Being a Parent is Not Like Riding a Bike
Parenthood is a difficult multidirectional journey. In the first few months, unravelling from lack of sleep, you realize how selfish you actually have been in your pre-parenthood life, as you give so much of yourself to this new being that you begin to be untethered to who you once were. The postpartum period is not just a fourth trimester for the infant, but for the mother as well, for her life is even more tied to sustaining the baby than it was when the baby was in utero. I have never given so much for anyone as I did in that period, which seemed to stretch infinitely while I was in it, and only now seems to have finite bounds. I think all physicists should experience the postpartum months to grasp how warped time can become, because what holds more gravity than the beginnings of an utterly unique life just recently dropped into spacetime, dragging the parents into his orbit with such insistent yet basic demands? Strangely, as the baby gains mass, slowly leaving infancy, ...