Motherhood mojo

I've noticed lately that I'm a very different parent to F than I was when O was his age, and I'm not really sure if that's down to how different they are (and they really are VERY different) or the fact that I've kind of found my motherhood mojo.

I mean, the thing is that everything was so much worse than I expected when F was born. I expected it to be hard having two children. I expected that I would struggle to get them up and ready and out of the door in time to get O to playgroup four mornings a week, but I really didn't expect what actually happened. I didn't expect the morning breastfeed to take two and a half hours or to never sleep or to feel every single day like I was going fucking crazy. If I managed to get through a day without crying, it was a genuine miracle. There was none of that swan-on-the-water stuff, no illusion of calm or of me having my shit together; it was all panic all the time.

BUT F had his reasons for being a nightmare and none of them were his fault. He wasn't waking me up 300 times a night just to be an asshole, and things got better. Which, actually, kind of happened without me noticing. It didn't particularly occur to me at any point that I wasn't juggling anymore. The "bedtime hour" just suddenly stopped being awful and settled into a routine of being occasionally challenging. And it really helped when F started sleeping through the night, because after that I was still exhausted a lot of the time, but I wasn't OMG I'M SO TIRED KILL ME PLEASE exhausted anymore.

I've never really had much confidence as a parent, and there are a few reasons for this. Firstly - and I think a lot of parents probably feel like this - half the time I'm not even sure I know what the fuck I'm doing. But aside from that, most of my anxiety around going out alone with my kids comes from the fact that I look much younger than I am. In a couple of months I will be 29 years old, but I'm only five feet tall and I have the physique of a pre-pubescent girl. So people who don't know me look at me and I can SEE them thinking "teen pregnancy". Like, somebody actually asked me when I was pregnant with O if I knew how it had happened. No shit. And then there's the fact that I have quite a lot of tattoos and some of them are very visible. So, once I take my coat off, I can then see the OMG SHE MUST ONLY BE ABOUT 18 folks thinking "and she's trashy as fuck with it." So why does this make me feel more anxious? Because, in my mind, these people have already decided that I am a terrible, inadequate mother (notice how I said "in my mind", meaning I am aware of the fact that it might not actually be true), so if my kids don't behave impeccably, they will be vindicated. And, to be perfectly honest, I already think that about myself a lot of the time, so I really don't need a whole bunch of other people thinking it too. And sure, I know they're strangers and I'll probably never see them again, but I will have to sit through a meal or finish my shopping knowing exactly how hard they think I'm failing.

Nevertheless, O actually was a difficult child to take out and about. It wasn't just me being a nervous first-time parent; he genuinely was a nightmare a lot of the time. Before he could walk, he dangled over the side of his pushchair and grabbed at stuff as we walked by in a shop. He once trashed a whole card display in Clintons at Christmas while a bunch of employees glared at me and I muttered mortified apologies and tried to pick everything up. When he started walking, he would shake off my hand, wriggle out of his wrist strap and run off. I probably should have bought some reins, but I've always felt vaguely uncomfortable with how much they make it look like you're taking your kid for a walk. And once he was big enough to sit up at the table with everyone else, the mealtime fidgeting began. Taking him out on errands was exhausting and fraught with grumpy strops and tantrums. But going out with F is easy. A couple of weeks ago, I had to go into town to get a birthday present for my brother-in-law while O was at playgroup and my husband was at work. So we stopped off at Sainsbury's cafe first for a coffee and a snack. F sat in his high chair, chattered nonsense at me, munched a rice cake and generally behaved perfectly. On the walk into town, he pointed at everything and waved at people. To be honest, were it not for the fact that I was pushing a stroller, I probably would have forgotten he was with me.

I'm not saying that it will always be like that. In fact, sometimes he gets pissed off and shouts just like every other kid. Sometimes he throws his cup on the floor, and he is an expert at planking if he doesn't want to get back into his pushchair/car seat. But, to all intents and purposes, he is a super easy child. After how hard everything was with him when he was a baby, some hopeful and very buried part of me always figured that maybe he would be. And as for O, he's probably just going through a bit of a threenager stage right now. He was a great sleeper and feeder as a baby, and since I was only 25 when he came along, I'm really very grateful for that. 

Maybe none of this really has anything to do with how obliging or otherwise my children are; maybe what it's actually about is the fact that I feel more equipped to deal with the unpredictability of parenting young children. I feel like I can cope if my kids start acting batshit crazy while we're out somewhere. I still find it hard to cope with the inevitable judgement of others, but I accept the fact that it is exactly that; inevitable. There's not much I can do to convince anyone that I'm actually an okay parent if they've already decided that I'm not. And does it actually fucking matter what anybody else thinks anyway? Yes, sometimes people will see my parenting fail moments and they will assume things about my parenting in general based on that one snapshot of my life. But they don't know me and they don't know my children. I'm only just starting to figure out that their opinions are not important.

