To Battle 'Inner Emptiness,' Mom Goes on a Two-Year Trek Around the World

Yahoo Parenting ^ | 3/24/2015 | Erin Zammett Ruddy

[qam1]

In her breathtaking new memoir, Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World published Tuesday, Leigh Ann Henion, 37, writes of the birth of her 5-year-old son Archer: “I love and marvel over him as if he were my own heart pushed into the world and, still beating, set on top of my chest. Yet I cannot help but mourn the loss of something I can’t quite place. I have an inner emptiness—literal and figurative—that I’ve never felt before.”

What follows is a raw, sometimes gut-wrenching account of the dark and lonely place Henion finds herself in as she cares for a colicky, wakeful baby. Eventually Henion, a travel writer, realizes the only way out of her identity crisis is to leave her home in Boone, North Carolina and venture out into the world that once provided her so much peace and purpose. So shortly after Archer’s first birthday, Henion embarks — sometimes alone, sometimes with her husband — on a two-year trek around the world (with some stops home in between).....

[AppyPappy]

“She could have went to church”

The central focus of church is not her....so...no

[GeronL]

So true

[AppyPappy]

“Shoot me.”

Too much effort. Run into the bullet while I watch the game. Beer me first.

[Pollster1]

I had trouble reading carefully because I found the alleged mother too revolting for words. Thank you for the correction.

[thefactor]

The article is full of stuff like this

"I felt so isolated — like I was supposed to do everything on my own. If I asked for help or needed to go out with friends for a night, I felt like that would be cheating, looking at someone else’s paper. You know the saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child?’ I wasn’t letting the village in. I truly thought that in order to be a good mother, I was supposed to not exist."

I don't have any kids yet, but COME ON! Is it really this hard?!?

[steve8714]

Grammaw

[AppyPappy]

It’s hard if you are a Drama Momma.
In my parents time, the father took the mother on a trip within 6 months of birth to “break” the obsessive nature of motherhood.
It’s hard depending on you respond to it. If you freak out every time the baby cries, yeah, it’s going to suck.

[Organic Panic]

Exactly what I was thinking. I am surprised she has a husband. But at least he is there to care for the child while she goes and “finds” herself. I suspect she has no respect for her husband. I suspect she will divorce him and join some lesbian and become an environmental activist.

[BenLurkin]

Another poster up thread what’s this is not what the full article sayS. It appears I may have been a victim of misleading headline

[gibsosa]

LOL!

[Tax-chick]

Yes, inner emptiness or depression is very painful. It sounds as though she found a sort of “nature as God” that works for her. It’s certainly better than booze or drugs!

[Tax-chick]

Thanks for asking! It’s a little cold for me, but the sound of lawnmowing is agreeable, even if it’s not any of MY laconic teens doing it.

[Tax-chick]

Yes.

[trisham]

That’s certainly true.

[thefactor]

I only had my mom as an example. A single mother who worked the graveyard shift as an ER nurse for 30-some years and probably took three vacations away from our home in that time. And this woman is complaining about this "it takes a village" nonsense while going on incredible trips for weeks at a time.

Now, I'm well aware that life isn't fair and even. But who's going to feel sorry for this world-traveling mother with one kid?

[Tax-chick]

She was writing about how it feels when you believe that you, as the mother, must be absolutely everything to your child, and that you can have nothing else in your life. It's easy to believe this. After all, you "chose" to have a child, and that "choice" eliminated the choices to ... go out to dinner with a girlfriend; sleep at night; visit your parents; see a movie; ask anyone for help; ad infinitum.

Some people apparently succeed at this, which puts extra pressure on all the rest ... except when you actually get to know the "models," they're on antidepressants.

But who's going to feel sorry for this world-traveling mother with one kid?

Someone with compassion?

[Tax-chick]

Oh, you're no fun, anymore. ;)

Not fun, but very thin: I gave up wine for Lent.

[thefactor]

I'm sorry, but this woman obviously has found a way to enjoy an incredibly full life AFTER she had a kid. She's proving that all the troubles she had when her son was born have been easily tossed aside and she can travel the world in order to find herself. So if she can do it, why can't others? Just follow her advice, and POOF! No more worries. Of course, that's nonsense. This particular woman has the means to live like this while many, many others do not.

And yeah, children are a choice. I live in NYC. I know plenty of people who will never have kids and they are fine with that decision. And I know people with kids who never should have had them.

[qam1]

If she can afford this, and I can't, then obviously they are NOT paying their fair share.

Well since she wrote about her travels in her book, she probably deducted the cost of these trips off her taxes as a business expense.

[BykrBayb]

The sound of a lawnmower spells nap time for me! :~0