The holiday season brings so much joy, but let’s be real, it can also bring on a wave of overwhelm and endless to-dos, especially for moms. And if it’s your first holiday season after welcoming a little one, navigating through it all can feel like a tough puzzle. Amidst the hustle, it’s easy to lose sight of the woman you were before becoming a mom—the one who enjoyed late nights, spontaneous parties, and carefree outings. Now, you find yourself consumed by the constant responsibilities that come with caring for your little humans. Girls’ nights are rare, and the idea of spending time and money on yourself often takes a backseat. It’s a common journey, and let’s talk about how these shifts in priorities can impact our intimate lives during the holidays. Because, hey, we’re all in this together, and your experiences are valid.
In the eyes of society, the moms who do that are BAD MOMS… right? Absolutely not. Mothers who indulge themselves and live any part of their lives outside of being “mom” are usually judged and shamed by society, often labeled as selfish. What a cruel joke. No wonder it’s so easy to lose complete sight of your personal identity and fall into the “self-care is selfish” trap. “You’re a mom so your whole life is supposed to be about your children,” said no one that cares about you ACTUALLY enjoying your life.
This new role carries so much with it – an identity crisis, bodily changes, the heightening of previously unaddressed issues… the list goes on. So mama, please be gentle on yourself.
THE MOM IDENTITY
In order to be the best mom you can be – one that is happy with their life, present, and doesn’t feel like being a mother means always sacrificing your own happiness – you need to role switch. Role switching is the idea of acknowledging yourself as a human with needs first, AND a multi-faceted being, outside of your (now more prevalent) role of being a mom. Learning how to honor and embrace the different roles we have in our daily lives, (ie. best friend, career woman, sexual lover, and mom… Just to name a few), helps moms make mental and emotional space for self-care, exploration, and self re-discovery. Remember to take time for all your new pro bono roles, too, such as caregiver, household manager, walking refrigerator/vending machine, event coordinator, and uber driver. Integrating and accepting them as a new evolved version of yourself, as well as being realistic with how much energy and time you can allocate to any of those roles, will aid in the process of rediscovery.
LACK OF DESIRE
Let’s be clear, being a mother and a caretaker, is inherently not erotic. Our sexual self thrives off of adventure, curiosity, mystery, adventure and the unknown, which often fuels desire. However, children and efficient family functioning rely on consistency, repetition, routine and structure, which is the exact opposite of what turns us on sexually. *Sighs in boredom*
There is an inherent shift in focus in motherhood – there has to be, your child’s life depends on it, especially in the beginning. When this happens, eros (a cute scientific name for your sex drive) becomes “redirected,” which means we begin to receive love, affection, and a sense of adventure mainly from our children, instead of our partners.
Our babies become a source of the new and surprising, eliciting the curiosity and mystery we once found in our significant other. Hormonally, there’s a lot of stuff going on too – oxytocin (the “love”/cuddle hormone), serotonin (the happy hormone), dopamine (the “feel-good”/pleasure hormone) actually become activated and filled by our babies and young children. This, coupled with the simultaneous exhaustion and depletion of staying up and keeping up with newborns and toddlers, often leads to couple’s losing sight of each other.
So, you can’t seem to get in the mood. You have to ask yourself, what’s hitting the brakes?
- Exhaustion: You’re tired, you’re burnt out, you haven’t gotten any sleep. “I don’t even know how I’m functioning or awake,” should be the anthem for all moms that come into my office. So many moms face a sense of depletion from overworking themselves and their minds. They often fall victim to the mentality of “this work has to be done… this is inherently my newfound role’s responsibility.”
- Body image: Adjusting and learning how to accept your body as it is now, and not focusing on what it was, or what you want it to be, or what it could be, is important. Now, this is not to be confused with how some women have unrealistic expectations of what they wish their body to look like due to feeding into hurtful media and social media standards. Your body may not look like you want it to – that’s okay. Please remember you built an entire human being inside of you – cut yourself some slack.
- Perceived or direct pressure to be sexual: Sometimes women feel like they need to provide sexual satisfaction for their partners as means to retain or maintain their relationship. Other times, some partners can have unrealistic expectations of sexual frequency and bestow high amounts of direct or indirect pressure to engage. This is one of the biggest reasons couples with children come to see me. They have mismatched sex drives and have a difficult time finding a middle ground. If you fall under that category, I made a course for those who want to take matters into their own hands or aren’t ready to start therapy.
WAYS TO ACCESS YOUR SEXUAL SELF
Sometimes your relationship with your own sexuality is fractured or was never there to begin with. This is where the journey to healing can begin. Creating and deepening your relationship to the “divine goddess” within you is more than just a social media buzzword. It’s a real process that takes time, but offers a great reward when you’re finally able to see yourself as your highest self. Our sexual power- as women- is a tool, not something you need to stow away and never look at because society and culture told you so.
- Giving yourself permission: You need to let yourself switch into your sexuality without guilt or shame, judgment or fear in doing so. Give yourself permission to have fun, to disconnect with stressors, to schedule time for yourself, to take up space. AND giving yourself permission to not be perfect, to fail, to get it wrong, to make mistakes. As a woman, as a mom, AND as a sexual being.
- The radical act of self-love: In a society that convinces you that you constantly need to change, evolve, transform, or get “better” the most radical thing we can do for ourselves is to love and accept ourselves where we are RIGHT NOW. This includes how our bodies look, what we’ve accomplished, what we haven’t accomplished, and everything else in between.
Love yourself, RIGHT NOW, and don’t allow the external messages of not being “enough” affect your relationship with yourself.
