice. When we finally moved into our own house around the time Jalen was five months old, the reality of working motherhood really hit me. During the week, my in-laws took care of Jalen while we were at work, but on the weekends, we were on our own. I still recall vividly one Saturday afternoon when my husband was away on business. I mustered up the courage to pack up Jalen’s necessities and make my way to the mall. He decided this wasn’t for him and he proceeded to scream non-stop. I was too embarrassed to walk into stores with a screaming baby. Every shriek grated on my nerves and I quickly gave up and went home. The rest of the weekend dragged and I longed for Monday to come so I could return to work and have some semblance of control over my day.
Then life threw us a curveball. My father in law was diagnosed with cancer when Jalen was about six months old. My in-laws naturally could no longer be my full time childcare providers. We frantically called around for daycare centers. Since Jalen was still under one year old, our earliest chance of getting into any daycare full time was six months away when he turned one. We were in a bind. My husband’s work travel schedule was an additional stressor and it clearly wasn’t working for our family life. So he left his job and became Jalen’s full time caregiver for the next six months. If you asked him about that time now, he’d recall that it was a challenging time. He never expected to take on that role. There were afternoons that he would drive Jalen around in the car so he would take a nap. But it was also a special time for him where he could spend so much time with Jalen, performing all the essential duties like feeding, washing and diaper changes. I’m still ever so grateful for what he did.
By the time Jalen started daycare, our life became a bit more predictable. Sure, we still planned our weekends around Jalen’s nap time. And we were frazzled when he got sick and we debated which one of us should stay home with him. But soon, it started to feel like we were regaining control of our lives. We were allowed to have some fun outside of caring for our child. As Jalen was about to turn two years old, I had the inkling that it was time for our second. We had always agreed on two children, but we hadn’t exactly agreed on when. My husband was still relishing the little newly gained sanity we got, but I was worried about having the right spacing between the two kids. As the way things worked out, Max was born three months before Jalen’s third birthday.
This time around, we knew we had to secure our own child care for when I was to return to work. Having a child under one year old in full daycare not only costs over $2000 per month but there was also usually a 9–12 months wait list. I reluctantly put our name on the waitlist at one of the only childcare centers that had space, but it also happened to be one of the more expensive ones and located in an inconvenient area of the city for drop off and pick up. Then one day, while I was at the local park with both my boys and dreading my upcoming return to work, I started chatting with a middle aged lady with a toddler. I found out that she was a nanny who was caring for a child in the neighborhood who was about to enter preschool. She was retired and nannied to fill her time. She also happened to be from my birthplace of Shanghai, China, so we spoke comfortably in our native Shanghainese dialect. Like a miracle, she offered to become my nanny until Max turned one and was old enough to go to daycare. She wanted to help a fellow countrywoman. What a relief! But having a paid nanny had its trade-offs versus sending your child to daycare: (1) she only wanted to work 40 hours a week, and with our commutes, we were away from our house at least nine hours a day, (2) she needed to have days off to take vacations and (3) if she was ever sick, there was no back up for her. I had to contort myself to my new normal of being a working mother of two:
6am — first feeding of the day for Max, put him back down to sleep. me stumble back to bed
7am — get up, get dressed for work
7:30am — Jalen wakes up. I get him to pee, wash hands, eat breakfast and dress for school. Then he gets to watch some TV
8am — my husband leaves with Jalen to drop him off to daycare
8:30am — nanny arrives for Max. We debrief about how Max was yesterday,
then plan for dinner (she cooks for me!!)
8:45am — leave for work. I drive to the park and ride then take the bus to work downtown
9:30am — arrive at the office. sometimes I grab breakfast
5:30pm — leave the office, take the bus to the park and ride
6:15pm — arrive at Jalen’s daycare for pick up
6:30pm — arrive at home with Jalen. Hubby usually picks up Max from my sister-in-law’s house. I feed Max.
6:45pm — the rest of us eat dinner. it’s so nice to have the nanny cook for us. it saves so much time and stress
7–8:30pm — keep the kids entertained, sometimes run errands like going to the store
8:30pm — I feed Max and put him to sleep. Meantime, Hubby tries his best to put Jalen down.
