by Jamie Kenney

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I full believe that if anything would be helpful in parenthood, it’s a time machine. It would be a way to go back and fix a dumb mistake or thing you’ve said that you felt crappy about later. But above and beyond that, I think it would be great for reassurance. I could time travel to past me, in the thick of rearing a newborn, and say “Hey, try this” or even just to offer reassurance: “Hey, me of the past: it’s so hard now, but it will get easier.”

On a recent episode of the It’s Me, Tinx podcast, art historian and writer Sarah Hoover discussed what she would go back and tell herself before becoming a mom and, honestly, it’s the advice most moms probably need.

“All of the phases are shorter than you think, and that any moment when you’re, like, ‘I’m so depressed/This sucks/I hate this’ … it really will end,” she says, before continuing.

“I had bent over backward to build a life that I thought was something that I wanted for myself. I had sacrificed parts of my personhood to live in this city I thought, date them men I thought, have the job I thought … all this that I thought would make me the person I wanted to be. I was like: I worked so hard and I ruined all of it by having this baby and having my identity completely rocked.

“And what I wish I had known was that none of that would be forever,” she concludes. “He wasn’t going to be an infant forever. He wasn’t going to be dependent on me forever. His needs would change. My needs would change. Even those phases that feel like they’re just indeterminably long are really like three months. And you can kind of do anything for three months, and there’s a reward to them as well.”

Forget “Dream Big” or “You Are Loved” or writing your baby’s name in big bubbly script. “You Can Kind Of Do Anything For Three Months” should be painted in every baby’s nursery. Because let’s be honest: the baby can’t read. You can and that motivation might be just the thing that helps you get through the day.