At home with the child – Day four

My son's godmother is a mother of four, who has been doing what I've only been doing for 4 days, so if there's anyone whose opinion matters to me on this topic, it's Dóri. Dóri called me yesterday and asked how I was coping with my commitment. Well, I have problems, I said, but I couldn't really give a clear answer, whereupon Dóri said not to worry, that's just how it is. There are bad days and there are better days, but every difficult day will make the next difficult day easier because you'll become more and more resilient.

When I hung up the phone, I thought about this, and I realized that this applies to everything. Whatever we start, the beginning is always tough. When you start working out, the first few sessions are always the worst, but then you feel they're less and less strenuous, even though your performance has significantly improved. I remember when I started writing this blog back in 2011, my first run was 2 km, and I thought I would die there. Then 3 months passed, I was working out 4 times a week, and I could run 15 km without getting tired at all by the end, in fact, it felt really good.

But it's the same when you start a new job; the first few days are really tough there too. This is true for anything you start that you haven't done in a concentrated way before.

The beginning is hard.

My fourth day was especially difficult. I was tired, very tired. I felt like when you have to get up early in the morning, you set the alarm, the alarm goes off, but you absolutely don't feel like getting up, you just want to sleep more, and even if you mentally get up, physically you're so exhausted that you don't want to get up and you just think about how you could sleep a little bit more, just a little bit. Then, of course, you get up, but you're in a death coma.

Well, yesterday was like that for me, not just in the morning, but all day. I dragged myself to the child, I dragged myself when I had to change him, and generally my whole day was terribly awful. It wasn't the lack of sleep that made it difficult, but the multitude of tasks towering over me.

It's not watching the child and generally caring for the child every minute of the day that's difficult; I can manage that quite well now. The real burden is managing the household. I feel this to be of such magnitude and so burdensome that the mere thought of it sedates me completely.

I could best describe this state as standing before a huge mountain, and this mountain represents the unwashed clothes, the unwashed dishes, the cleaning, the constant tidying up, and generally organizing the apartment. Every single damn day I find some task whose existence I didn't even know about until now, but as I delve deeper, I discover these tasks.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I really want to do everything AT LEAST the way Reni does it every day. At least the same cleanliness, at least the same order, at least to operate the system I lived in for the past few years.

And it's incredibly hard.

If I just say now that clothes are not enough to wash and hang out, but when they are dry they have to be folded and put in the wardrobe, but not just any wardrobe, but put them in the child's wardrobe on the right shelf, put them in Reni's, or arrange them in my wardrobe. In my wardrobe, the surroundings of which currently look like this, because the child takes everything out of the drawers and throws it around.

I'm constantly thinking about how to reduce this workload, and do you know what I've realized? I'm increasingly finding myself cutting corners. Those two sandwiches during the day are fine for me, I don't cook for myself, those sweatpants I've been wearing for 3 days are fine, and I seriously mean that I'm getting to the point where I feel genuine guilt putting on a clean shirt, because I think, at least my clothes shouldn't add to the laundry pile.

I purposely took a photo. I've been wearing these track pants for 3 days. I think that stain on them has been there for 3 days, but thinking about it more deeply, it's definitely been 3 days because it got there when I was feeding the child.

Well, that's pretty tough, somewhere.

And I also know where, because there are these playground stories that one hears, and information leaks out from there that there are sloppy mothers and there are those mothers who appear at the playground with makeup, freshly styled hair, and nicely dressed. In my current state, I completely understand the sloppy mothers, and I cannot even imagine how those women who appear normally at these playgrounds manage to reach that level.

I know there are many front lines between mothers, and crazy, merciless wars are raging here. We know these front lines. Do you breastfeed or give formula, do you send your child to daycare or keep them at home until kindergarten age, where do you put them in the shopping cart, and a bunch of other crazy debates that, honestly, I don't even understand anymore,

Because everyone wants the best for their child and wants to be the best mother.

And if that's the case, which it is, then why is there this constant badgering of each other over every tiny, crappy thing? Even after 4 days, this doesn't fit into my head.

This motherhood thing is incredibly difficult, and I'm increasingly realizing that childcare is only a very small part of it. The majority is household management and a million little things that seem insignificant on their own, but actually make up the greater part of motherhood. The quality, spirit, energy level, and most importantly, the amount of love with which we raise that child. This requires a lot of strength and energy. But this strength and energy cannot be spent on mothers tearing each other apart.

I'm not yet part of this wonderful subculture, cultivated in thousands of mom groups on Facebook, but I've already had a taste of its wonderful flavor. For example, there was yesterday's story about where I put Ádi in the shopping cart. Does it really matter? Does it damage the child's self-esteem, or will anything bad happen to them because of it? But that's not even the point. If you're a mother, you can't do anything without a million other mothers with bloodshot eyes showing up, and no matter what you do, they attack you like flies, and you don't understand why.

I'll tell you why. Because they themselves are insecure. Motherhood comes with the feeling of "am I doing everything right, or could I possibly do it even better?" I've only been doing it for 4 days, but I already feel insecure about everything.

Am I doing everything right? Is the child not hungry? Did I dress him well enough for the afternoon walk? Will he not catch a cold like this? A thousand such uncertainties, and behind it all is this incredibly heavy burden that I described above, that is, childcare and managing the household.

I founded and still lead a company with billions in revenue, and believe me, establishing LifeTILT was no wellness weekend in the Swiss Alps. But now I feel that wasn't as difficult as doing the same mundane, monotonous, unchallenging housework at home (which, by the way, I've barely even started), fighting with the child, and ultimately fighting with myself not to completely dull my mind in this stay-at-home life.

And to frame today with a structured narrative, there's something else Dóri told me a while ago. I didn't attach much importance to it then, but its meaning is now starting to make sense to me.

1 hour every day

1 day every week

1 weekend every month

2 weeks every year

This is how much child-free leisure time every mother needs, and Dóri asked her husband to ensure this for her under all circumstances.

I had this daily 1 hour. Completely exhausted yesterday, I got in the car and just drove around the city for 1 hour with no thoughts whatsoever. I needed it.

Tomorrow I'll do all the housework.