I have a newfound respect for single moms.
You don’t realize how much of a team effort parenting is until your teammate is no longer there – or, in my case, called off to war. Whether it’s the middle of the night wake-ups, the driving to and from daycare, the burping, the tummy time, the diaper changes, the food training, the sleep training, or the surviving-as-a-human training, it’s a two-person effort at least. But when that other person is gone, chaos reigns.
That being said, there comes a unique sort of comfort in the little moments when one’s family is torn apart. It was at home, on the foam play mat with the six-month-old, the Bluey theme bouncing through my ears as I monitored my little boy’s tummy time, when I first felt it.
I had looked up at my husband, just back, sack still on his shoulder, bags under his eyes, and a grin from ear to ear, and I found peace for the first time since we had last parted.
We traded. I took his bag and began to empty it out into the laundry basket, and he took our wonderful son, his delighted giggles at being reunited with his father rolling through the hall.
The struggles of raising a baby alone in a country at war
The war broke out on October 7, a couple of weeks before I had intended to return to work early from my maternity leave. It was 6:30 a.m., and we were scrambling down the stairs to the bomb shelter. My legs shook under me as I clung tightly to my baby boy, whose confused cries rang in my ears.
A week later, my husband was in uniform, and to quote Chicago’s Roxie Hart, it was just “me and my baby, my baby and me” – though we weren’t “as happy as babies can be.”
It was survival mode from that moment on. My husband somehow managed to call once a day, and WhatsApp video became a saving grace, allowing him to see our son’s first time crawling (backward, of course), his first time in a tiny winter coat, and his first taste of applesauce.
Life began to feel like Groundhog Day: Wake up, care for baby, eat, care for baby, sleep, repeat. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing more enjoyable than spending time with my son; he is a breath of fresh air, a source of pure, radiant joy. But night blurred with day blurred with diapers and bottles and laundry and sleep; and at some point, nothing made sense – I was on autopilot.
Coming back to work was like a breath of fresh air in the dead of winter: crisp and refreshing, but also sharp and intense. Baby Beeri was in daycare, and routine became heavier. I spent my waking days bouncing between pick-ups, drop-offs, and The Jerusalem Post offices.
The renewed sense of individuality, the sense of self that was missing, began to return. But with it came the stress of being a full-time managing editor of a major news site, all while raising a six-month-old almost entirely alone. Everything felt like a race. I’m used to it. In the news, we work on tight deadlines. But here, it was like the nightmares from high school, where you’re running on a track, but the finishing line moves farther away the more you run.
If I was getting all the housework done and getting the baby to daycare and back on time, I was behind on work. If I was on top of work and housework, the baby was constantly late to daycare. If the baby was on time to daycare and I was on top of work, the house was a mess. There didn’t seem to be a way to consolidate all aspects of my life.
But that was just the day to day. The backdrop – the constant, aching, ever-present feeling – was that of fear.
I continuously thought to myself, “A country at war is no place for a baby.” I had nightmares of Hamas terrorists holding my son in their arms. When he awoke in the middle of the night, after giving him his bottle I held him for a couple of minutes, desperately drinking up his presence, his goodness, and the sense that he is here; he is safe.
And now, three months into the war, this blurry, confusing, and intense state has become routine. My husband comes home more often, and every moment with him is treasured more than ever. You truly learn to appreciate the little things in times like these, and that is certainly the case with us. An hour on the play mat with the baby is a rare and wonderful delight. A moment of quiet, eating dinner together at our small dining table is a heavenly privilege. A glass of whisky and a game of backgammon are practically a party.
I don’t know when we’re going to get out of this situation. That being said, I hope beyond all hope that my husband, alongside partners of parents near and far, come back home to their families because we need them – and they need us.
The writer is managing editor of jpost.com.