I'll Tell Ya What I Want, What I Really Really Want

Normal Mother’s Day Gifts Are Fine & All, But What I Really Want Is A Tattoo

All gifts are welcome but only one lasts forever.

by Katie McPherson

April 28, 2025

Ariela Basson/Scary Mommy; Getty Images, Shutterstock

A Very Scary Mother's Day Issue

I’m lucky; I never felt like I lost myself in pregnancy or postpartum the way so many women say they do. My friends, my interests, my quirks, and my personal failings all remained. Some anxieties were magnified, and I had to adjust my priorities, sure, but that was the extent of the great change. But the window of time I get to access that self is extremely narrow these days. And that has been the hardest part of motherhood for me.

Before having my son, I was a hobby girl. As a kid, I crafted, wrote, and read voraciously. I begged to take karate. Finally, when my parents divorced, they caved and enrolled me in horseback riding lessons. That hobby carried me through many low points in life and through all the highs, and I rode all through my school years, in college, and beyond into adulthood.

These days, after I tuck my son into bed at 8, feed myself, and do any necessary chores, I’m usually left with about an hour and a half of time before bed. It’s the only space I get to think my thoughts uninterrupted, to do something I really want to do, and each night I juggle a mess of conflicting desires: Do I work on the book I want to write? Get horizontal on the couch and read an objectively bad romantasy novel? Should I go to the gym or do some YouTube pilates? My nervous system is constantly begging to get lost in something it loves, just for a little while.