The Mask of Motherhood

My clever Mum gave me a copy of Susan Maushart's The Mask of Motherhood in the early stages of my pregnancy. I've read chapters here and there, when appropriate — I read the stuff on pregnancy when I was pregnant, for instance, and the section on birth just before my due date — and I simply cannot recommend it highly enough:

"When a woman becomes a mother, her relationships, her professional identity and her sense of self will never be the same again. The fact is, the presence of children does not simply add to the lives of their parents, it transforms those lives completely.

The precise nature of this transformation remains ONE OF THE BEST KEPT SECRETS OF CONTEMPORARY ADULT LIFE, shrouded in a conspiracy of silence..."

When I was 8 weeks pregnant and throwing up breakfast, lunch and dinner, I recall being livid as to just how unprepared I had been. My ignorance seemed so incredibly unfair. I just kept wondering why nobody had told me that pregnancy wasn't all serene smiles and anticipatory belly rubs. I felt hideous — nauseous ALL DAY LONG, pimply, hairy, sore and completely drained. On top of that there was the ever-present anxiety, the checking-my-undies-for-blood moments. I was actually really angry at my Mum, angry that she had, for some reason, kept me in the dark. Why weren't the horrors of pregnancy more widely acknowledged?

The same feelings pertain to my experience of the early days of parenting. All we ever hear in the media, all we ever see on TV or in films, or read about in novels, is that mothering provides women with joy upon joy upon joy. We are told that being a Mum will change our lives, but we never take it literally. I guess this is another of my motivations for writing this blog. Since it began, it appears to have garnered a small, loyal following, largely of childless women who seemingly hope to catch a glimpse of what being a mother is REALLY like, or mothers who feel that their own feelings of frustration and fear are somehow validated by my public documentation of mine. Now that I know, first-hand, I feel duty-bound to "tell it like it is" — it's really and truly extremely challenging. There is the birth itself — horrific, don't believe anyone who says they enjoy giving birth, what an absolute load of garbage! — then the feeding — no, for many women it doesn't "just happen" — the lack of sleep, the crying, the screaming, the damaged and unattractive post-baby body, the lack of time to oneself, the — hopefully temporary!! — deterioration of your relationship with your partner — and, of course, the consistent self-doubt.

For some reason, for many reasons — see Maushart's book for an in-depth exploration of these — mothers don't share with mothers-to-be the difficulties that come with the birth of a new baby. There is a definite pressure to appear to be coping — or, more accurately, to appear to be thriving, to be in a permanent state of babymoon bliss. It's just not like that! I'm not saying there aren't beautiful, wonderous moments. There are. If there weren't, mothers and fathers would have the good sense not to go back for more. But there are days, or even weeks, when these are few and far between. When you're stuck in traffic and your baby screeches so loud and long that he starts to lose his voice, it's hard to feel joy. More realistically, in such circumstances, you feel despair. As Maushart writes, "Although you'll never read about it in the glossy magazines or the expert texts, the feeling of being buried alive by early motherhood is now a commonplace experience" (201).

But then you have an afternoon like the one I've just had. You sit with your baby in your lap and sing to him, as earnestly as possible, a bunch of daggy eighties tunes — Banarama's Shy Boy, anyone? — and elicit a series of proper, grown-up giggles from your nearly 3 month old little boy. Moments like those are better than anything else. Honestly, I'd sell my soul, give up everything I own, swim from here to New Zealand — I'd do anything just to hear Otis laugh, just to see him smile. Being a Mum, for me, is about reminding myself of those perfect pockets of one-on-one Rochelle and Otis time whenever I feel stressed and anxious and afraid that I'm failing.