WTF Fridays: The Myth of Motherhood

Yesterday I took Miss Bea to the only playgroup I attend, an English-speaking one run by ex-pat Brits (and there are a lot of them around, thankfully). It was a bittersweet day because it's my last day going, as Bea starts the Tagesmutter on Thursdays starting in March. I've liked everyone I've met there, had some great conversations, and shared a lot of laughs.

I started taking Bea there when she was two months old. It didn't matter if all she did was sleep the entire time...the point was for me to get out of the house and talking with grown ups. There's no doubt that having a baby is an intensely isolating experience, but try it in a country where you can't speak the language very well with no friends or family around you, and you'll understand why I resent my situation so much. It's left scars on me that I don't think will ever heal.

There were times when I left the playgroup and barely got around the corner before I started to cry because I knew it would be a full week before I could escape my baby-fied house again. Being desperately lonely is a new thing for me, something I never though I'd experience because hey, I'm a friendly, intelligent gal with a lot of experience in life, and I tend to attract like-minded people wherever I go. I love a good conversation more than anything, and I'm a pretty good listener. Moving here to the ass end of Germany ended my rather established life in England, halted friendships, took away a way of life I really loved, and stuck me in a desert with one child who commutes over two hours a day on a bus for school, and another "surprise" child that needs my constant attention.

So having people to talk to was the only thing that kept me going, and I doubt if those ladies ever knew how wrecked I was when I stepped into the room and how much just their presence glued me back together enough to go another week. I'm pretty good at putting a mask and looking normal even when there's nothing but pain and exhaustion behind my face, so I don't think anyone ever picked up on it which is, truthfully, a point of pride for me.

There are certain things you only understand by experiencing them yourself, and having a child is probably the biggest one. Nothing wracks you like being responsible for someone else's well-being every single moment of the day, knowing that they are completely dependent upon you and helpless without your constant attendance. The feelings of guilt, resentment, elation, hope, fear, and about a thousand other emotions hit you like the waves of a fast-moving storm at sea, each one slamming into you so quickly you can barely regain your equilibrium before the next takes you off your feet. And the whole time, a baby is screaming at you, unable to tell you what it needs. Then the notion hits you that it's only 8.30 in the morning, you've had 5 hours of interrupted sleep, the whole day will probably be like this, the next one too, the next week, the next month, all day, all night...and you can feel bits of your soul burning away, martyr to your exhaustion and realisation that this will never get better.

Don't tell me women's right have changed anything when it comes to motherhood. It's ceaseless, demanding, thankless work, judged more harshly by the public than anything you can think of, on a volunteer basis with no hope of promotion, recognition, or payment. People just love using the term "She's a bad mother" because it's something everyone can immediately understand and let's face it, it's easy to find fault with anything a mom does. If you stay home with your kids, you are applauded for "giving up your career", then put under scrutiny for not doing enough for them because, after all, you have all that time, at home all day with nothing else to do. If you go back to work and leave your child in care, you are accused of not loving your kid enough, being cold and distant, putting your career ahead of your child's needs, not bonding, making money more of a priority, you name it. No matter what choice you opt for, you are never fully supported.

And it's only people who've given birth or adopted kids that can understand that mothering is very little to do with child raising and everything to do with crisis management and prevention. If you haven't had kids, you can no more say you understand how mind-bendingly chaotic it is to be a mom than I could tell someone with chronic pain I know exactly how they feel from day to day. I couldn't tell someone who has a parent with Alzheimer's, who doesn't even recognise their own child, that a sunny outlook on life will greatly improve their attitude because it would make me a ridiculous liar and a screaming hypocrite, and I wouldn't even come close to thinking about offering advice. I can offer support and encouragement, but understanding? No way. Some things you either know or you don't.

So when it comes to motherhood, those who haven't experienced it really don't know what they're talking about if they attempt to offer constructive criticism. It's not often you'll hear me make a definitive statement like that, but on this I won't back down. You don't know what it's like to love your child bottomlessly yet resent them with a murderous rage at the same time. You can't tell me that you know your sister's gone through the wringer with her kids, and you're her best friend so you know all about it and can sympathise with my plight.

And it's a smallish group of people who know exactly what I'm personally going through, being so isolated, locked into a way of life I would never choose again. Have you lived in a foreign country with no one around to help you, where the day is filled with little humiliations because the most basic conversation is still so difficult? If something were to go wrong, you couldn't even speak enough of the mother tongue to ask for help? Where the margin is error is so thin it's practically non-existent? That these possible scenarios drive through your brain each night, bringing with them so much anxiety that you can barely sleep?

