As new or expectant mothers, most of us are very impressionable. I was an utter basket case of vulnerability.

When I was pregnant for the first time, I was fortunate to meet several experienced moms who were eager to show me the ropes.

They were dear friends, and I learned so much from them. But some of the lessons I absorbed from my new friends, I realize now, did damage which took years to shake off.

Had I listened to my own voice of common sense, I would have been much better off. My new friends were mommy martyrs, and following their “advice” just about did me in.

My first son was a whirling dervish of a toddler. He walked at ten months, and the chase was on. After a while, I felt I really needed to put him in a playpen to get a break.

But one friend, whose house permanently looked like the aftermath of a riot in a Toys-R-Us, said sternly, “The baby’s job is to explore. You can’t keep him in a pen.” Chastened, I thought she must be right. Who was I to stop the baby from doing his job?

By the age of two, my son had gone from the world’s most active baby to the world’s most agile, curious, and mechanically inclined (read: destructive) tot. As I’d attempt to cook dinner, my son would pull every pot and pan out of the cabinets then throw them down the basement stairs, get up on the kitchen table and start literally hanging from the light fixture, or get his head completely wrapped up in the curtains and rip the curtain rod out of the wall. I tried, as my long suffering mother had been insisting for years, to put him in a playpen. He screamed for an hour straight. It was too late.

In desperation, I bought an extended-space baby gate to fence off the whole kitchen. I showed it proudly to one of my friends and said how excited I was to cook dinner unmolested. My son had the entire, toy-strewn, bunker-like living room to himself!

But my fellow mom friend, instead of telling me it was about time I got control of my kitchen, pursed her lips, shook her head, and said, “Aren’t you afraid that will limit his brain development?” I kept the fence, but I felt guilty each time I deposited my toddler on the opposite side.

As my toddler got older and his activity level stayed the same, and with the second baby on his way, I began looking into the next sanity-saver for stay at home parents: pre-school. I had acquaintances who sent their 2 year olds to toddler programs, moms-day-out, or a young preschool class.

I brought this up to a friend, who said, with supreme disdain in her voice, “Two is too young for preschool. I want him with me.” That was the end of that discussion. I want him with me. That voice stayed with me for a long, long, time. I couldn’t admit to myself that I, in fact, did not want my little bundle of energetic destruction with me 24 hours a day.

What I really wanted was to shop alone, have a cup of coffee sans toddler, and enjoy some quiet moments with the new baby. I thought that I was a bad mother for having these thoughts. The year my second son was born is now a blur of a trashed living room, tantrums (mostly mine), and long, long hours in the house all winter with two tiny kids, and no break for me.

Several years later, I came to realize my mistake. In those times when I thought I was losing my mind, my instincts were telling me: “This kid is really active, and I need a break; I need to contain him before he wrecks the house and I lose my marbles.” I knew I needed to do it, for myself.

This is the part that took me years to figure out. I was totally desperate to get my child out of my hair-and no one was advocating for ME! It was not about the children’s needs, and what more, for heaven’s sake, could my healthy, organic-fed, Gymboreed, Baby-Einsteined kids possibly want for anyway? It was about my needs. I needed that baby fence for my own sanity.

It was the same with bottles, television, or fast food. My instincts were telling me, “Give yourself a break, woman!” But all too often, there was a mommy martyr, an article about the evils of TV, or an attachment parenting book, to make me feel terrible-telling me, overtly or subtly, that the children’s needs should come before mine at all times.

There is a time and place for this, primarily a child’s first few months of life. But after that, it is time to start reclaiming oneself. The other voices were there too, mainly my mom’s, saner friends, and a few good books telling me that an exhausted, spent, cranky woman with no life is doing her kids no good at all. But I ignored these voices of reason. The martyrs, and the guilt won me over.

Eventually, as I have made friends with women who have tidy, baby-gated houses, who send two-year-olds to preschool purely for their own sanity, and who use (gasp!) bottles so they can actually go out at night (or sleep), I have come to realize that I should have given myself many, many more breaks (you were right, Mom!).

Because I didn’t totally keep my sanity in the early years, I yelled way, way too much. I went years without a dentist appointment. I shopped only in clothing stores with large shopping carts. I loved being at home with the kids, but I should have made it easier on myself.

Don’t suffer needlessly for your kids. No one, I mean no one, is going to give you a medal, least of all the kids. Because before you know it, these same kids will want you to drop them off at the mall and stay in the car no matter how long you breastfed, delayed preschool, or let them trash your house! The best you can do in the baby years is enjoy them-while taking care of yourself.
Jesseca Timmons M.ED., lives with her family in Boston, Mass.