The "Motherhood Challenge"

Today I am taking on the "Motherhood Challenge". And by taking on, I do NOT mean taking part. I'm not on Facebook, so I've only heard about this new fad through other people and my husband has shown me what it entails. For those of you who don't know, the Motherhood Challenge consists of picking the pictures of you and/or your children that you feel best sum up why you love being a mother. Cute, right? But then you're supposed to tag a bunch of your mummy friends who you think are doing an awesome job at motherhood, and that's a little less cute.

So, let's break this down. First of all, there's a good chance you'll forget to tag one of your mummy friends (or maybe you won't tag her on purpose because you think she's doing a shitty job), and when she sees your Motherhood Challenge and realises that you left her out of your "awesome mummy" list, she's probably going to feel really bad. I mean, she might not care at all. But if she's having a fucking awful day and feeling really emotionally fragile, seeing that you left her out might just make her feel a whole lot worse.

Then there's this: Some mothers out there are struggling. I don't mean that they're just having a difficult day and maybe the kids were late to school this morning. We all have those days. I'm talking about the mums out there who are battling mental health issues, like post-natal depression, and feeling really fucking alone and inadequate. Maybe it takes a mother who has experienced that mental struggle to identify this seemingly harmless "challenge" as potentially triggering, but surely then that further underlines the distinct lack of education around the issue. Surely things like the Motherhood Challenge only serve to widen the chasm and perpetuate the shame culture even more.

Last January, I was struggling. I felt like the worst mother in the world. I wanted to run away, and do you know what made it worse? Breastfeeding selfies, because the #brelfie was a huge thing at the time and it wasn't happening for us (which is not the only reason I was having a hard time; that story can be found here). I felt like such a failure and, worse than that, I felt totally isolated by my catastrophic lack of success because everywhere I looked I saw calm, beautiful pictures of mothers breastfeeding their little babies. It wasn't that I couldn't be happy for those women and their babies, it was that I was in such a dark, horrible little place that I just couldn't cope. I compared myself to those mothers and found myself entirely lacking, so much so that I was convinced my children would be better off without me.

I'm not telling you that you shouldn't post breastfeeding selfies or take part in the Motherhood Challenge, I'm just reaching out to you in the hope that you might take a moment to consider if any of your mummy friends might be struggling before you post your pictures. Right now, the odds are that you know someone who thinks she's a crap mother and that every single other woman in the world is doing a better job of motherhood than she is. And the worst part is that she probably isn't talking about it because she feels ashamed. So, maybe instead of posting photos of your most perfect moments, perhaps you need to let your friends know that you're there for them and that they have your support and not your judgement. Which is not to say that I think you are judging them, but mental health issues can change our perceptions, and depression is the darkest, coldest, loneliest little mountaintop in the world and the view is of everyone else doing better and being happier than you ever could.

I'm not trying to preach to you. That's not why I'm here. I'm here because motherhood is fucking hard sometimes, and I feel like we need to make sure that we don't alienate the mums who are struggling by pushing them further into the mental confines of their own shame. Most of all, I want you to know that if you're struggling, you are not alone.

The post of not coping

This is a warning: I'm going to be brutally honest today. If brutal honesty isn't your bag, look away now.

I am OVERWHELMED. Everyone in our house is sick with a cold virus, including me. The kids aren't sleeping and need painkillers and cough syrup administering throughout the night, and that's exhausting enough in itself, but I'm struggling with it even more because I feel like shit. I can't actually remember what it feels like to be well. I'm starting to think I might just never be well again. I mean, it's been FOREVER. On top of that, I started on the overflowing laundry bins yesterday and now my kitchen closely resembles a Chinese laundry. Other than running backwards and forwards from the washing machine to the tumble drier, the only other things I have done are clean the downstairs floors and wipe round the toilet and the sink in the bathroom. The rest of my usually lived-in-but-clean home looks like a dump truck full of random crap has sneezed all over it. Actually, it's worse than that; the truck hasn't so much sneezed as power-vomited the various detritus of family life everywhere, and I have no idea where to start.

To be perfectly honest, I'm regularly panicking over when I'm going to have time and feel well enough to catch up on everything that needs doing. To the point where, if the kids don't wake me up with coughing or sneezing or fevered screams of "MUMMY MY NOSE SMELLS FUNNY!" (I'm not even kidding), I will wake myself up in the middle of the night with WORRY.

