Everyone is at the OMR and so successful on LinkedIn! And for me, this post just took 4 weeks. All at the snail's pace of natural processes đ. Now is the right time to share.
A few weeks ago I became a mom, and you know what? My baby is just like your AI: identify hunger, communicate hunger, take breast, suck, recognize fullness. Be happy đ. It's amazing what we adults (I often say "we humans" instead đœđ) can already do and take for granted.
As a mom, it feels like "me 2.0": as if I've slipped through a small hole to another level. The balanced parameters of a normal adult life meet absolute chaos. And everything starts all over again: all the fears, all the learnings, all the achievements. Only now it's not me who's the little kid, it's the other one. Like kind of a meta-life. From the beginning. Super exciting. Also the amplitude between deepest philosophical insights and most primitive doings like changing diapers. Or just being. A deep dive to myself.
Yesterday I watched Luisa Neubauer's speech at the OMR. When I hold my baby in my arms, climate protection is also very concrete: for him, for his future. This little needy being whose life we define with our choices. My consumption, my comfort zone now has a concrete price for me: my son's future. I see this in his face and it pricks my conscience.
As a mom and a freelance designer, I feel pretty pressured. It took me 4 weeks to write this post because I wasn't sure how to position myself now. How will the community take it that I'm not present at all anymore? Way too little on the job? "Has she gone?" Should I have posted everything from the beginning, even during the course of my pregnancy? Is it too late now? đ€Ż What will my freelance carreer look like after this? Can our vision for the new work culture and sustainable economy accommodate me as a new mom, or is it all an illusion? After all, should I have taken care of getting orders during maternity leave?
But my gut says I'm a mom now. My little son needs me 100% and I'm staying at his pace. These are just the simple truths that are inside me, the right decisions. Thank you instincts, thank you hormones. I deal with the issues of parenthood, with bumblebees up my butt, just as I am. Needs-based guidance, non-violent communication, free unbent children for the sustainable future. That's me, by the way, this relaxed avocado đđ„.
Soon I'll start creating and planning spaces again. The new me, with more empathy, mastering chaos, more self-aware, more stress resistant. With a young son in the sling who will look to me and learn. Will go his own way. My goodness, he's so small. His little feet â„ïž.
Now I'm his mom. Now there's both of us. And everything will be fine.