By Rachel Simmons — 2014
The rewards that come with celebrating my girl’s rich character have given me permission to see the fullness of my own.
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CLEAR ALL
Parenthood — especially for women — changes you. After giving birth, the brain actually redesigns itself, trimming old connections and building new ones. If you’re someone who has constructed your adult identity around your career, these changes to how you operate can shake your foundations.
New research demonstrates parental burnout has serious consequences. As defined by the study, burnout is an exhaustion syndrome, characterized by feeling overwhelmed, physical and emotional exhaustion, emotional distancing from one’s children, and a sense of being an ineffective parent.
A few months and many deaths ago, I woke up exhausted, again. Every morning, I felt like I was rebuilding myself from the ground up. Waking up was hard. Getting to my desk to write was hard. Taking care of my body was hard. Remembering the point of it all was hard.
Feelings of ambivalence about parenthood aren’t necessarily going to do harm to children. But when regret suffuses the parent-child dynamic, the whole family can suffer.