I was rich when I gave birth to both my children. Twice I arrived home from the hospital, infant in tow, welcomed by baby nurses and doulas and full-time nannies.
In case you were not the mommy dilettante that I was, you may not know what some of these people do, exactly.
Baby nurses live with families 24/7, up to three months — or more — after the baby is born. They wake up at night with a crying infant and handle the feeding. They bring him to the mother during the day for her to breastfeed. They change the diapers and wash the baby’s clothes.
Doulas take care of the mother, preparing her meals, massaging her feet, and providing emotional support when post-birth hormones take hairpin turns.
When I had trouble breastfeeding my son, I hired a lactation consultant who made a home visit. A maid cleaned the house. During the day, I strolled blissfully through the neighborhood, my baby nestled inside a sling. When I got home, I’d breastfeed him, rock him in the rocking chair, then hand him to the baby nurse…or the doula…or the nanny (frankly, I can’t remember what on earth the nanny had to do at that point) and crawl back into bed.
I had married into a rich family, so my in-laws were able to pay for these services, which in hindsight seem laughably over-the-top. I mean, I was not Beyonce, for the Lord’s sake. What was I doing, other than being pampered?
It turns out that I was “Doing the Month,” without even knowing it. Doing the Month is a custom started in Asia 2600 years ago that is still practiced by some traditional Asian women. Asian cultures recognize that the first month following the birth of a baby is a critical period during which a mother needs to regain physical and psychological stamina.
In the first 40 days post-partum, a new mother’s relatives cater to her so she avoids stress. She rests in bed as much as possible. Her relatives bring her meals designed for a lactating mother. They keep the baby in another room, taking the infant to her when it’s time to breastfeed. This process of mothering of the mother supports her so she can get back on her feet, both physically and psychologically.
UCLA OB-GYN Michael Lu believes that this kind of support network “has a lot of impact on [the mother’s] long-term mental health.” So much, in fact, that he credits “doing the month” with warding off post-partum depression.
I did not have post-partum depression (PPD) after the births of my children. I felt immensely fortunate and slightly embarrassed to have enough staff in my house to fill a separate wing.
However, I do remember struggling to right myself against a feeling of being unmoored. A feeling that originated, I believe, from my experience as an adoptee.
Although my birthmother is in my life and visited shortly after both children were born, she hadn’t raised me and wasn’t able to pass on the stories of my babyhood and childhood, the stories that give new mothers an existential context for embarking on their own child-raising journey.
My adoptive mother was the one with the stories, but she had died two years before my first child was born. I do not have many close extended family members, and none near by, so there were no grandmothers or aunts to rally around and regale me with family anecdotes or bequeath me with the bassinet that had been in the family for generations.
I remember rocking my son in the the rocking chair when it hit me: I would not be raising him in the religion in which I had been raised. I had caved into pressure and converted when I married my first husband, and now I realized, really realized, the loss of part of my heritage.
Religion had never seemed important but suddenly it was. And then I started thinking of all the other things I’d lost, or couldn’t legitimately claim: my birthfamily, my adoptive family, a sense of belonging.
Without standing on a secure base of my own, I panicked: what would I have to give to my child?
If I had not had a squadron of surrogate female relatives to make me feel special and cared for, I think I would have had plunged into post-partum depression.
And I would not have had that squadron of surrogate relatives without money.
I don’t mean to generalize and say that PPD never strikes rich mothers. I remember being stunned when Brooke Shields went public with her struggles with PPD. We are close in age and I’d felt vaguely connected to her via friends of friends, growing up. I also was once in a store when she came in to use the bathroom and I was impressed by how utterly gracious and unassuming she was. My sense of Brooke was that she was perpetually upbeat and sunny, her mood thermometer fixed at 75 degrees.
Which is remarkable considering that she comes from a long line of childhood trauma. Her grandmother Theresa was orphaned at age ten and became the surrogate mother for her many siblings, one of whom died at thirteen. From Brooke’s account, her grandmother grew up to be a sad and bitter woman who transferred her grief onto Brooke’s mother Teri, who ran away from home to escape abuse.
From the moment Brooke was born, Teri displaced her own trauma and dashed dreams on to her daughter, and determined to make her a star…which, as we know, is exactly what happened.
Teri also became a florid alcoholic and apparently such a troubled individual that Brooke cut off contact with her for awhile.
Given Brooke Shield’s psychological heritage, it is a good bet that whacked-out hormones were not the only cause of her PPD. Becoming a mother brings the intrapsychic chickens home to roost, along with the baby.
Being affluent may not stave off PPD, although it can buy help that women need. Besides sleep deprivation, past trauma and/or social isolation seem like the greatest triggers of post-partum depression. Remember the horrific case of Andrea Yates, whose post-partum psychosis led her to drown her five children? It’s worth noting that her husband Rusty purposely left her alone with the children in a sadistic plan to bolster her mothering skills.
So, does being rich protect women from post-partum depression? Certainly being able to afford staff who care for your infant and fix you food and enable you to rest helps. But the thing that most staves off PPD, I believe, is being rich in family: psychologically healthy relatives, or friends, who surround you with the awareness that families are safe, relationships endure, and your touchstones are there for you when you need them.
