One of the hardest things to explain to men is just how much hormones and their shift affect the way we women think, feel and experience the world And of course most men don’t get it, or have a very hard time understanding, because how can they really understand it. They can’t. Their biology is so much different. A quick look at the graph below and you’ll see men are mostly steady all month long. Always the same. Women experience valleys and hills all month long, all of it with different hormones playing different roles and affecting us differently. Men obviously have hormones that affect them but they follow a predictable daily rhythm, women do not, and pregnancy is especially brutal in terms of hormonal drops. It is no surprise then that postpartum affects our minds greatly. Many women experience this brain like fog for months. I know I did, with every of my children it takes me at the very least three months to come out of it, for the haze to finally clear. So when I see people arguing that postpartum depression or whatever aren’t real things, well, no they are very much real. Nobody ever questions whether chemistry affects our brain in any other circumstance except for this one. If someone is up for two days without sleep we do not act surprised to see them affected by it, grumpier and much slower in terms of thinking and decision making. If someone does not eat all day it becomes far easier to lose your temper. This is also no surprise We understand that when we change the biological conditions under which our brain is operating this can very obviously change the way someone is behaving, feeling or thinking. Hormones fall under this very same thing. They do not become a different thing simply because our bodies produces them. Obviously hormones are not an excuse for bad behavior, or sin or crimes. But it isn’t a sin or a crime to be extremely sad after having a baby and while postpartum. If we want and desire for women to have babies and for women to desire motherhood then we first must please stop seeing women from the lens of male steadiness and behavior. Motherhood comes with extreme hormonal shifts and accepting female nature must begin with understanding that women are not men, and thank God for that.