Having a baby has made me a wimp. I’m serious. I’m a dribbling, teary mess these days. And I’m not just talking the usual tear jerker stuff, like adverts about child refugees in Syria or abused and skeletal dogs who need rescuing. I’m saying that the smallest thing can set me off. The terrible Jet2 advert that ripped off Murad Ossman’s stuff; the one with the little girl and her father following behind her, made me bawl my eyes out when I first saw it. BECAUSE EDIE AND CARLO AND WAH. There’s so much seemingly innocuous stuff out there that sets me off, making my eyes instantly water and my heart thump painfully. Most books – especially the ending. Old people holding hands. Young people holding hands. A particularly lovely sunset. A particularly lovely sunrise. Affectionate dogs. Imagining what Edie will look like when she’s bigger. (Actually, most Edie stuff makes me tear up. But the koala clutching hugs, lick kisses and assortment of excitable shrieks at the smallest, new discovery would make even the stone-heartiest person swoon.) Videos of baby animals – any animals. Athletes crossing the finishing line and shakily accepting medals on podiums. Good news stories plastered across Instagram. Strangers being nice to each other. Songs that remind me of perfect moments I’d completely forgotten. Songs I’ve never even fucking heard of that remind me of a memory I don’t actually have. The list, tragically, goes on. And don’t even get me started on things that are actually sad and awful. I can’t read news stories about broken children’s bodies found in ditches or watch made up films or TV shows where kids with wide eyes go missing. It’s too upsetting – too easy to picture Edie’s face there and borrow someone else’s grief in a twisted, nightmarish game of ‘imagine if’. I wasn’t exactly a robot before, but things like that affect me in a far more visceral way now. Like the block of butter you wang in the microwave, just for a few seconds, that emerges concave, dripping and running away; I am melted, ruined and pathetic.
What’s weird is that I also know, without the tiniest slither of doubt, that I would karate chop the nearest kid who shoved my child; I’d maul a gang of thugs who tried to steal from her; I’d lean over and roughly shoulder the bus which dared to mount the kerb where she’s standing and I’d get down on all fours and angrily bark at the dog who throatily growled at her. In a heartbeat.
I am both wibbly weak and immensely powerful.
It’s an odd mix, granted, when you feel like you could simultaneously burst into tears or roundhouse kick someone in the face. So many traits of feminine energy seem to be classed as “too much”. At least, “too much” for small, scared men. “If you push back in the meeting you’ll make her cry.” “Don’t get her involved, she’s a bit over the top.” “She gets riled up and can’t take a joke.” These kind of hollow accusations are levelled at women all the time. I know that, as a parent, I am more emotional than I used to be. I’m vulnerable, knock-kneed, terrified and overwhelmed. But I’m also driven, energetic, assured and fiercely motivated. This overspilling of muchness; the emotion that catches in my throat like a pigeon trying to gobble down a footlong Subway, is my weapon and my comfort blanket. It’s what make me a better parent, a better partner, a better friend and better at my job. Juggling these wildly different selves is just another postpartum ‘new normal’; like the shape of my boobs or my inability to sleep in beyond 6:30am. So don’t be alarmed if you spot me sobbing over a GIF of a girl cuddling a baby sloth, I’m still primed and ready to kill. You know. If I have to.