Parents are people too. Tired, sleep-obsessed, exhausted people, writes Tamara Sheward.
For 40 years, I was a person. When I was 41-and-a-half, I gave that up and became a mum. So sayeth popular opinion, anyway. Blogs and blather abound – Wednesday's Heckler a case in point – highlighting the vast differences between the two; people are interesting, and talk about things like cats and drinking, while mums bore the non-elastic-waistbanded-pants off everyone by moaning about how tired they are.
![Sleep deprivation is a form of torture.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170909144955im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/i/t/8/7/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.git1ke.png/1464215174237.jpg)
I get it. When I was still a person, I tossed my hair in disdain at prams clogging up my favourite hangover-Saturday cafe. Through bleary, worked-all-night eyes, I glared at Facebook photos of mums and bubs looking all snugly on the couch.
When I was pregnant, my husband and I shrugged off admonitions of incoming chaos, rightly – we reckoned – reasoning that the baby would just sleep and feed, and what's the big deal?
Cue hearty-hindsight belly laugh (trailing off to a slightly manic titter).
Thing is, I don't look at my pre-mum self – or anyone sans-sprogs – with haughty disdain. Why would I? It's just one of those things you have to be to fully understand, like an Arctic explorer or a pub-toilet cleaner.
So, since all parents were once non-parents, I'd like to offer a couple of insights from over the childproof safety gate. No smug snipes, no battlelines. Just a little peek so you can understand us, the way we understand you.
It may look like we magically apparate to cafe corners just to take up room and hog all the free magazines, but it actually takes us about 843 hours of intense organising to get there. In my case: as I sit there humming earworm lullabies into my third mocha and gazing down at my daughter with contented (read: glazed) eyes, I am actually having a mild anxiety attack at being in public after days spent inside a house I don't have time to clean with a baby I don't yet know what to do with. I don't want your sympathy, I just want someone to smile gently at me.
Contrary to lazy writing and hackneyed screenplays, bottom wipings are the least of our worries (unless we're talking major diarrheic detonations that call for donning of HAZMAT suits and a WHO public safety broadcast). Here is a sample of actual new-parent concerns:
- Remembering reading somewhere that sleep deprivation is a form of torture, and wailing loudly at 3.30am with the realisation that this is true.
- Fretting over every twitch, drool and blemish the baby produces, and winding up with hypochondria by proxy. Then fretting about how your fretting will affect the baby.
- Coming up with a blistering take down 10 minutes after being tut-tutted for breastfeeding in public.
- Coming up with a blistering take down 10 minutes after being tut-tutted for formula feeding in public.
- Hey, hang on. Does my baby have a flat head? Hey, does it look to you like my baby has a flat head? OH MY GOD MY BABY HAS A FLAT HEAD.
We do not mean to be boring. We do not mean to talk about how tired we are. But we can't help it: sleep is an all-consuming obsession for the sleepless.
I'm a travel writer, and have been to some of the strangest and most interesting places on earth (yes, the baby comes too). But if you're hoping for anecdotes about yurts and strip-searches on border crossings, you'll just have to wait until I finish telling you how freaking tired I am. Sorry about that.
No issue is too small to raise Heckler's hackles. Readers can send pieces of about 400 words on what's got their goat to heckler@fairfaxmedia.com.au. Chosen submissions will be published online at smh.com.au/comment. Please include daytime phone details.
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