You are right – being rich in support helps. There seems to be a bit of a trial by fire mentality for this generation of parents, which is dangerous. New moms need recovery, support, and kindness. And to be able to get the services they need, should they experience PPD.
That First Month sounds lovely. I had a really hard time with no family around.
I think now I may have had PPD. I was certainly VERY hormonal and sleep-deprived.
I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding and went to lactation consultants galore before
Deciding to just pump. Some help would have taken some pressure off!
Your theory certainly makes sense in the context of my experience. My husband and I both came from families of very limited means, and had barely put our feet on the path to wealth when our first child was born.
I was thousands of miles from family and friends, knew only one other couple with a kid, and had no idea how to negotiate big-city life with a baby. I was such a wreck that my siblings all chipped in and flew my mother out to stay with me for a week–or maybe it was two. Still, those early months were so difficult with Mr. Ex never around, and me alone with a wailing baby, and profoundly re-suffering the loss of my son to adoption 16 years earlier, that I still shudder when I think of it. It pains me to think of the impact all of that had on my daughter. New mothers are vulnerable. I think having a loving support person there 24-7 for the first month is a way to insure a strong and healthy start for both the mom and the baby.
This is interesting and will keep me pondering for days. I agree with you– being affluent seems to help ward off pod. However it can also be your greatest weakness when it comes to issues surrounding motherhood. When you are of a certain elite class you are expected to be on point 24-7. No room for error and no excuses. We all know. The joys of motherhood comes with feelings of guilt, exhaustion, doubt, uncertainties, elation, etc.. somedays we cant bring ourselves to get out of bed and some days we want nothing more than to be pampered and loved. For an affluent new mother this all comes with higher expectations than “average” new mothers. “What do you mean shes having a bad day, did the cleaning lady not show up?!” No one takes into account that hormones, past experiences, current expectations all come to head all at once after having a child. People don’t usually “see” past the facade until a woman is on the brink to insanity.
Upon being a new mom I was told and reminded “how I was so lucky because my husband did a load of dishes and changed the baby and woke up once a night.” My expectation was that all nouveau fathers did these “tasks” I guess I was wrong. 3 kids later I’m still curious the ways other husbands help their wives during these transitions.
True — and I think sometimes extremely affluent people are not allowed to show weakness or vulnerability, which leads to masking it, and feeling more vulnerable and alone.
I can imagine how that experience retriggered the loss of your first son. As I said in the piece, the psychological chickens do come home to roost along with the baby.
I love Sweden’s mandated policy that FATHERS, in addition to mothers, take 3 months off work to care for a newborn. Given how fractured our society is, and how vast the geography is with family members all over the place, so many new mothers are more isolated than nature ever intended. We’re just now cut out to be dealing wiht newborns without a sufficient support network.
Exactly. Like what do you mean you are “suffering” you have everything!!! The reality is that hormones and ones past does not discriminate. Explaining stuff like this to people can sometimes equate to talking to a wall.
I am Asian and while I am not Chinese and our family did not strictly adhere to the guo lai (although my sister did, being married to a Chinese). However, we all had nannies. My sisters’ hired nannies BEFORE their babies were born. This was on top of having maids to do all the housework, a cook to do the cooking and a driver to chauffeur them around. They had their restful night’s sleep while the night nanny (yes, there was a day nanny too) attended to the wakeful baby. This was pretty much norm among my peers as well. Even in poorer communities, there was the extended family to help with baby duties. Living in the US, my sisters were mortified in the months preceding the birth of my first child. How in the world will I be able to manage?! Actually, they were mortified before then as to how in the world could I actually survive without a maid (but that’s another story…).
Anyway, I guess my point is, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of PPD until I got to the US at a ripe old age of 26. I don’t think it is something that is so prevalent in our culture.
Yes, money certainly doesn’t buy everything but it sure does buy just a tad bit of happiness (even if it’s only temporary).
I joked around a lot in getting over the traumatic ending of my first marriage (which unfortunately coincided w/late pregnancy/childbirth/infancy of my son) that I felt very much like a broodmare: my whole purpose in life (from the standpoint of my ex) seems to have been distilled down to bearing a child, and once I had done that, I was of no further use to him.
If you know much about the brutal economics of the horse industry, you’ll understand even better where I’m coming from… Anyway, I had no choices – I went back to work 10 d after my son was born, thank Goddess my mother was close enough, & healthy enough, to step up & help me w/the childcare! I can never repay her.
http://endurovet.blogspot.com/2006/06/happy-birthday-my-son-part-i-hard-to.html
Back to work 10 days post-partum! OMG! Could you even sit down?
That is SO interesting that you never heard of PPD until you got here. So my theory hold somes weight!
Great piece! I agree, a support system is the most important. I was lucky to have my mom and MIL come around to help, even though I didn’t always want it at the time (I blame that on the hormones too!).
LOL
Sorry, I don’t agree. I have a neighbor who had everything: a maid, nanny, loving husband, tons of family support, her mother-in-law would watch the baby one day a week, her mother would watch it the other day. She had so much family support, as well as tons of help. And she fell into post-partum depression and didn’t get out of it until a year and a half later. She has everything. This says to me how hard parenting is,especially the first few months.
Right — brain chemistry trumps everything. Although I imagine her situation might have been worse had she not had access to help.