What I wish I knew before I became a mother

and what I now know to be true

Part 1

I’m a day late with this week’s writing. I have no excuse other than the fact that it was warm enough not to wear a scarf on Sunday (I wore one on Saturday. Dear reader, it’s MAY) so I spent it, as one should, sipping Aperols with a friend in a nice little restaurant sun trap. It wasn’t quite the Cote D’Azur, what with it only having views of the giant Lidl across the road, but still, it was bliss. Sunday’s usually my writing day. 

Those few hours aside, I spent the rest of the long weekend with my husband and son. We went to various playgrounds where Caelan decided of his own accord that it was time to smash through some of his fears, we ate (licked?) Calippo ice pops, bought a slide for the back garden and spent our evenings binge-watching Yellowjackets (it’s V good). It was ordinary, mundane even. But it’s exactly where we’ve wanted to be for so long - each of our nervous systems at ease - and it gave me a chance to reflect on how far we’ve come, and what I wish I knew to be true when things felt so difficult. So that’s what I’m writing about this week: what I wish I knew before I became a mother. What I am sure of now. Some points might only be relevant to my experience (that’s all I have to go on) but I hope you find some comfort in it regardless. 

1. Labour is not the finish line, it’s the starting line. 

I could write a whole book on this point alone but with a tough pregnancy, and being frankly fucking clueless about what motherhood would look like for me, I viewed getting through labour as the grand finale. I assumed mothering would be all natural and instinctive and effortless from that point on. I would instantly be a mother. Technically that was true. But while the delivery is obviously a massive benchmark, it’s only the very beginning. So you really don’t have to panic when you learn that it doesn’t always come naturally and instantly and effortlessly. Not for lots of newborn mothers. So many more than you realise. Eventually you will learn that lots of people feel rudderless and terrified at this point when we’re led to believe it all just clicks into place. It doesn’t. You are only now embarking on the process of matrescence which - a lot like its adolescent counterpart - takes bloody ages! That’s the bit where you grow into the kind of mother you’re going to be. And it might differ from everything you’ve read or assumed. It might be more led by your child (it was in my case). Yes you are now on the job, but to feel fully at ease in your new role will take time. I had such a skewed and unhelpful perception of how automatic it would be and if I could go back in time it would be to wrap my arms around my most vulnerable, raw and unsure self and say ‘all in your own time, my love.’ 

2. All in their own time. 

On that note, taking things at your pace will prove to be really helpful not just for your child - and the rate at which they’re ready and willing to adapt to the world - but for you as well. You’ve spent your whole life comparing yourself to others. That’s probably going to ramp up now as a mother. Whether it’s how you parent, how you feed and when your child is reaching various milestones, motherhood offers up the chance to practise social comparison on speed. It’s almost never helpful. We take stock of our self worth by measuring ourselves against others, despite knowing how ridiculous that is. We’ve always done it and we always will to some degree, but it is a particularly bad idea in this arena. It’s so easy to do because with babies and young kids it’s all so measurable. ‘Your child started crawling at 9 months? Oh mine didn’t until 11’, et cetera et cetera. How they’re doing is so visible, and it’s also all you’ll talk about because it takes up your entire focus. So for a start, don’t be surprised about the fact that you’ll fall into comparison traps. But know that you are going to give yourself heaps of unnecessary anxiety if you don’t at least try to pull yourself out of them. The things you worried your son wouldn’t do? He’ll get there in his own time, when he is good and ready. And if it turns out that some things are just not for him, so be it. Think about the things you’re not keen on that everyone else seems to be. Eventually you will shift your thinking to temporal comparison, which is the far more healthy and realistic alternative to social comparison. Instead of comparing him against another kid with a wildly different personality and temperament (and no doubt their own challenges), you’ll compare where he was to where he is now. For example, you’ll stop noticing how brave other kids appear to be, and tune in to how your child starts showing bravery in their own way. You’ll clap and celebrate because he went down the stairs on his own at the age of 3 and a half saying ‘mammy are you watching me?’ because up until then, he thought it was too scary and was genuinely worried he might fall. As you allow your child to be in their own lane, you’ll stop comparing yourself to others as much as well, and that will be an enormous gift. 

