For the record! I would actually really love to hear about your opinion the various absurdities of modern parenting. Thanks for keeping it real Rosie!!
I am having similar feelings now! I have never had many girlfriends and since becoming a mom (my oldest is 3) I find myself yearning for mom friends. Friends that can understand the pain I feel when I can’t find the words to express it. What has helped me actually is to write and share my silly and annoying and frustrating moments with the world, if for the very least to put my thoughts down into words. Mothering is hard, there is nothing more about it. It’s just hard. ❤️❤️
When my first child was born, twenty-seven years ago, the greatest gift I was given were the following words of wisdom by a dear friend, “Caring for a child and still finding ways to nurture myself was the hardest thing I have ever done. I mean if this was college and I could add/drop becoming a mother? I definitely would have dropped for sure.”
Having someone admit that gave me the strength to know I was not alone. As mothers we are never alone, but we societally we are still siloed into aloneness with the overwhelm of everything in our known lives now new.
The Baby on the Fire Escape is one of the best books I’ve read this year ~thank you for highlighting!
Happy birth day to you! When my child was a young toddler, I found a lot of solace in Lydia Kiesling's book The Golden State (http://www.lydiakiesling.com/the-golden-state). Her writing on parenthood, in general, is so honest and cathartic.
I have just been reading Clover Stroud’s wild & sleepless nights and it is the first book I have read that so beautifully articulates those first few months of motherhood, the rawness the wildness and the mess of it all.
I remember observing how cliquey mothers could be, then I had my daughter and I understood, and was so grateful for it. Suddenly it really did feel like this special club that no one else could possibly understand and although it wasn’t meant to be exclusive, it couldn’t help but be.
Another woman I knew, who’d had her first baby six weeks before me, asked me in the early days if I was “enjoying it”. I said yes because it felt like the right thing to say and I didn’t feel like I knew her well enough to say any different.
I was very glad for a WhatsApp group of women I’d cobbled together whilst we were all pregnant but it was still so hard, and harder than I shared to anyone before finally breaking down to a nurse at a smear appointment 2.5 years in.
My daughter has just turned 4 and it definitely got noticeably easier (emotionally) soon after she turned 3, and continues to. I totally understand why the Scandinavian countries have two year mat leaves (I think???). Sorry if that feels far away now, but I mean to say that you’re not alone in feeling like it isn’t just the “fourth trimester” that’s hard.
And I definitely feel you on the feminist paradox. I still feel that now as I’m back to doing very little paid work. Trying to work full time and parent led to my house almost literally falling down. Redressing the balance was essential but it’s very hard to adjust a sense of self worth away from £££ you being in. Societal values have become so f’d up.
Amazing (and sad) that it took you 2.5 years before you felt you could admit that! I so appreciate you saying that it's normal to feel it's hard long after the fourth trimester. Thank you for sharing x
Completely agree with you on the self worth note - I struggle with seeing myself as contributing anything 'of value' to my family because I'm on maternity leave, and earn less than him since having children when I'm not on mat leave. But I'm raising three children! What could be more valuable?
Oh it's hard out there, it really is. I used to run a baby class, and we would start every week by sharing a parenting high and low - it really opened up space for people to talk about the shit parts of parenting alongside the really nice parts. I had postnatal depression and repeat mastitis and all the rest of it with my first - all people ever told me was how lucky I was, it's like women become invisible in the moments after they give birth. I also don't have a willing 'village,' which isn't talked about enough. The Daily Mail has a lot to answer for with all of its articles encouraging boomer's not to help their millennial children (conveniently forgetting all the help they got from their own parents)
So much for kids being the easy option, huh (as my formerly 20 something Cosmo devouring self believed)
For the record! I would actually really love to hear about your opinion the various absurdities of modern parenting. Thanks for keeping it real Rosie!!
Honestly I could probably create an entire media empire around this lol.
Seconded! Your mention of baby led weaning felt like a tantalising teaser!
