Full-time Mom
About Julia Nothwang
If you were looking for Julia Nothwang you would probably find her in the kitchen cooking, doing laundry, or cleaning up the house. This is what people might believe is the only part of motherhood, but really there is much more to it.
What’s it like being a mom to daughters?
“It is the most fulfilling job for someone to have and I'm extremely happy about it but it's also the most tiring and most exhausting thing someone can have. I would never change anything about it...the beginning of the first years were very tiring… [when] the babies and the toddlers had their health issues and [were] going through different phases. It's very challenging in every sense but also the most rewarding part of life.
Have you always wanted daughters or was there ever a point where you wanted a son?
“I always wanted daughters and I always pictured myself as a mother of daughters...Obviously, it would be different [if I had a son] because boys are very different to girls in some sense...[but] if I had boys I would have loved them the same way.”
How does being a mom affect your daily life?
“It affects my daily life in every way. It always has since the very first day and it changed with you growing up. In the beginning with the babies and toddlers it's much more exhausting work physically but it is still the timetable of my girls who are determining my daily routine.”
How do you cope when you're having a hard time being a mom?
“That’s a very good question and I can’t give you one answer. It really depends on the situation and the topic and issue so maybe [I would] go for a walk or hear my music or I [basically] just need some time for myself. That's basically the direction I would go in.”
Was there ever a time that you didn’t know how to be a mother, or didn’t know what to do in a specific situation?
“I think when you have your first child you don't have any idea because you can't be prepared for being a mother. There's no training camp and no lessons for being a mother. You can read some books but in the end it's never like the book. So with the first child it's the first in a lifetime and everything that is happening is going to be the first time. [Basically], you're not prepared… I would say I always followed my instincts so when my instinct was leading me in a certain direction I did it that way. If I felt it was right and in my experience it normally was right.”
“Being a full-time mom was my best decision in my life, and I would do it all again.”
-Julia Nothwang
In some way do you think that you used your first daughter to see what works as a parenting method, or how to discipline her and then me?
“I think I didn't use my first daughter because [the reason] I had my first daughter [was] because I wanted to have her so there was no trial and no example with the first child. As I said in the first questions you learn by doing, so when you experience something the first time with the first child, you know with the second child what is happening or what could happen and your more prepared of what is going to happen so you have already some experience and obviously you use this experience to make it work, [and] maybe even better or smoother or [know] not to be frightened or not to be afraid or not to be nervous so obviously you gain experience and this experience helps you a lot with your second, or third child, or any [amount of] kids you have.
When you had your first daughter did you already know that you wanted to have another one?
…Before I had my first daughter I had an idea of wanting two kids, that was my general idea of [a] family, but as I said it's an idea you have, you never know if it's going to happen. When I had my first daughter I was so overwhelmed with everything and with the experience in the beginning or in the first couple of months I didn't want to have a second child because-thought that I was never going to do that again and it [did] take a couple of months and also some years but then I thought okay maybe it wasn't that bad and I realized in the end I'm going to have a second one. I think it really depends on the situation and how healthy your child is and how your experience is and how the workflow is and how the sleeping and the eating and everything in general is.
If there was anything you could say to your younger self what would it be?
“[Well], I think more or less I would still do it all the same way [and] there wasn’t anything that happened which was not really wanted or not really expected and I think I would not want to change my life. I'm very happy with it.”