9pm — finally able to have some quiet. I might catch up on work, watch some TV, do laundry
11:30pm — bedtime
My sister in law was a stay at home mom at the time, so she filled the gap between the time the nanny clocked out and when we could come home from work. It truly took a village to make Max’s first year work and sometimes it felt like a house of cards that might crumble at any minute. That’s kind of what happened shortly after I went back to work after my maximum state allowed 20-weeks disability leave (a 4 week increase from last time!). Jalen had just turned three years old and was smart enough to figure out that while he had to go to preschool, his baby brother got to stay home with the nanny. He decided to rebel and would throw massive tantrums in the morning when it was time to go to preschool. During this time, when I finally got myself onto the bus to commute to work I felt like I had already worked half a day.
Eventually Jalen got through his morning tantrum phase. Max turned one and started going to daycare. I no longer had my nanny who was cooking dinner for us each night, which had relieved us of a grinding daily task. I thought with both boys in the same childcare center, our life could fall back into a rhythm again. Not so fast. Max started solids at age one and he turned out to be a very picky eater. I never had this problem with Jalen so I was at a bit of a loss. Should I make him eat whatever I give him or nothing at all? Or should I give in and give Max only what he wanted to eat (avocados and tofu)? Jalen was not to be left out of the fun. He decided that he no longer wanted to sleep in his own room at night, despite having been in his own room since about two months old. Each night he would come into our bedroom and wanted to sleep in our bed. We were very firm about not wanting to co-sleep with our boys, so we would lead him back into his room only to have him refuse and cry. I was terrified that he would wake up a sleeping Max, but we wanted to hold our ground. This went on for about a month where every night our sleep would be disrupted. Some mornings we would wake up to find Jalen sleeping on the floor of our bedroom or even in our bed because we were too exhausted to notice him sneaking in. Finally, we decided to try putting the two boys in the same bedroom and that magically fixed the problem. The boys ended up sharing a bedroom until they were about 14 and 11!
Right around this time, when Jalen was four and Max was one, I reached my working mom tipping point. Something had to give. I was constantly anxious, either worried about the next work thing or the next mom thing. I couldn’t relax. Every day was a grind. That was when I quit Amazon after 10 years. I honestly didn’t know what other options I had. Any time when I thought I had my feet under me, my two little ones would throw me a new challenge: like teething or misbehaving at daycare.
Sadly, when my boys were four and one, my father in law lost his battle with cancer. Even though we knew it was inevitable, it didn’t make things any easier. One late night, while I was soothing Max to sleep, I lamented over my own struggles and thought of my newly widowed mother in law. What if we could help each other through this difficult chapter together? It was a twinkle of an idea that grew into a plan — for us to move in with my mother in law. My husband was on board and we put things into motion. Even though the move was only 10 miles, she lived in the city, while we had been living in a nearby suburb. This meant finding brand new childcare for Max and enrolling Jalen in kindergarten in a different school district. When the dust finally settled after the move, I was able to look around and appreciate everything we had gained. My commute went from 50 minutes to 20 minutes and grandma was able to walk Jalen to kindergarten in less than 10 minutes.
Most importantly, my husband and I could reclaim some adult nights out without having to pay over $100 a night for a babysitter. Also around this time, both of my parents retired. They were able to visit us and take care of the boys when we needed them. My husband and I were finally able to take our first week-long adult vacation since the kids were born. We ended up living with my mother in law for three years before we moved back to our own house when Max was five and ready to start kindergarten.
The first five years of motherhood was alternating between being pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum. I didn’t feel like my body or my mind truly belonged to me. I now look back on this time with both pride and sadness. I’m proud that I was able to rise to the challenge and come out of it with my career and my marriage still intact. But I’m sad for all the moms out there who don’t have relatives nearby or can’t afford paid childcare. In Canada, where I grew up, each parent is allowed 6 months of paid parental leave which can be shared between both parents. I think about how much relief that would have been for us. Since that time, Amazon has increased its parental leave to 20 paid weeks, including four weeks before the baby is born. I have many friends in their early to mid thirties who are either choosing not to have children at all, or debating when to take the plunge, and I don’t blame their hesitation. Being a mother has been the most rewarding thing that I’ve done in my life but it’s also been the hardest. It shouldn’t feel like a unique puzzle for individual couples to figure out how to solve. However, until the US provides better support for new parents, the best advice I can think of to give to parents is to find their village. During these early, difficult years of parenthood, building your village is more important than things that might have been important during other chapters of your life. For me, those years were very much about giving myself to my children. But I also learned that in the grand scheme of things, that chapter is relatively brief, and soon my children started to give back and enrich my life in more ways than I can count.
