The Myths of Motherhood

Women are not born knowing how to do this shit. We may have instincts but honestly, some of our instincts are off. And in this complicated world the “how to” of mothering isn’t always passed down through generations. Travel is easy so families separate and sometimes a global pandemic happens. Watching my child grow this last 7 months I’ve seen him learn by copying me and his dad. How much is too much chicken in your mouth? What happens when we hold avocado very tightly? Who cleans up pasta thrown on the floor? Spoiler – the dog. So, if copying is one of our basic routes to learning where does someone learn to mother if they don’t have a mother to copy? I don’t mean the sad circumstances where mothers are lost though illness or accident but instead where a mother is inaccessible.

It is often quoted “the hardest job in the world” but motherhood as a job is unquantifiable. Employment comes with a job description, KPI’s and a development plan but the role of mum changes far more than an employment tribunal would allow. You’re hired to keep a baby alive but blink and the job is supporting a 37 year old through divorce. When you go for your interview at the 12 week scan, no one knows if this job will have genius potential or additional learning needs and what exact skills mum will need along the way. The “Bad Mum’s Club” is a hoax of modern motherhood. Surviving self-imposed mum guilt with wine o’clock and the gals from ante-natal group is a rite of passage #honestmum. But feeding your kid turkey twizzlers instead of organic vegetables and tri-coloured quinoa doesn’t make you a bad mum and I think we should stop pretending it does. Bad mums drunkenly miss Sunday School pick up and leave their kid eating a weird lunch prepared by strangers. Oxymoronically, really bad mums get kicked out of the club and those are the kids who suffer.

We think we need other mums because “babies don’t come with a manual”. Bullshit. My kid is only 7 months old and so far I have read manuals on how to carry him, birth him, give him milk, feed him solids, how to get him to sleep, how to entertain his curious mind... There are literally hundreds of guides on how to parent, they just all say something different. In lieu of an ante-natal group, textbook parenting has helped me to validate my instincts. Like the lady in the Facebook Portal ad I’ve sought out breastfeeding support via video calls in this pandemic. Every time that ad comes on and that woman is crying to her mum I breakdown with her. Not because it reminds me of sore nips - I can’t really say I had any. I cry because I envy her. I envy her having a mum to hand down the pearls of mothering tradition. Someone whose mothers’ instincts were a home from where my own were born.

My mum was pretty good with the basics, so there is much she gave me which I will give to my son. He will be taught manners and to politely question authority (I might not always thank her for that). I will encourage him to tell me about his world and not presume to know how he is feeling at any age. I won’t ever ask him to keep a secret and I won’t teach him fear. Spiders, strangers and sugar are given unmeasured power in the fears we pass down to our children. Don’t worry. I’m not going to encourage him to jump into the van of a sweetie offering stranger to pet a tarantula. That would be weird. But I want him to be open to people who live and look differently to me, him and his dad. There is nothing strange in difference. Birthday cake won’t kill him and spiders are cool. I want him to be unafraid to try at things he might fail at and to know he won’t be good at everything. If I stopped doing things I’m not good at, I wouldn’t sing and we bloody love a rendition of “Old MacDonald” over here. But how do I teach him that horror exists in this world and that I can’t always protect him? To know that it is OK to walk away from a person that causes you harm. Regardless of bloodlines.

Fundamentally, that was what my mum taught me. She missed out on the whole kit and caboodle of my twenties because she taught me that I deserved to be treated with kindness and that I was capable without her. I returned to her in my thirties with two degrees, a husband, a home and having lost her grandchild. It was a busy decade. But I am grateful for learning harsh lessons so young. It gave me the strength to debunk another motherhood myth when no one saw it coming.

“It takes a village.”

Before the pandemic I was blissfully pregnant and geographically far away from family and closest friends. I was terrified that I’d have a c-section and my husband would be working and I’d be unable to look after my baby. I just didn’t believe that I would be enough for him because the rhetoric around early motherhood is so sweeping and often undermining that I expected to be unable to cope. I did the right thing and asked for help early on. With zero regard for her job, husband or social life I asked my mother-in-law to be on standby for a couple of weeks with the expectation that she would drop everything and travel the length of Britain with no notice just because I might have a bad day. I have no doubt she would have been here but what I was telling myself was… SHIT! I am going to need an actual mum around here who knows what they are doing because I am going to be clueless.

Surprisingly the space that was forced upon us because of the pandemic was what we needed to build our confidence in our capabilities as parents. We didn’t need a village. It would have been nice and I encourage everyone to take ALL THE HELP that is offered (my friend in the next village was a lifeline when she dropped a home cooked meal on our doorstep) but it strikes me now that the village myth is damaging. Babies don’t need a village, they need a caregiver. My baby had a mum and I needed time. Had I been surrounded by other mums in those early days, I would have doubted myself. A manicure, a yoga class and lunch in a café would have been nice but the pandemic gave us Tiger King and I figured it out.

Of course, every child comes with their own unique set of needs, and maybe I’d have needed something different with a different child at a different time. The needs of a new-born baby in Summer present different challenges than a new-born baby in Winter. I dressed Atticus for a walk when he was a few weeks old and in pregnancy I’d been told to dress a baby in what you wear plus one layer. But in the North East of Scotland it’s cold. So regardless of the season babies are unquestioningly wrapped up. For a short September walk in sunny South Wales my baby was dressed as I’d seen a hundred babies dressed: a vest, a t-shirt, a jumper, leggings, socks, a hooded pram suit, a woolly hat and a blanket. The pram top was up, the bassinet cover zipped. There was an extra blanket under the pram and I draped a cardigan over my shoulders in case. Walking through our tiny village I passed another mum and new babe. Chubby thighs and arms out, curly hair unheeded by headwear and nothing on her feet – this baby was proudly rocking her Summer garbs. I smiled at the mum but didn’t stop because of the pandemic. And because I looked like a lunatic whose tiny baby was on the verge of bursting into a million flames. My instincts had been off.

I’ve realised that motherhood is hoping that one day your baby will grow up and with all the tools you have given them they will leave you and embark on their own adventure. I don’t expect my son to respect me just because I evicted him from my body. I want him to respect me because of the mother that I am to him now and the mother I will learn to be in time. It’s a myth that all mothers want their babies to be babies forever. I hope his adventures are plentiful and he regales me with stories. I hope when he chooses his own family he chooses me to be a part of it. If his family include children, I hope he will let me learn to be their grandmother. I hope my instincts make him proud.