By Emeri B. Montgomery
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I was scrolling on my phone at 4 a.m. when a video stopped me cold. A mama at a baseball game made her way to her seat with a baby strapped to her chest, a diaper bag on her back and multiple trays of food balanced in her hands.
And there was the man she came with. Sitting down. Watching.
Amid the crowds at San Francisco's Oracle Park, during Tuesday's Giants game against the Twins, she maneuvered the baby, balanced the food, and squeezed into the row. When she reached him, he pulled down her seat, then grabbed his food. I stared at my phone.
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Hell no, sir. Help her.
That woman already has a whole human being strapped to her body. You want her to navigate a crowded stadium and bring back food while you hold down the seats?
I know a viral video is only a sliver of two strangers' lives. I don't know them or how their relationship works. But it was like motherhood had been blasted onto the Jumbotron: Mama balancing everything, making it look effortless because she's had plenty of practice. And we mamas saw ourselves. We'd had it.
Not necessarily with that man. We'd had it with the expectation that Mom will carry it because Mom always figures out how. Give her another plate, and she'll find somewhere to balance it. Because she can handle everything, somehow that means she should.
For a few seconds, motherhood's invisible load wasn't invisible anymore. Mamas everywhere were ready to make the call: You're out!
Remember Goldilocks And The Three Bears? I bet Mama Bear was pissed off, too. Papa Bear's porridge was too hot. Of course it was. He got first dibs. Mama Bear's was too cold. Naturally. By the time she finally sat down to eat, her food was cold. And Baby Bear's was just right—until that freeloading Goldilocks ate it. Even in fairy tales, Mama can't catch a break.
Maybe we're not carrying a baby and trays of food through a stadium, but we're carrying something. We know the dentist appointment is Tuesday, the permission slip is due Friday, and there's not enough toothpaste to make it through the week. We're figuring out dinner during a work meeting and scheduling pediatrician appointments between conference calls.
Somebody has to keep those plates spinning, and too often, it's Mom. Because we've gotten so good at it, people applaud. Look at her. She does everything. Maybe she doesn't need applause. Maybe she needs somebody to take a damn tray. But the video also reminded me: I didn't sign up for this circus alone.
My husband would never sit while I hauled food back to our seats. He knows my clumsy ass would drop everything but the baby. More importantly, he'd probably already be in the concession line.
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He fixes my plate, washes dishes and handles school drop-off while I handle pickup. When our daughter needed more responsibility with her allowance, he created a contract for her to sign. I married a mortgage broker. Apparently, even childhood allowances require paperwork. That's not my husband “helping” me. He's parenting.
Before anybody nominates him for sainthood, I occasionally remind him that I appear to own the majority equity stake in this parenting operation and that we need to revisit the shareholder agreement. Good partnerships aren't 50-50 every day. The point isn't keeping score. It's noticing when the person beside you has too much in their hands.
My husband knew I wasn't signing up to be a traditional wife. I put it in our wedding vows: “I promise to let you be the head of the household—with some constructive feedback, of course.” Eleven years later, there is still plenty of constructive feedback.
Every family decides what partnership looks like. But parenthood shouldn't mean one person becomes the permanent ringmaster while everybody else enjoys the show. And I have a special appreciation for single mothers who don't have another parent in the house to hand a tray to. I was raised by one. I know what that kind of ringmaster looks like.
Maybe that's why the video bothered me so much. It looked like motherhood—the constant balancing, carrying, and figuring it out. We don't need to become better at balancing. We're already good at that. We need to get better at putting something down.
For me, that means letting my husband handle something without my constructive feedback. Most importantly, it means letting my daughter see me rest. I don't want her growing up believing that being a good mother means carrying everything until she can't carry herself.
Because this circus act was never supposed to be about how many plates Mama can keep in the air. No matter how good she gets at balancing them, eventually her arms get tired. And if we keep piling on the plates, eventually, they will stop spinning. And they will crash.
Emeri B. Montgomery is Newsweek's Director of Homepage Operations.
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