It Took Me Years to Realize That Raising Five Children Was Like Running a Never-Ending a Marathon
Each pregnancy crushed me like a load of bricks, and I’d have to put myself back together, piece by piece
When I was fourteen, I played several sports at my school. I practiced every day but compared to the rest of the female players, I was nowhere near being a star. During most matches, I was benched, and I had no problem with that. I was clearly not the best, and I found it natural to keep the best ones in the game. I wasn’t big on competition.
That summer, I decided to take up swimming at the local club with a friend of mine. As a kid, I used to spend hours alone playing in pools. My favorite activity was swimming. I attempted laps underwater. I loved it.
Once I started taking competitive swimming classes, I tried out my coach’s instruction and marveled at how much faster I got simply by adjusting a turn of an arm or arching my back the right way.
Two weeks later, the club needed someone to represent them at a competition. I quietly waited for the more experienced swimmers to raise their hands. Nobody did. They were required to select a fourteen-year-old girl, and I was the only one that fit the bill. When the coach pointed at me, I panicked.
“No way! I just started two weeks ago, I’m clearly not ready.” I whined at my mom.
“Well, they have to send someone over. You can’t just forfeit,” she replied.
I insisted: “It’ll be so embarrassing! It’s one thing to play team sports and be mediocre, it’s another thing to be singled out.” She let me rant and then offered to drive me to the meet.
Once I got there, I couldn’t look at my competitors. They were obviously better than I was. At that moment, while we were preparing our diving positions, I decided to do what I did best to win time. I was going to hold my breath for the first twenty-five meters. If I was going down, I was going to do it with dignity.
The race started and I plunged head-first into the pool and swam as hard as I could. I took just one breath at twenty meters and prayed to make my spin at the end of the pool right, and push back to the finish line. I spun too early, and my big toe was the only one to touch the wall. Useless. Now I was tired and out of breath and had lost that big push I was counting on. Chopping the water in front of me karate-style, I started to feel speed again.
I had to take a breath. I was so desperate that I lost all posture and lifted both arms out of the water like I was drowning. Just out of curiosity, I moved my head side to side and saw people in the audience looking at me with shocked faces. Swimming beside me, I saw no one. Everyone has finished already! Move it! My brain screamed at me underwater. At that point, I resolved to at least be the fastest loser there that day.
I got to the finish line so exhausted that I took a breath and slowly let my body float down for a second. One, two, three bubbles made their way up. I couldn’t face the embarrassment of being last. Right then a hand splashed into the water above me. I reached up and it pulled me out. Everybody was cheering and my coach hugged me, laughing with glee. “We won! You won!”
Wait. What?
I was so desperate that I lost all posture and lifted both arms out of the water like I was drowning. Just out of curiosity, I moved my head side to side and saw people in the audience looking at me with shocked faces.
Fast forward a few decades: I was at a dinner party with a couple visiting from out of town. My husband was chatting with them and sharing badges of honor. They had several degrees, worked for successful companies, and also had three kids. Then there was me. A stay-at-home-mom with five kids under eight, a lackluster professional career with loads of empty spaces in my CV, and a bucket of dreams that has overflowed with every new pregnancy.
The woman, on the other hand, had just run the Chicago Marathon in nearly three hours flat. She works, and has kids, and ran a marathon in three hours, seriously? I groaned. It getting late, half an hour past my usual bedtime, which prepared me to tackle my kids’ energy levels at 6:00 a.m. every day. I had had a long day of playdates, and only forty minutes before this conversation, I had managed to put all five to sleep. I hit my head trying to pull out an old dress to look somewhat appropriate for a party at the beach (we live in Florida), and I just wanted to give my friend her birthday present, chat a few minutes, and then go home to sleep.
“What do you do, Zelmi?” asked the beautiful, blond, marathon-runner.
I choked.
Instead of going for a proud portrayal of everything I do as a mom and a freelancer with big dreams, my brain flatlined. I was only able to utter: “Well, I used to work at the office of a big company, but after we had our first child, we decided that I would stay at home with her.”
Silence.
Trying to keep the small talk going, they asked what company I had worked for. Turns out, they knew people at my old company and started dropping names. I felt dizzy. I couldn’t recall a single one. I completely blanked. I was reeling. I fell back into that same sensation I experienced as a new simmer, panicked to be put on the spot.
I only managed, “I’m sorry, but I’ve been pregnant for so long that I can’t remember a thing,” and laughed nervously, almost asking for their approval of my excuse. “And, I just published a book, um, with a friend. It’s been fun!”They just stood there, looking at me with inscrutable faces. My husband looked confused.
I felt so out of place. But my life had been completely focused on taking care of my five babies and our home. I tried to squeeze in time for me, for my writing, for my next big idea. I listened to podcasts and audiobooks on writing or building a business while shuttling my kids around. I would take notes at every red light. I tried, but it wasn’t enough to compete with the torrent of responsibilities, especially while my husband was away on business or pursuing his MBA.
That night, as we walked back to our apartment I talked it over with him. “I felt like such a loser,” I said, dragging my feet in the sand. He was quiet for a moment and then, taking me by the hand, he said, “Well, I see it like this: You’ve been running a longer marathon than anyone at that party, for almost eight years now. You were determined to have our five kids in the fewest years possible, and on top of that, you managed to publish your first book! I think you’ve done a heck of a job and you should be proud of that!”
I hadn’t really seen my journey as a marathon up until then. But through his loving eyes, I saw how much I had pushed, worked, and managed through these past years to get the large family we both dreamed of, while somehow, even at the bare minimum, keeping up trying to fulfill my professional dreams.
Instead of going for a proud portrayal of everything I do as a mom and a freelancer with big dreams, my brain flatlined.
When I first became a mother, I was afraid of the learning curve. Like all the swimmers at my first meet, the other moms looked like they had it all figured out. I was often so tired that I felt like I couldn’t go any further. I would foolishly think that the next pregnancy was going to be better, and just like my failed spin in the pool, I had to swim back even harder. Each pregnancy hit me like a load of bricks, and I’d have to put myself back together, piece by piece. But the second I had my new baby in my arms, I couldn’t stop diving back in.
I’d often see other moms finish their childbearing years, ready to start their next chapter. I had moments when I was so critical of myself that I just wanted to give up on my dreams and quit writing altogether. But by the time I had my last two children, friends started to ask me questions about pregnancy and motherhood, and, miraculously, I found myself full of answers. I started to hear phrases like: “You’re my hero” and “You’re so brave!” Like a runner in an ultramarathon, moms do have amiable support and a loyal fanbase — we just have to look up.
I now know that my value as a mom can’t be summed up in an elevator pitch. Yet, like any momentous challenge, it pushed me to my physical and emotional limits every time. And behold: I’m still here, bearing witness!
Every mother has her own goals and her own story she wants reflected in her life. But we can’t let competitiveness break our spirit. We have to see each other as sisters running on the same track or swimming in the same pool, and we have to be ready to cheer each other on. The level of determination, organization, generosity, and effort that we put into motherhood is worthy of Olympic gold.
Zelmira Crespi co-wrote of Happy Mom, Happy Kid alongside Maria Luisa Montt. She lives in Key Biscayne, Florida, with her family.
