The world changes when you become a mother. It is not something you can explain to anyone, but it is the single most life changing event in a lifetime, by a land slide.

Being a parent is hard, but being a mother is harder, unless you are a single father and in that case my eternal respect to you.

Being a mother means you will never really sleep the same way again; that deep I-won’t-wake-up-unless-the-building-is-falling sleep is gone forever. The dashing out the door in a seconds notice for the whole day because your friend just suggested a day out is also gone, maybe not forever, but for a long while. Blowing your savings on a car or quitting your job because you’ve had it with your boss; a luxury you can’t afford now. Living for the moment, packing for a weekend away in a jiffy and dodging the groceries trip for one more week are all things of the past.

But that’s not what makes motherhood hard. All these changes are things that will annoy you and inconvenience you, but they are not hard.

What is hard is the responsibility of looking after a teeny, tiny human being that has no idea how to tell you what it needs. What is hard is anticipating every possible need and making every possible choice consciously and with full awareness and constant intention of the utmost well-being of your child.

From the day your baby is born you need to feed them before they go hungry, warm them before they go cold, change them before they get rashes, burp them so they don’t throw up,carry them so they feel safe, bathe and immunize them so they stay healthy. You watch out for tell tales of discomfort, development, contentment. You play a guessing game for the first five to six months of their lives. Every mother goes through a mental checklist every time her baby cries: “Is she wet? Is she hungry? Is she sleepy? Does she have a fever? Is she too warm? Is she too cold? Does she need to burp?” And then at around six months the questions change: “Am I spoiling her? Shouldn’t she be sitting by now? Should I give her eggs? Is that spit up from lactose intolerance? Am I spending enough time with her? Am I spending too much time with her? Is she eating enough? Is she too fat? Is she too thin? Can she eat sand? Am I too protective? Am I not careful enough? Should I sleep train?”

Planning the day takes on a different meaning when you are a mother. Planning the day means planning three meals and where baby will nap and how many outfits you should have on hand and when baby will bathe and sleep. If you are a working mother as I am being organized becomes a mode of survival.

One day I went to the beach and forgot my son’s diaper bag – which had so much more than diapers — four hours without the diaper bag and my son had used adult sunscreen, had to breastfeed instead of eat, was soaked in the zucchini my friend’s mother kindly steamed for him and was in a soaked diaper and shorts; thank god he did not poop.

Being a mother also means that thinking about the future extends to around 20 years: Nursery, schooling, pension funds, life insurance, moving countries and safety and security issues – the list goes on forever.

It means being judged every day. If your baby cries in your absence then you left her without food, if she cries in your presence then you are not nurturing enough. You are judged if your baby eats too much or too little, If she only eats fruits and vegetables she isn’t eating enough variety, if she eats from the table you are not careful enough with her food. If she stays up late you are a loose parent, if she goes to bed at 7pm you are too uptight. If she plays in the sand you are reckless, if she stays in your lap you are over protective. If she is dressed in two onesies, it is too warm and if in one it is too cold. If you follow a schedule you are westernized and anal, if you don’t you are bohemian and what on earth are you doing to your child’s sense of order. It really is that bad. Being a mother is hardest because you are expected to know all the answers.

Dads pitch in and help as much as they can, but at the end you are the one expected to have the schedule, plan the meals, know the vaccination timings, watch out for the tell tales, know the wardrobe, pack the bags and provide the final line of comfort when all else fails. You are the baby’s safe haven, you are the ultimate resource. You are the one who has no one left to go to when it comes to your baby.

Being a mother turns you into a grown up the way nothing else can. But in return it turns you into the single most important person for the single person in this world that you love more than yourself. Your baby will smile at you like they smile at no one, will throw themselves in your arms with such trust and abandon, will look for you in a crowded room just to get a sense of normalcy and will sleep in your arms such a deep sleep that it makes everything so worthwhile that mothers all over the world are unanimous in this: no matter how hard, it is worth it every time.