3. Just because it’s the done thing doesn’t mean you have to do it. 

I know you’re afraid to get it wrong and you’re hugely worried about what people think (they’re honestly not thinking about you that much at all) but if breastfeeding your baby is compromising your mental health, you don’t have to do it. They will be okay. You will be okay. You have not failed. You are honouring your child and your family and yourself by safeguarding your incredibly valuable and vulnerable mental state in these early months. How you feel matters a whole lot more than you might be led to believe. It’s not only all about the baby, it has to be about you too, because you have to parent that baby. I felt that there was a societal gun to my head of having to persevere with breastfeeding. I remember texting my girls’ whatsapp group (many of whom were not yet parents) and actually asking for their reassurance and permission not to breastfeed. I was battling what I knew I needed because I was so concerned with what I thought I should be doing, and so much of that stress and guilt was a waste of my energy. If I was to have another baby, I might want to try again, but I wouldn’t spend one more minute feeling like a failure if I decided that it wasn’t for me. It feels like the pinnacle of existence right now, but in time, it just won’t matter. Just yesterday you thought it was cute that your son wanted to sweep the floor, until you turned around again to find him nibbling crumbs from the pile of dirt. Again, you will realise how needlessly hard you were on yourself. 

4. Your instincts won’t work if you suppress them. 

On a similar note to point number three, you’ll feel pressure to tick boxes as society sets them up for you and your child, Montessori from age 3 being one of them. I knew it was too much for my son, given his experience of intense separation anxiety. I could see him unravelling, I could see it all going downhill and YET I felt I had to push through because that’s what we’re expected to do. I realised soon enough that how he felt was more important than how I felt about how people felt about me (again, aside from the occasional judgemental comment, nobody cares that much). My instincts were screaming at me not to force it. The instincts I had hoped would kick in from day one were fully formed and I was ignoring them. It was one of the hardest decisions we’ve made along the way but I did what I knew we had to do and pulled the plug. He needed one more year. I worried so much that I’d done the wrong thing, that I’d done more harm than good. Not even one year on, and seeing him flourish at the pace he felt ready for, I have never been more sure of anything as a parent: I did the right thing. And I had always known what the right thing was at that time. For this one I am not just proud of him, but massively proud of myself. 

5. You don’t have to cherish every moment.

You really don’t. Some moments are so hard. Some months are relentlessly hard. It doesn’t mean you’re not grateful, or that you don’t derive any joy from parenting at all. You will feel under so much pressure from all of these bullshit social media posts about how you only have X amount of summers before your kid never wants to see you again so you’d better love those sleepless nights and those Tesco tantrums so much. No. Just no. I found it very hard to enjoy such a huge amount of parenting and it wasn’t because my mindset needed work, it was because it was really fucking hard. And it would have been for anyone, even the most positive person on the planet. Acknowledging that, allowing myself to say ‘I want to move beyond this’, was like releasing a pressure valve. It was honouring my feelings and allowing the stress to leave my body. I am enjoying it far more now in these last few weeks than I have in the entire last year. And I don’t wish I could go back. Not at all. I am all the more grateful now for our ordinary days because they feel lighter, easier, more fun and I keep reminding myself about how far we’ve come. When you start to sleep, when you come out of the trenches, you will be able to cherish it all as a whole, but you don’t have to force yourself to smile through every difficult minute. In fact you’ll only cause more of a pressure build up and then explode, so don’t do that, okay? 

6. Very few new mothers sleep when the baby sleeps.

And almost nobody gets through potty training in three days.

Turns out there’s actually heaps more I’d like to include here so I’m going to make it a two-parter. If you’ve found this interesting or helpful, it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe. 

Thanks for being here x