by Amy Grunewald Mattison

Everyone who has ever become a parent moans at the memory of the sleepless nights that marked their transition into parenthood. Whether parenthood happened after hours (or days) of labor and birth or after welcoming a child into their home through adoption, new parents have lived through the watches of the night. This rite of passage jump-starts conversations among parents at the playground sandbox, while their children push around mounds of sand and cast shapes in plastic molds. Even now, four years since we brought our twin boys into the hot steamy world of a North Carolina summer, the scent of a size N diaper or the first notes of our lullaby CD take me back to the pacing, pacifying, and desperate praying that the boys would fall—and stay—asleep.

In it together

But we are less likely to share with the other parents at the sandbox another side of not sleeping. Perhaps it’s impossible to talk deeply in the space between “please share the broken truck with the others, honey” and “let’s not eat the sand” about how during those dark, wide-awake hours, we began to see ourselves less as individuals and more as pieces woven in the fabric of the human family. Maybe it was the helplessness I felt when one (or both) of the boys cried until his face was bursting red. Maybe it was the nagging of Western medicine that says charts and numbers determine the health of your child. Maybe it was just the fatigue.

At some point during the first few nights, I accepted with gratitude that parents are not parents alone. For as much time as I spent tucked into the double nursing pillow with the boys, there were others—grandparents, neighbors, friends, members of our congregation—who made baked chicken and apple pie, who brought diapers, who came rushing over after school to make the babies smile while I got a quick shower. Sometimes I just watched the babies look adoringly at each other as they dabbled in the beginnings of friendship.

My own friendships with other mothers deepened as we figured out together how to survive the dinner time “witching hour” and how to make over the ice-cube trays with frozen carrot cubes. Once while on a walk with a friend, I started sobbing in the middle of an intersection at the thought of another sleepless night ahead. She, a mother of 14 years, knew how temporary and yet how agonizing sleep deprivation can be, and I made it through another night.

Daily surprises
But what surprised me the most were the changes in my daily encounters. A trip to the grocery store meant repeated stops by well-wishers expressing awe at those 20 toes peeking out of the stroller.

The friendly hellos I exchanged with the crossing guard throughout my pregnancy became conversations—and a gift of lollipops, though the boys didn’t yet have teeth. The frail woman at the corner shared with me that she raised twin girls, one of whom had died in adulthood. She had smiles for the boys and encouragement for me. The boys opened up a world that had been merely scenery to me. Not that I’ve ever struggled to make small talk, but somehow the connection through a child sparks a kindness between strangers I had not known before.

Perhaps the biggest change in becoming a parent is losing the freedom to be set apart as an individual. Children bring us into the world as much as we bring them into the world. They will not let us dwell in a daydream of how we might like things to go. Their very existence requires us to come with them and explore. What will we see? Who will we meet? What story might we share?

As the boys have grown, the physical stresses of parenthood have diminished. I have more flexibility to go for a run or out with a friend or on a date with their dad. I sleep at night and shower whenever I need to. But I am even more aware of how connected I am to others in the wake of being their mom.

Just recently we moved from the city where they lived through their toddler years to a new town. Within hours we met an eager 4-year-old who wanting to play with the boys. On our first outing downtown they brought a smile to the bus driver as they marveled at the mechanics of the kneeling bus. It hasn’t made leaving our friends any easier, but our children’s engagement with the world reminds us that we are not individuals alone. Now we venture into new friendships and adventures, knowing that we are growing up together into the children God created us to be.

Amy Grunewald Mattison recently moved from Chicago to Madison, Wis., with her husband and twin 4-year-old boys. She is a graduate of St. Olaf College and Duke Divinity School.

Read two other stories about transition to college and global service.