Different Kinds of Difficult

I've been thinking this morning about how I didn't know motherhood would be hard in the ways that it's been hard for me. I guess I knew, but it's not what I often thought about. I have always thought of motherhood as being physically hard. Sleeplessness, busy-ness. It's hard to fight the disorganization and chaos that wants to overwhelm at any moment. And it's physically hard to carry someone around all the time, juggle all the stuff you need to lug, get dinner ready and the laundry done while a hungry little one needs to be sucking on your breast. Those kinds of things. Physical, logistical challenges. And I guess that's particularly true of mothering babies. But those are not the kinds of difficult things that really wear on me or frustrate me, really. Sure, I hate that I constantly struggle to get things done around my house, that I always feel it's messy or disorganized or whatever. I complain about how hard it is to carry this one-year-old from the car to the building, up the stairs, etc., all while carrying the groceries from three different stores. Sure, that's hard. But I can handle it. It doesn't make a person lose sleep or feel any particular agony.

It's a different kind of difficult when, say, you have to decide if you have to let your baby cry himself to sleep because you're not sure there's any other way. It's hard to calm your own anger when his little brain doesn't understand, even though you've told him dozens of times, that throwing his food off his high chair tray is not ok. It's harder still when you have to decide if you really want to keep breastfeeding him, even though many people have told you to wean and it's losing some of its appeal as he grows more active. Or if you want to keep going because you will desperately miss those relaxing moments when your baby (can you still call him that?) is calmly sucking and you have no excuse but to relax, stroke his hair or face and marvel at how he's grown. It's hard when you and your spouse, the best friend you are eternally devoted to, disagree about how to raise and discipline that little one. How do you compromise on something as important to you as the life you grew in your own womb?

I'm not doing justice, I don't think, to the kind of heart-stretching struggle it can be to be a caring mother. Yet, I've only begun this motherhood thing. Won't it be harder when this little one is a teenager, making life-altering decisions or even mistakes? Will it be harder to watch the grown-up cry with emotional pain than it is to see him crying now? I can't avoid those possibilities, those eventualities. And I really have no idea what they will be like. So why is it that I love being a mother so much? Why is it that I think constantly about adding more little ones to my family?

I guess it must be that this kind of difficult is the especially worthwhile kind. It's the obvious answer, as I see it, but it's the true one.