How Parenthood Has Changed Me- Main Line Parent Magazine Article

An article I wrote about How Parenthood Has Changed Me was chosen by readers to be published in Main Line Parent Magazine's latest edition.

You can go to www.mainlineparent.com and Subscribe for a free Digital Membership to view the entire magazine online.  My article is on the very last page.  Or, subscribe as a Supporting Member for $30 a year to receive paper copies of all issues.

You can also read it below:

"In a home with two little boys under four, there is never any shortage of stories to recount or comedy to share.  I could fill pages upon pages with tales of their antics and adventures.  But it's not often that I stop to reflect on myself and my own personal tale to tell.  It's funny how that happens when you become a parent, how easy it is to forget your own story.  

Life before babies was not so long ago, but it feels like a lifetime.  I remember feeling a lot of pressure back then.  To wear the right clothes, to drive the right car, to listen to the right music.  To keep our home looking immaculate, to keep myself in great shape, to always have everything together.  I kept this pressure on myself for the first year of our first born's life.  Finn was a dream come true, and I wanted everything to be perfect for our perfect little boy.  He would wear the right clothes, he would have the right toys, he would listen to the right music.  Our storybook life would move along just as I had planned.

After Finn's first birthday we started to feel things unravel a bit.  Nothing was really wrong, but something didn't feel quite right.  We made a lot of excuses and dragged our feet a while, until he was 15 months old, and my husband and I found ourselves sitting in a meeting room at the CCIU, staring at our hands under the fluorescent lights, while a developmental pediatrician told us our baby had autism. 

I was numb for a while after that.  I didn't quite know what to feel.  But I hated the fact that someone had told me that my little boy wasn't perfect.  And that maybe it was because of me, something I did, my imperfections, my flaws that made him that way.  I hated feeling like things weren't the way they were supposed to be.  Like something in us was broken.

Autism was such a big scary word back then, and we didn’t know what it meant or what it was going to do.  For a long time we thought we had to fight to save Finn or fix Finn, but somewhere along the way we realized he wasn’t broken.  We have a little boy with a disability, and he experiences the world differently than we do.  So we have had to learn to do things differently.  And it has not been a bad thing.  In truth, it’s been a really magical thing.  In learning to understand and enable my son, I have not only gotten to know and love how autism makes him who he is, but I have also gotten to know and love myself and my life- with all of the beautiful little imperfections.  We love and accept Finn for every part of who he is- including the autism part.  And he has truly thrived because of it.  He is just the happiest little dude and he surprises and impresses us every single day.

It has been two years now since Finn was diagnosed, and since then we have had another little boy, Cole, who turned one in September.  It is so refreshing to watch them.  These two totally different little people, content to be 100% themselves.  They are wacky and weird, hilarious and high spirited, and the absolutely the joy of our lives. 

It has taken a lot of growing and learning and accepting to get to the place where I am today, and it is because of motherhood.  It is because I have faced challenges I never thought I would face, won victories I never knew I could win, and learned to love myself unconditionally along the way.  I am different now.  I am stronger.  It is because of my babies.  

My clothes are pulled on and stained by tiny little hands, my car is full of goldfish crumbs, and the only music I listen to these days are sing along songs.   My house is anything but immaculate- most days it looks as though someone shook it up like a dollhouse and threw everything back in it at random.  And my body has changed.  My stomach is softer, my eyes are lined and tired.  But my arms are stronger, and my heart is full. I never feel like I have it all together anymore.  But I often think of that cheesy line - together we have it all - because it's just so true.  I am not perfect, but I am growing.  My children aren't perfect, but they are happy.  Our life isn't perfect, but it is beautiful. 

Motherhood has changed so much of me, has truly altered every fiber of my being so much so that, when I think of my former self, she is almost unrecognizable.  One might think, from the outside, that I have lost myself in this journey as a mother.  But upon reflection, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude, a feeling of peace.  In knowing that on this journey, I have not lost myself, but I have found myself.  I haven't forgotten who I was, but I have become who I am supposed to be. 
I think that’s the best kind of story."


Thanks to the folks at MLP Magazine, and for everyone who voted for my submission!