<\/a><\/p>\n

Having children changed me, even without my meaning for this to happen. I hang out with two little kids all day long, and it’s impossible for this not to shape me.<\/p>\n

I care more about some things than ever before—ingredients in store-bought foods, public schools and education—and I care a lot less about other things.
\n
\nSix things I started caring about after having kids:
\n<\/strong>
\n1. Rory Gilmore’s love life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn’t watch television before having kids, aside from Seinfeld reruns and football, and the occasional food documentary. Now, however, I have a much needed date each night with Netflix and a glass of wine (and my husband, of course).<\/p>\n

Parenting is the most rewarding, hardest job ever. Self-care and downtime are required.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. The size of my pants.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started caring more than ever about the size of my pants after having kids. I started paying attention to my attachment to my weight because I’m raising two girls and I want them to avoid the eating-disorder struggles and the self-loathing that I battled. So I’ve given myself permission to be honest about my body image, but to not negatively be defined by my physical self either.<\/p>\n

For the first time maybe ever I genuinely love myself. I’m one of those unicorn-moms who wears yoga shorts and doesn’t care what my butt and thighs look like. Deciding to accept that I’ve held myself up to meaningless societal standards for a lifetime ironically helped me purge them.<\/p>\n

(It helps that I don’t know my true size, since the yoga pants I live in aren’t that specific.)<\/p>\n

3. If I’m liked.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I do<\/em> care if people like me, but the people pleaser in me largely went away when I had a better reason to grow up and like myself regardless of unimportant outside feedback—my children.<\/p>\n

4. If I have food between my teeth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I do still appreciate a heads up if I have salad from lunch wedged between my two bottom teeth, but since I generally have food on my clothes, or in my hair, it’s really less significant now.<\/p>\n

5. Tomorrow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Planning for our future as a family, and for my kids, is more important to me now than ever, but regularly reminding myself to stay right here<\/em> in this beautiful chaos that is life with little kids means more than ever, too.<\/p>\n

6. Perfection.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ll always be a little bit Type A and a lot anal-retentive, but my previous ideas of perfection are nothing like my current ones. Lately, if my house is clean, and the kids and I are clean, and cared for, and fed, then everything else is icing.<\/p>\n

Because we have these ideas of what a parent looks like—of what a mother should be—and I, at least, work every day to try to be this ideal creation.<\/p>\n

And then I have to force myself to stop; to look in the mirror; to see the real woman looking back at me—to choose to care about her<\/em> and like her, exactly as she is.<\/p>\n

There is no perfect woman.<\/p>\n

There is no perfect mother.<\/p>\n

We are all perfect.<\/p>\n

We are all deserving of love and respect for living authentically inside of our skin and our lives. I hope to teach my daughters this, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having children changed me, even without my meaning for this to happen. I hang out with two little kids all day long, and it’s impossible for this not to shape me. I care more...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[245,465],"tags":[142,548,232],"class_list":["post-6495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pregnancy-and-motherhood","category-self-love-and-acceptance","tag-motherhood","tag-parenting","tag-self-care"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/13254909_10153703287590197_7470248767936629780_o-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4dYEp-1GL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6495"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6501,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6495\/revisions\/6501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}