Tag: Bag

The moment my son arrived into the world, my attention was immediately diverted from the excruciating pain of childbirth. I could only focus on the new little life that was thrust onto my chest. The anticipation of his first breath and cry, the excitement to know his birth weight and length, and the curiosity to see the amount of hair on his head far outweighed anything going on with me after he exited my body.

When I left the delivery room, the shift from self to other continued as I entered the new parent game of monitoring the amount and frequency of my son’s excrement, how long he ate from each breast, and the progress of his umbilical cord healing. His needs were far greater than mine, and I willingly traded my usual self-care regimen—meditation, exercise, etc.—for changing diapers and singing lullabies.

“Self care” has become a polarizing term as of late, but it’s long been a significant part of my routine. As a journalist and an academic, I was used to rewarding myself with rest and luxury after an intense period of work. Last year, right before I knew I was pregnant, I bought myself a Louis Vuitton Neverfull after writing 250 pages for my master’s thesis in a shortened semester of two months. For me, indulgence has always been tied to great effort. Shopping has accompanied every milestone, from graduations to relationship goals to promotions. While I wouldn’t turn down a spa day, I tend to favor practicing a more tangible and lasting form of self-care that reminds me of a memorable achievement. My motto was “work hard, shop hard.”

But on the fourth of July, everything changed. As soon as my son was born, attending to my wants and needs became a very distant memory as the pressure to be a perfect parent mounted. Everyone had an opinion about everything on parenting and we were expected to be present and prepared 100 percent of the time. My husband was on paternity leave for two months, and fear and doubt clouded both of our minds. The first few weeks were a period of cruel adjustment. Gone were days of sleep, balance, and tranquility. I couldn’t justify taking a shower for five minutes by myself let alone think about buying a reward for gestating and birthing a human. We were just trying to survive.

I talked to a few of my mom friends who could relate. Kelly Dzioba, a stay-at-home mom to 10-month-old Mackenzie, describes, “You’re sleep deprived and unsure of your decisions. You’re lonely because your friends without children can’t identify. There was the transition of being a working woman who takes care of myself to having someone rely on me.”

I thought I was prepared, but I was startled by the transition into motherhood. I swapped out designer shoulder bags for the padded straps of a baby carrier and traded my La Perlas for snap-down nursing bras stuffed with absorbent pads. Desperate to shop for new things to complement the new me, I consulted the pediatrician: he warned us of harmful germs that festered in enclosed public spaces, so malls were out of the question. We were sequestered inside our apartment and I started to lose touch with who I was. Christina Sarangoulis, mom to 4-month-old Leo, sums it up: “After I had him, I spent a month in sweatpants and a T-shirt and ate whatever. It was some serious solitary confinement.”

But the initial anxiety and trepidation of caring for a newborn did pass. After the shock wore off, my husband asked me to pick out a piece of jewelry for my push present. If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase: “Push present” refers to a gift given to a new mother by her partner to celebrate her great effort in birthing their child. I chose a necklace with three diamonds in the shape of a triangle, a reminder of our new family of three. Travis Scott, on the other hand, bought Kylie Jenner a $1.4 million limited-edition Ferrari after she gave birth to baby girl Stormi last year. Scott’s push present made headlines, but they curiously didn’t mention what Kylie treated herself to after birthing Stormi. While it’s always nice to receive a gift, I think moms can feel empowered by choosing to celebrate and validate themselves after having a baby. I love my necklace and wear it proudly, but it wasn’t a gift I bought myself to acknowledge my own effort as I had regularly done before I became a mother.

Eventually, my husband went back to work and I navigated my way (still navigating, actually) through figuring out the balance between having child care, writing, and being a mom. After the baby’s vaccines, the doctor gave us the all-clear to go to mommy-and-me classes located in malls and shopping centers. My first car ride alone with the baby left me shaking and close to tears, but I got better with practice. Slowly, as I became accustomed to new routines and built confidence in myself as a mother, I began to look and feel more like who I was before my son came along. I started wearing clothes other than activewear, putting on a little bit of makeup, and shopping around the malls before the classes began. I also began developing the skill of discerning useful parenting advice from the well-intentioned but not so helpful.

Then, when the fanny pack trend exploded this season, I saw a window of opportunity to treat myself. A super extra-looking Gucci “belt bag” (as they’re now called) caught my eye, but I struggled with whether I should spend the nearly $1,000. As a new mom, it’s hard to justify any significant cost not associated with caring for your baby. There’s a concept of noble martyrdom in parenting: the delusion that the more you sacrifice yourself—your money, time, and sanity—the greater of a parent you are. Guilting voices compiled from baby books, television, and family members whispered, “how can you spend that much money on a purse when it could go towards a supply of diapers?”

But I just couldn’t get the Gucci purse off my mind. I looked at it repeatedly online and I went to the store to try it on multiple times, only to be deterred by price tag guilt. During the last excursion to the store, I asked a retail associate to take a picture of me wearing the belt bag. I rested one hand on the stroller’s edge. I popped my other arm up on my hip, highlighting the Gucci perched on my waist as the staff showered me with compliments. Both my son and I smiled at the photographer’s command. It felt so good to feel like me again.

When I looked as the photo, I drowned out those judging parenting voices and justified that the bag would be my luxurious reward for the infinitely difficult work of creating, delivering, and raising a tiny human. It may sound silly, but buying that bag has helped reconcile the woman I was before with the mom I am now. “Work hard, shop hard” was my motto prior to mom life. And the hard work of having a baby shouldn’t be an exception to the rule. Not to mention, wearing it is helping me live out my cool mom dreams.

While a luxury purse was my way of treating myself, self-care for moms takes many different forms. My friend Julia Deshe, a former model and pilates instructor and mom to 6-month-old Bowie, indulges in high-end workout leggings from Ultracor: “They look kind of cool and work well when you’re going with your kid to the park, working out, or running errands all day. They make me look cute and feel like me.”

When their daughter turns 13 months, Kelly Dzioba and her husband are treating themselves to a couple’s trip to Hawaii. “We’ll go out and find incredible restaurants, go hiking through the rainforest, snorkeling, a helicopter tour of the Kauai coastline, lots of adventure,” she told me. “It’ll be both me and us time.”

And mom to 7-month-old Harrison and attorney Rachel Dapeer bought herself a Tiffany’s necklace. “I splurged and bought myself a necklace with my son’s initial. It makes me smile because it’s a constant reminder of what it’s meant to me to carry my son, and how lucky I am now to be his mom.”

When you become a new mother, you’re vulnerable and raw. It’s so easy to start feeling bad because of those dogmatic opinions from the multitude of mommy blogs, your parents or in-laws, or that random lady on the internet who says if you buy yourself a designer purse or high-end leggings, you’re a bad mom. Don’t listen to those voices. Choose to take care of yourself as a mom in whatever way you can and want. Choose to listen to your needs. Choose to love your child by loving and respecting yourself.

Next year, I’ll be a starting a Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley and freelancing while raising my 1-year old son with my husband. As more work and (possibly) more babies come along, I’ll need to get this self-care thing down to a science. But I’m not complaining. We moms deserve it.

Minhae Shim Roth is an essayist, journalist, and academic. She spends her time with her husband, Danny, and her son, Maximillian, in San Francisco.