What Every Mom Needs: The Underwhelming Bliss of a Warm Bath
Last night I escaped. It was warm. Sporadically quiet. Somewhat secluded. The scenery sucked, but if I closed my eyes I could be anywhere. Anywhere besides a caulked-up bathtub in a paint-chipped bathroom in a rental house on which I had worked tirelessly for weeks to make it feel like home for now. Anywhere, unless you count the interruption by someone who needed to know how to spell Paleolithic nowww, nooot laterrrr or another someone who DID NOT EAT A BOOGER STOP TELLING ON ME YOU BUTTHOLE.
A warm bath is as close to therapy as most moms will get. Like therapists, some baths are better than others, but no bath will fix us.
Imperfect solution? I'm here for it. A bath is my go-to for the coveted me time most moms get so little of but need so desperately. As most moms, I'm busy. I work for myself, at home, and have two volunteer gigs; a home to keep up—not to mention a 40-something butt to keep up, so, squats; a yard to clean because my dog insists on regular bowel movements; 30-minute healthy meals to cook in 60 minutes or more; and two little boys with nails to clip, bellies to fill, emotional needs to meet, hair to cut (salons have taught me I can make them look just as stupid for free), homework featuring "new math" that was invented on an acid trip, school paperwork that multiplies like the Duggars, "well child" appointments that make you sick, birthday parties for kids you've never seen with parents you don't want to meet, revolving messes and fights courtesy of He Did It, and plenty of hugs and kisses even though you're a mean mom who won't let them mainline Pixie Sticks.
In the tub, I have 30 minutes, 45 on a good (bad?) day, to escape from duty and feel a little bit lighter. Plus my quads and abs look pretty good at a reclined angle. I've been going to therapy in the bathtub for the past nine years. The relationship began on rocky ground.
It was a random Saturday morning in my early teens. My mom handed me a canister of Comet cleaner and a rag and gave me my first-ever responsibility. From then on, it was my job to scrub the bathtub once a week. My disdain for the chore was as big and invincible as the teased bangs I dutifully petrified with a huge pink can of Aquanet every morning.
It took a few decades post-Aquanet bangs for the bathtub to transform from enemy to refuge. For every weary mother of young children, there's a vat of warm water waiting to whisk you away. If you can manage to get there before the hot-water tank is ravaged by the dishwasher or the clothes washer or the kids' baths, that is.
It started when I was pregnant with my first son nine years ago. I'd fill my parents' jetted tub up to my neck with warm water—shaking off trepidation about overheating my oven—and lie reclined, marveling at my nearly D-cup breasts (a one-time gift with purchase, it turns out) and the big belly that constituted the bulk of my nearly 40-pound weight gain. Those evenings alone in the tub with my flesh of rolling hills and valleys became a ritual. When the baby came, bath time—and all time—became his, for at least the next year.
To this day I don't understand why none of my friends who'd had children long before me didn't speak of the first year. I blame the generations before us who defined motherhood through deprivation—of sleep, personal space, food, intimacy. The less you had as an individual human, the better mom you were. Work yourself to the bone? Atta girl! Never done cleaning? Isn't it great! Frustrated because Daddy doesn't have such a long to-do list? Silly, that's just how it is! At the end of your rope because baby doesn't sleep? Enjoy every minute of it!
When my first son was two, we left behind the safety of my parents' home and, to my delight, the suffocation of my small, parochial hometown. The manager of a 4-unit apartment building tacitly agreed not to make a fuss over my pit bull, and I agreed to pay $900 a month, fingers crossed behind my back. We were in the progressive small city where I'd collected an English degree that may or may not have led to the burgeoning career I'd left behind three states away when a plus sign on a white plastic stick changed everything. In our new home, I wasn't comfortable letting my tiny boy roam freely during my baths, so I put him behind a baby gate in the bathroom and pretended to relax while he explored rolls of toilet paper, vintage head scarves, and the Vroooom! button on the Lightning McQueen Training Potty That Couldn't.
Nearly two years later when my second child was born, baths again belonged to the boy in my life. He was long and skinny, with the head of dark hair I'd hoped for in light of stories of a skunk stripe that ran through his father's newborn head. His dad would watch me bathe him every night, at least for the first month, and we'd smile down at our beautiful creation, like a moment stolen straight out of a Pampers commercial. For the next few months, my personal baths were anything but a refuge and everything like a frantic race. My nursing boobs weren't nearly as bountiful this time around, so it's not like I even had a trophy to admire en route to the finish line.
Motherhood is harder than I ever could've imagined. Actually, I never imagined it before it snuck up on me at age 35. Prior, life was about my friends, my dogs, my aspirations, and, embarassingly, my poor excuses for relationships. My identity, I thought, was set: the girl with the pit bulls who ran a lot and had her eye on the prize of writing for a living. Life loves to tap us on the shoulder and hand us gifts wrapped in boxes wrapped in boxes wrapped in boxes. It turns out we never finish unwrapping.
Motherhood is hard because it just is, and often harder due to our unique circumstances, like relationship status, bank account status, emotional status, health status. Then you have genes, like my kind that constantly whisper be extra conscientious—and goal-oriented and healthy and productive, and, well, perfect. Not Pinterest Mom perfect, but raise-responsible-intellectual-independent-socially conscious boys who aren't aggro but also won't take shit and certainly won't sexually assault anyone or believe their manhood rests on muscles or magazines (not the kind you read).
When I was growing up, my parents were never big on preaching life lessons. They taught by example, like giving me chores infused with allegory that I wouldn't figure out until much later in life. My mom taught me to run my fingers over the inside of the tub. If the surface was rough, scrub harder, she'd say. My arms would ache and my face would turn to stone. When it felt smooth to the touch, I could retreat from duty—until it became rough again. One day you'll understand. She may or may not have said that aloud. I do understand and can't thank her enough. You get it, moms.
