BABY DRIVERS
Newborns call the shots — even for celebs
CONFESSION: I love seeing people absolutely wrecked by parenthood — bonus points if they were particularly put together and capable adult humans before the storm hit. Which is why the recent “Stars — they’re just like us!” moments from rapper Cardi B and tennis superstar Serena Williams were so refreshing.
Before I got pregnant, I knew exactly who I’d be as a parent, and it wasn’t going to be much different than who I already was. I wouldn’t become a totally different person, I wouldn’t become one of those women obsessed with their children; I would just be adding a member to our family.
I was totally unprepared for not just how I would be leveled, but what it would look like when I rebuilt my life and personality after I became a mother.
We’ve only recently begun to understand how carrying a child changes a woman’s brain and biochemistry. In The Atlantic, maternal brain researcher Pilyoung Kim said: “Mothers actually report very high levels of patterns of thinking about things that they cannot control. They’re constantly thinking about baby. Is baby healthy? Sick? Full?”
“In new moms, there are changes in many of the brain areas,” Kim continued. “Growth in brain regions involved in emotion regulation, empathy-related regions, but also what we call maternal motivation — and I think this region could be largely related to obsessive-compulsive behaviors.”
This is a deep evolutionary pull. Our obsession with our young keeps them alive. Before having children, most women would never dream of becoming as fixated as new mothers become on their baby’s every breath, every bowel movement, every feeding. But they do, because that shift from woman to mother is so monumental; so profound it almost always catches women by surprise.
In the tabloid gossip magazine “US Weekly” there’s a popular photo spread called “Stars: They’re Just Like Us!” in which paparazzi document celebrities doing mundane tasks we all do: food shopping, pumping gas, etc. Now there’s a new experience to add to the list: getting leveled by a several pound baby, and becoming a different person, with different priorities, upon rebuilding.
Last month, just a few weeks after the birth of her daughter Kulture, Cardi B decided to drop out of a tour scheduled with Bruno Mars because she had, as she explained, “underestimated this whole mommy thing.” She made her announcement on Instagram, and explained, “Not only am I not ready physically, but I am not ready to leave my baby behind since the doctors explained it’s not healthy for her to be on the road.”
Landing a tour of this magnitude was a major accomplishment — she’s only 25, after all. But suddenly the tour came second — because babies have a way of pushing everything to second-place. She even pretended to bring Kulture up on stage at Monday’s MTV Video Music Awards — she had an award “moon man” wrapped in a baby blanket.
This week, Serena Williams opened up about her experience since giving birth to a daughter a year ago in a new interview in Time magazine.
Discussing her motherhood journey, Williams explained a phenomenon every mother is all too familiar with: “Sometimes [my daughter] just wants Mommy, she doesn’t want anyone else,” Williams said, nearly choking up. “I still have to learn a balance of being there for her and being there for me. I’m working on it. I never understood women before, when they put themselves in second or third place. And it’s so easy to do.
Williams continued, “I don’t think I’m doing it right.”
What’s refreshing about the Cardi B and Serena Williams statements is they are acknowledging a basic biological fact: There has been a shift in priorities and sheer identity. Suddenly careers, even intensely successful ones in the public eye, have to be shaped around their children, not vice versa.
Unlike most celebrities, these two young mothers aren’t treating their children like accessories in a photoshoot, but instead publicly recognizing that they have deeply changed, and that change is surprising and scary.
It’s a message more new mothers need to hear: You will change, everyone does, and it’s an experience to be embraced, not fought.