Pia Baroncini on the Work No One Sees
An interview with Mothers in FULL
There are the parts of family life other people see, and then there is everything it takes to make an ordinary day possible. We asked Pia Baroncini about becoming a mother, speaking publicly about her daughter Carmela’s autism, and what a good day looks like in her family.
Here are her answers, in her own words.
“It just really feels like everything in my life prepared me for this.”
Mothers in FULL: What part of yourself has become more visible to you since becoming a mother—and what part have you had to fight to keep?
Pia: It just really feels like everything in my life prepared me for this, so it’s not that anything is more visible, per se, but I can actively practice everything I’ve learned. And I’m sure this might bother some people, but I don’t feel like I’m fighting anything. I’ve had a chaotic life, career, and social life—an intense life in general—so I roll with this pace and these changes very easily.
I also didn’t expect motherhood to be easy. I’ve spent my life around kids, and most of my friends had kids before me, so I’ve been watching, observing, and taking in the realities of parenthood for a very long time. My husband and I spoke at length about the changes, how we would navigate them, and how we want to parent—literally down to discussing various scenarios and how we would handle them. We prepped. So outside of an unexpected diagnosis, this is what we expected.
“I don’t get dark, I don’t future trip, I live in extreme gratitude, but there is something looming over me at all times.”
Mothers in FULL: When you’ve spoken publicly about Carmela’s autism, what have people understood well? What do you wish they had understood differently?
Pia: I think there’s a lot of empathy and sometimes even romance around autism, but people really have no clue. I mean, imagine someone telling me they are here for me and then, in the next conversation, having to hear their concerns about their child getting second place in a sport. All these things coexist and very much should, OF COURSE, but I’m worried about who will take care of my daughter if I die. She can’t tell someone her name.
I think they don’t understand how much work it takes to not make this my entire fucking personality. So like, yes, people are incredibly sweet about it, but this would break most people. My own family would have no idea how to handle her school, ABA, Regional Center, IHSS, functional medicine doctor, pediatrician, neurologist—and that’s just the logistics.
My darling husband leads with his heart and gets incredibly emotional about these things, to the point where he’s just not helpful. I mean, he cries when she hugs him; he cries when our neurotypical son says “I love you.” lol. I can beast mode through all of it, and being an ambulance chaser, always looking for ways to help her, is what keeps the hope going.
One of my good friends asked me recently, “How do you do all this without losing your mind?” I looked at her and said, “I drink a lot on the weekends,” and she just high-fived me. I don’t get dark, I don’t future trip, I live in extreme gratitude, but there is something looming over me at all times, and that’s just what people will never understand.
“Everything hinges on how she wakes up.”
Mothers in FULL: What does a good day in your family actually look like, in the small, unphotogenic details?
Pia: Everything hinges on how she wakes up. If she wakes on her own, the day starts beautifully. She runs so tired, and when we have to drag her out of bed, it’s awful. She won’t eat, she won’t let us do her hair, and the whole morning turns heavy and sad for her.
But when she’s awake? She is the happiest kid. She tears through the house and into the kitchen and eats a big breakfast, which is a huge win, because her very serious medication and supplement protocol all has to be taken with food. We drop her off at school, and I rush back for pickup, anxiously waiting for her ABA therapist to tell me whether or not she had a good day. It’s my fucking existence: DID SHE DO WELL? Because if she did, it means all of this is working. She enjoyed school. She was present. She is MAKING PROGRESS.
Then we head home for afternoon therapy and a cozy evening. On a really good day, we all go out to dinner and come home with the zoomies before bed. And a perfect day ends with her falling asleep quickly and sleeping through the night. Getting there took so much trial and error and so many long nights before we finally found the protocol that lets her rest.
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