Motherhood is the hardest job that exists. And the only job whose hours are forever and whose pay is in the eye of the beholder. Here's to a warm bath and the will to keep scrubbing.
A warm bath is as close to therapy as most moms will get. Like therapists, some baths are better than others, but no bath will fix us.
Imperfect solution? I'm here for it. A bath is my go-to for the coveted me time most moms get so little of but need so desperately. As most moms, I'm busy. I work for myself, at home, and have two volunteer gigs; a home to keep up—not to mention a 40-something butt to keep up, so, squats; a yard to clean because my dog insists on regular bowel movements; 30-minute healthy meals to cook in 60 minutes or more; and two little boys with nails to clip, bellies to fill, emotional needs to meet, hair to cut (salons have taught me I can make them look just as stupid for free), homework featuring "new math" that was invented on an acid trip, school paperwork that multiplies like the Duggars, "well child" appointments that make you sick, birthday parties for kids you've never seen with parents you don't want to meet, revolving messes and fights courtesy of He Did It, and plenty of hugs and kisses even though you're a mean mom who won't let them mainline Pixie Sticks.
In the tub, I have 30 minutes, 45 on a good (bad?) day, to escape from duty and feel a little bit lighter. Plus my quads and abs look pretty good at a reclined angle. I've been going to therapy in the bathtub for the past nine years. The relationship began on rocky ground.
It was a random Saturday morning in my early teens. My mom handed me a canister of Comet cleaner and a rag and gave me my first-ever responsibility. From then on, it was my job to scrub the bathtub once a week. My disdain for the chore was as big and invincible as the teased bangs I dutifully petrified with a huge pink can of Aquanet every morning.
It took a few decades post-Aquanet bangs for the bathtub to transform from enemy to refuge. For every weary mother of young children, there's a vat of warm water waiting to whisk you away. If you can manage to get there before the hot-water tank is ravaged by the dishwasher or the clothes washer or the kids' baths, that is.
It started when I was pregnant with my first son nine years ago. I'd fill my parents' jetted tub up to my neck with warm water—shaking off trepidation about overheating my oven—and lie reclined, marveling at my nearly D-cup breasts (a one-time gift with purchase, it turns out) and the big belly that constituted the bulk of my nearly 40-pound weight gain. Those evenings alone in the tub with my flesh of rolling hills and valleys became a ritual. When the baby came, bath time—and all time—became his, for at least the next year.
To this day I don't understand why none of my friends who'd had children long before me didn't speak of the first year. I blame the generations before us who defined motherhood through deprivation—of sleep, personal space, food, intimacy. The less you had as an individual human, the better mom you were. Work yourself to the bone? Atta girl! Never done cleaning? Isn't it great! Frustrated because Daddy doesn't have such a long to-do list? Silly, that's just how it is! At the end of your rope because baby doesn't sleep? Enjoy every minute of it!
When my first son was two, we left behind the safety of my parents' home and, to my delight, the suffocation of my small, parochial hometown. The manager of a 4-unit apartment building tacitly agreed not to make a fuss over my pit bull, and I agreed to pay $900 a month, fingers crossed behind my back. We were in the progressive small city where I'd collected an English degree that may or may not have led to the burgeoning career I'd left behind three states away when a plus sign on a white plastic stick changed everything. In our new home, I wasn't comfortable letting my tiny boy roam freely during my baths, so I put him behind a baby gate in the bathroom and pretended to relax while he explored rolls of toilet paper, vintage head scarves, and the Vroooom! button on the Lightning McQueen Training Potty That Couldn't.
Nearly two years later when my second child was born, baths again belonged to the boy in my life. He was long and skinny, with the head of dark hair I'd hoped for in light of stories of a skunk stripe that ran through his father's newborn head. His dad would watch me bathe him every night, at least for the first month, and we'd smile down at our beautiful creation, like a moment stolen straight out of a Pampers commercial. For the next few months, my personal baths were anything but a refuge and everything like a frantic race. My nursing boobs weren't nearly as bountiful this time around, so it's not like I even had a trophy to admire en route to the finish line.
Motherhood is harder than I ever could've imagined. Actually, I never imagined it before it snuck up on me at age 35. Prior, life was about my friends, my dogs, my aspirations, and, embarassingly, my poor excuses for relationships. My identity, I thought, was set: the girl with the pit bulls who ran a lot and had her eye on the prize of writing for a living. Life loves to tap us on the shoulder and hand us gifts wrapped in boxes wrapped in boxes wrapped in boxes. It turns out we never finish unwrapping.
Motherhood is hard because it just is, and often harder due to our unique circumstances, like relationship status, bank account status, emotional status, health status. Then you have genes, like my kind that constantly whisper be extra conscientious—and goal-oriented and healthy and productive, and, well, perfect. Not Pinterest Mom perfect, but raise-responsible-intellectual-independent-socially conscious boys who aren't aggro but also won't take shit and certainly won't sexually assault anyone or believe their manhood rests on muscles or magazines (not the kind you read).
When I was growing up, my parents were never big on preaching life lessons. They taught by example, like giving me chores infused with allegory that I wouldn't figure out until much later in life. My mom taught me to run my fingers over the inside of the tub. If the surface was rough, scrub harder, she'd say. My arms would ache and my face would turn to stone. When it felt smooth to the touch, I could retreat from duty—until it became rough again. One day you'll understand. She may or may not have said that aloud. I do understand and can't thank her enough. You get it, moms.
Motherhood is the hardest job that exists. And the only job whose hours are forever and whose pay is in the eye of the beholder. Here's to a warm bath and the will to keep scrubbing.
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