The thing that I keep coming back to, though, is this: People cope with more than this. I've seen these people on the TV and read their blogs and I know that I could not be one of them. I proved that when Baby Taylor was ill at the beginning of last year. I fell apart. I know there's the common belief that we can cope with anything if we have to, but I also know that's not true. I've read a lot of blogs by a lot of parents, and some of those parents have been through and survived things that I know without doubt would have me crawled up in a corner, rocking and muttering.

On the other hand, people keep trying to reassure me that there are fuller laundry bins and messier houses than mine, and I do realise this, but I hold myself to a higher standard than I do other people. It's just the way I was brought up, and I can't change it.

It's just that, unfortunately, I only have enough energy to worry impotently about everything I need to do right now. Actually doing it will have to wait until I feel better. Which, at this rate, will probably be next January. 

Is It Just Me?

I’m looking at women’s magazines today after a conversation I had about them with my husband last night. There might be a bit of my usual parenting content, but it’s mostly just muted outrage.

Let’s start with Mother & Baby, since I always intended for this to be *mostly* a parenting blog. Giles Coren used to write a column for M&B called “dadvice”, which usually consisted of him moaning about something that only a parent with a lot of money could moan about. Like how awful it is taking children on long-haul flights. But one day he took it too far and his column was basically a page-long rant about how his wife needed to get her act together and lose the baby weight. You know, when you disrespect the post-partum body of your wife - and mother of your children - in a column for a magazine aimed at pregnant and post-partum women... Yeah, you can pretty much just get fucked, to be honest. The wife in question was pretty gracious about it on her Twitter account and M&B said it was all about encouraging debate or whatever, but I think all it did was make a whole lot of women wonder if their partners secretly felt the same. So I briefly fell out with M&B over that one, but I'm over it now. Coren has taken his #dadvice elsewhere (probably Twitter) and M&B is undoubtedly better off without it.

I used to read a sleazy little publication called MORE (does it still exist? Does anyone know?), up until about four years ago when it advised me to crash my boyfriend's office Christmas party in order to show him how much I loved him. I'm not even kidding. I mean... What the fuck?! Male readers, if women are crazy then that's probably due in large part to the shit they keep in their magazine rack and how seriously they take the “advice” therein. 

One other trend in women's magazines is the mandatory "Sex move that will change your life" article. Every. Single. Month there is an article like this. First of all, whenever I read these articles I usually find myself wondering who can be bothered with this?! Secondly, doesn't anyone have any imagination anymore? What are you going to do? Start the whole process off and then, at some crucial point or another, yelp "STOP! STOP! I need to consult the magazine article because I can't remember what comes next!"? Are you really going to do that? No. You don't need a magazine to tell you how to have sex. Just go forth and multiply. Or take the appropriate precautions. Whatever. But please don't rely on some complicated hand-tongue-big toe combination (I'm making this up) from an over-hyped double page spread to make it memorable.

This month on the cover of the only women’s magazine I still sort of read we have: 388 Style Upgrades (that you probably can’t afford); 89 Genius Health Hacks (what?); 17 Ways to Score Tons of Free Stuff (I’m afraid to ask); She changed her Tinder to ‘women only’. OF COURSE it got interesting (she slept with a woman. Shocker. NOBODY saw that coming); THE SEX GAME CHANGER you haven’t tried (which turns out to be lube. Who hasn’t tried using fucking lube?!) and then the usual celebrity stuff. I also tend to find that there are a lot of articles about getting ahead at work, generally with the assumption that “work” takes place in an office environment and goes by the name of “a career”. We’ve already covered the fact that I don’t actually have a career (despite several people over the last three and a half years trying to tell me “but motherhood IS a career!” It really isn’t. Trust me), so whenever I read these magazines, between the career stuff and the sex stuff that assumes I don’t actually know what I’m doing at all and the talk of Tinder (which I don’t fucking understand; what is it for?!), I usually end up feeling only one thing: I don’t belong here. These are not my people.

Which brings us back to parenting magazines, but you know what? They’re not really my people either, because they assume certain things about my life too. Like that I can afford to go on expensive holidays every year (nope) and that my children don’t sleep very well (sometimes). I’m starting to feel like I’m either incredibly awkward and should just pipe down or that maybe I need to stop trying to find a magazine written by and for “my people” (and I’m not even really sure who they are myself, to be honest) and stick to books, blogs and the occasional internet article.

Alternatively, I could go get myself a career, some lube and a Tinder account.