My baby is a rainbow baby so needless to say I had a soft spot for kids since before she was born. I hated women screaming at their little ones in shopping centres and parks, I hated people ignoring their children just because they are busy and I can go on and on about this for a few days.

I never asked those parents why they behave the way they did and to be fair it didn’t make a difference

Their attitude was wrong. Some might have had good reasons but I never cared about that. I judged them and I judged them hard.
After Ruby was born I learned about how much patience you need to raise a baby, how much self control you require for such a difficult job that is being a parent and how much love you are capable of.

I can admit that I had moments when I thought I will start screaming, punching walls or have a go at the little one just because I reached that limit when self control is definitely out of the question. Sleepless nights, lack of adult conversation, baby cries and vomit, a wardrobe full of clothes that don’t fit leaving you in just two pairs of maternity tights and two tops, a messy house that refuses to clean itself and useless advice coming from all know it alls (who don’t even have kids) can drive a woman quite crazy. I’ve been there and I realised that when you have a newborn, the line between sanity and insanity is so thin that you don’t even notice crossing it.
But there is something else. Something that develops inside every mother and sometimes is just painful. That is  sensitivity and a sense of compassion that sometimes are taken to extreme. It’s madness.
I started skipping most news that involve little babies suffering from different illnesses or being involved in accidents from one reason and one reason only: they make me cry. My heart is pounding and my legs shake. I imagine what the parents must feel like, I imagine what that child must go through and without wanting I put myself in their shoes and I cry.

Some stories haunt me so much that they even come in my dreams. They don’t want to leave

They are there to remind me how blessed I am but also how much suffering there is in this cruel world. This morning I was coming out of a store and a child was screaming in pain that he can’t walk. I think he fell and hurt his foot. I can still hear him and I keep on wondering what exactly happened. I am wondering if his mum was waiting for an ambulance in the parking lot or she was just waiting for her son to calm  down. I keep wondering if the pain went away or he needed a cast or surgery.
I really don’t want all these to get to me so easily. I don’t want to feel other mums pain and not because I am selfish but because I have my own baby and she is healthy, smart, beautiful and happy and I want to enjoy every second of her life without the shadows following me. But I can’t do that. I can’t do it because this sensitivity and sense of compassion developed when my child was born. They come hand in hand with parenting and they will never stop.

Deep down, all of us have fears and all of us suffer for others in different doses

Deep down we all wish we wouldn’t be so touched by sad stories involving babies, we wish we wouldn’t cry so easily for others and we wish we could calm the screaming baby in the plane who’s mother reached the limit of her patience and we all know just how that feels and how grateful we would be if a complete stranger would play peek-a-boo with our little one for at least five minutes.

I think motherhood made me a better person, a more understanding and more patient human being and most definitely a more mature woman.
Did it make you more sensitive and compassionate? How did parenting changed you? Is it for the better or on the contrary?