“I’m a mother,” a woman in her forties once said to me, “I have no idea what that actually means or how I’ve done all this for the past twenty years.”

Isn't that exciting?

We wait until doomsday to have children because we don't feel ready. Suddenly, our darling little ones are out of the house, and after years of being completely washed out, we feel like we're not even sure what to do anymore. The main thing is that the child is still in perfect health, we think after this rollercoaster ride, hoping no one notices that we weren't actually qualified for the job.

It's indeed a thought that takes some getting used to – we live in a society that places value on certificates and training; indeed, our own perceived worth is often based on our qualifications. And then there's the most important job of all, which ensures the purely biological survival of humanity, for which there's no training at all – so we have to rely on a few advisors and our instincts – and the many therapies that are supposed to fix what our parents messed up in adulthood.

So, how does being a parent work? When am I ready to bring a child into the world? What do I need? Is a secure job essential—or is it even a requirement? Do I need to be at least 80% self-aware, have the right partner, or have mentally separated myself from my parents? Do I need savings in the bank, a house of my own, a training course in education, or just a positive attitude toward life?

Here's some input for further reflection—because as a mother of soon-to-be three children, I don't have a definitive answer either. All I know is: I wasn't ready for my first child back then, and now I'm not ready for my third.

Yes, how now?

Every child is different and every experience is completely new - back then I'd never had a first child and now I've never had three children, I've never done this before, so how am I supposed to know how to do it?

If I survey ten families with three children, I get ten different answers. My third child is completely different from the Becker family's third child. And above all, I myself am completely different from any other parent in the world. I have my own story with my own triggers, injuries, and successes.

I only know one thing: What you need is courage. Courage to get up every single day and say: I have no idea what's coming, but I'm getting up today. At its core, it's the fear of life itself that paralyzes us. No one can predict which of my skills my child will need to grow up healthy, both internally and externally. There are a few basics, of course, but we humans are so much more complex.

"I'm not ready yet," you might say as the child inside you grows. "I'm not ready yet," you think when your child starts elementary school. "I'm not ready yet," you scream back inside when they yell at you during puberty that they hate you. And "I'm not ready yet," you cry when they leave home.

Being prepared in advance for something you've never done before is essentially impossible.

We only have one person from whom we can learn to become ready: the child itself.

Every new day changes—and you change with it. This constant movement is what you can embrace in life.

Help!

If you're currently in a situation where you feel this fear of not being able to cope with the challenges that lie ahead, I urge you: Have faith! You learned to walk as a small child. You graduated from school (despite that terrible teacher, remember?), got your driver's license, and made friends—yes, there was a first encounter there too. And—you survived your own childhood home. Maybe that wasn't actually that easy, and you thought a few times as a child that you couldn't do it.

But today you're here. You're pregnant or the partner of a pregnant woman, your child cries half the night or has five tantrums a day. You're experiencing the adolescent excesses of a child for the first time. You're doing all of this for the first time. No one has prepared you for this. But you're already in the middle of it. You're already doing it.

Yesterday, I went to the swimming pool with my two children, where I almost fell asleep due to pregnancy fatigue. My daughter spent half the day yelling at me because... well, I wasn't functioning the way she wanted me to. I fell into bed at 8:00 p.m. feeling like I'd never get up again. I felt exhausted, alone, and abandoned. This morning, I woke up and made myself a coffee. I wasn't ready. But I'm already doing it.

You woke up this morning to face another day of your life. A life that, every day, holds things in store for us that we weren't prepared for. Congratulations. I mean it. We can do this.

If you would like to learn more about family, pregnancy, mindfulness, nutrition or sustainability, take a look here over.