There are few people who can nod in agreement there. Don't ref the game if you don't know the rules, folks.

Having said that...yesterday at Bea's play group I met a new attendee (I'll call her Vi). She wore her baby strapped to the front of her in a Baby Bjorn, and really, the child was so small she looked about 3 minutes old. Vi came with Nikki, an enthusiastic mother of two and one of the more unusual people I've met in my life.

As everyone set up the room with toys, chairs, and tables, got the coffee pots burbling and the teapots brewing, Vi stood off to the side, watching with guarded eyes, looking edgy and nervous. Once we'd settled the older kids down with some paper and pencils and gotten the younger ones on the blankets with toys, I went over to say hello and ask the usual questions: how old is your little one (7 weeks), what's her name (Celia), where you from (Scotland), how long are you here (2 years), do you like it (Meh).

Vi stayed behind the little island set up to separate the kitchen area from the rest of the room. This was good as Bea has lately taken an interest in opening and shutting cabinet doors, particularly the one that houses the rubbish bin. She has repeatedly gotten her fingers pinched in the doors even though nine times out of ten I've stopped her--I'm now to the point where I just let it happen and hope she'll eventually learn not to do it--but she keeps doing it anyway.

If you've ever seen a mother of a newborn who is so dead tired she's on auto pilot, who has been woken up every three hours to nurse, who is ready to scream because this whole baby business is crushing her from the inside out, and whose own notions of how wonderful and magical being a mother is have slowly been crushed to death by the reality of it all, you'll know the look on Vi's face very well. I felt so badly for her. I could tell she was looking around the room at the mums playing happily with their toddlers and thinking, I don't fit in here. I will never fit in here. I desperately need friends, and I'm too tired even to make the effort. I feel like crying so hard I dissolve into the floor. I just wish someone could take the baby for a day so I could regroup. I'm being annhiliated from the inside out, and nobody can tell and nobody cares.

I got her talking a little bit, and I could tell I was right. She was overwhelmed. She spoke of holding her screaming baby at 3 am, crying along with her, and thinking, "What am I doing wrong?" She talked about how they give nothing back at this age, how she ached all the time, if only she could sleep for about 5 hours straight she could cope, how she was nursing but also using formula so she and her hubby could swap off feeding but of course, it never works out that way (and it doesn't because a crying baby sounds completely different to a mum than to a dad, so a dad feeding a hungry, wailing infant will find his wife is still unable to sleep no matter how many doors he closes or how well-meaning his intentions). She spoke of how utterly shattered she was, and I could see the deep sadness and guilt and pleading in her eyes for someone, anyone, to tell her this will get better and it's worth it.

So I put a hand over hers and said, "This myth of motherhood, that it's this wonderful, natural, beautiful thing is crap, Vi. It's not holy or sacred. It's trench warfare because it never lets up and it slowly saps you of you identity. Which isn't bad because you're a mum now and need a new one, but no one ever tells you just how very hard it is, how out of reality you feel, and how much sleep you won't get. Not the books, not the midwives, nothing. Sure, there are mums who sail right through it all, but the majority of us resent what it does to our brains and bodies. I do know, sweetie, exactly what you're going through. I really, really do."

I told her I brought Bea here when she was a little older than Celia just to have some adult conversation. I didn't care if anyone even paid attention to me, I just had to get out of the house. And like Celia, Bea slept the whole time for the first three sessions. But at that point, it wasn't about Bea, it was about me for a change. I told her flat out that I didn't believe in the universal power of breast milk and stopped nursing after 6 weeks, explaining that Bea only got 10% of her daily feed from me. She said she was planning to stop after 3 months, but the look on her face said, If I could, I'd stop tomorrow. I replied that I resented having to give one more thing from my body when I'd already given everything I possibly could after a long and difficult pregnancy--I would be damned before I put myself any more on-call for this baby, especially when I was post-surgery.

"Do they ever get on a schedule?" Vi said, rubbing her hands together.

I nodded firmly. "Yes. They do. You can adjust it by degrees, but they do. And yes, it gets better. Slowly. There's a reason they call the first three months the 4th trimester...your body is still not fully aware you're done being pregnant and still pumps all the hormones through you."

She smiled shyly. "I've heard that."

After a while she got caught up in a conversation with a dad who was from Scotland as well, and I could see her loosening up and starting to feel more welcome, so I left her to it. I think she'll fit in perfectly if she keeps coming back, which I hope she does. Baby books always instruct you to do something special for yourself each day as a new mum, and the more intelligent among us know that's just not possible. Motherhood is based on stepping back from your own needs so you can attend to the more pressing ones of your children, and it sucks beyond the telling of it. But it does get better.

I promise.