How to Be Less Anxious

About having a baby, and about everything else

My book about personality change comes out in just a couple weeks, so if you haven’t already, please pre-order your copy today.

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Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash

Last week The Atlantic published a long adapted essay from my book, about how motherhood changed my personality. (It will also appear in the March print issue, if you’re old-school.)

Here I wanted to expand on something I address in the essay, which is the extreme amount of anxiety that I felt about becoming a parent. Though I’m agnostic about whether people have kids, I think anxiety is a factor for some millennials who are on the fence about parenthood. Some people, of course, are certain they want to remain child-free, but others would have kids, but they’re nervous about it.

Before I had a baby, I was anxious about taking the plunge into parenthood because I worried it would make my life worse. Among other things, I worried about sleep deprivation, given that I’m not someone who does well on no sleep. I worried I wouldn’t have time for myself, or for my husband or friends. And I worried my career would suffer because I was spending so much time googling “how to serve mozzarella to an 11-month-old” and so little time reading and writing.

Since becoming a mom, though, I realized something surprising: All those worries were extremely well-founded. They have all come true. I am so tired I actually think I might never feel well-rested again. I was just starting to develop hobbies when Evan was born, and now my only hobby is “getting the high chair really clean.” And I am simply less productive because I used to work 12 hours a day and now I work 8.

But here’s the thing: Despite all these very clear negatives, my life has also become better, in ways that are hard to describe and were even harder to envision before they happened. I genuinely love spending time with Evan. I like being goofy and making him laugh, which is a part of my personality I didn’t even realize existed. I like cuddling him to sleep, even though the sleep experts say we’re not supposed to do that. Because he’s always growing and becoming a new person, I always have something to look forward to, in a way that I didn’t before. And as cliche as it sounds, he gives me the inspiration to do tedious, frustrating, or hard things, especially if I feel like they will improve his life even a little bit.

One of my favorite tricks for managing anxiety, which I learned in the course of researching my book, is to acknowledge that your worries might come true, but to remember that positive outcomes are also possible. Anxiety can make it really hard to remember that second part, but it is so, so crucial when it comes to actually doing stuff, instead of being paralyzed by fear. Balancing these two competing emotions—realistic pessimism and realistic optimism—is the whole ballgame.

If I could go back and tell my pre-baby self one thing, it’s that it will be just as bad as you imagine, if not worse. (To be honest, I did not have emergency hemorrhoid surgery on my pregnancy bingo card, yet there I found myself around the eighth-month mark.)

But! … I would continue saying to Past Me … motherhood will also be better in ways that you can’t wrap your head around. My life is now worse than it’s ever been, but also better than it’s ever been. Anxiety makes it easier to see the negatives than the positives, but that doesn’t mean the positives aren’t there.

I’m not trying to persuade anyone to have a baby, but personally, I’m trying hard to apply this philosophy the next time I feel frozen by doubt.

Here again is a gift link to the essay. Thanks for reading.