I am having similar feelings now! I have never had many girlfriends and since becoming a mom (my oldest is 3) I find myself yearning for mom friends. Friends that can understand the pain I feel when I can’t find the words to express it. What has helped me actually is to write and share my silly and annoying and frustrating moments with the world, if for the very least to put my thoughts down into words. Mothering is hard, there is nothing more about it. It’s just hard. ❤️❤️
Yes writing this post was kind of the exercise you describe for me.
When my first child was born, twenty-seven years ago, the greatest gift I was given were the following words of wisdom by a dear friend, “Caring for a child and still finding ways to nurture myself was the hardest thing I have ever done. I mean if this was college and I could add/drop becoming a mother? I definitely would have dropped for sure.”
Having someone admit that gave me the strength to know I was not alone. As mothers we are never alone, but we societally we are still siloed into aloneness with the overwhelm of everything in our known lives now new.
The Baby on the Fire Escape is one of the best books I’ve read this year ~thank you for highlighting!
Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for your writing, Rosie (as always)! I could never gather my thoughts on motherhood myself so reading this has been a real pleasure. <3
Happy birth day to you! When my child was a young toddler, I found a lot of solace in Lydia Kiesling's book The Golden State (http://www.lydiakiesling.com/the-golden-state). Her writing on parenthood, in general, is so honest and cathartic.
Thank you! I love everyone that’s been wishing me happy Birth Day, distinct from his birthday. Such a nice thing I didn’t expect.
I have just been reading Clover Stroud’s wild & sleepless nights and it is the first book I have read that so beautifully articulates those first few months of motherhood, the rawness the wildness and the mess of it all.
Yes, I love her work. And honestly increasingly feel it's not just the first few months. Most people are in survival mode for at least the first year.
Completely, my youngest is 18 months and I am very much still in survival mode
Yes, yes, yes.
This was beautifully expressed. Thank you for sharing!
I remember observing how cliquey mothers could be, then I had my daughter and I understood, and was so grateful for it. Suddenly it really did feel like this special club that no one else could possibly understand and although it wasn’t meant to be exclusive, it couldn’t help but be.
Another woman I knew, who’d had her first baby six weeks before me, asked me in the early days if I was “enjoying it”. I said yes because it felt like the right thing to say and I didn’t feel like I knew her well enough to say any different.
I was very glad for a WhatsApp group of women I’d cobbled together whilst we were all pregnant but it was still so hard, and harder than I shared to anyone before finally breaking down to a nurse at a smear appointment 2.5 years in.
My daughter has just turned 4 and it definitely got noticeably easier (emotionally) soon after she turned 3, and continues to. I totally understand why the Scandinavian countries have two year mat leaves (I think???). Sorry if that feels far away now, but I mean to say that you’re not alone in feeling like it isn’t just the “fourth trimester” that’s hard.
And I definitely feel you on the feminist paradox. I still feel that now as I’m back to doing very little paid work. Trying to work full time and parent led to my house almost literally falling down. Redressing the balance was essential but it’s very hard to adjust a sense of self worth away from £££ you being in. Societal values have become so f’d up.
Amazing (and sad) that it took you 2.5 years before you felt you could admit that! I so appreciate you saying that it's normal to feel it's hard long after the fourth trimester. Thank you for sharing x
Completely agree with you on the self worth note - I struggle with seeing myself as contributing anything 'of value' to my family because I'm on maternity leave, and earn less than him since having children when I'm not on mat leave. But I'm raising three children! What could be more valuable?
Oh it's hard out there, it really is. I used to run a baby class, and we would start every week by sharing a parenting high and low - it really opened up space for people to talk about the shit parts of parenting alongside the really nice parts. I had postnatal depression and repeat mastitis and all the rest of it with my first - all people ever told me was how lucky I was, it's like women become invisible in the moments after they give birth. I also don't have a willing 'village,' which isn't talked about enough. The Daily Mail has a lot to answer for with all of its articles encouraging boomer's not to help their millennial children (conveniently forgetting all the help they got from their own parents)
So much for kids being the easy option, huh (as my formerly 20 something Cosmo devouring self believed)