I'm 36 and a mother of one. This is a photo of Taters...
He is both the light of my life and my tormentor. He's a few months short of two. We live with my husband and two glamorous cats up North in England where it is allegedly grim (but is actually rather lovely). Right that's the basics.
What else can I tell you? Aside from parenting, I would
describe myself as an agnostic with pagan leanings. I know my way around a
Tarot deck, I have a few crystals scattered around my house as well as a fair
few green men. I’m pescatarian because I love animals and can’t bring myself to
eat them, but I can bring myself to eat fish for some reason so there you go. I
give a shit about the environment and I don’t use anything tested on animals. I’m
far from rich and live in a cramped little terrace house because I haven’t yet
found a way to make money from the things I love (namely writing and art) –
work is just a means to an ends. But I do work, I’m not a stay at home mum,
sometimes I wish I was but it just isn’t an option financially. I love all
things vintage, predominantly the 1920’s-1950s, with a good dose of Victoriana
too. In fact I love a bit of history in general.
So the Domestic God-Help-Us bit: I despise housework but also
hate to live in squalor – so this is a particular source of conflict. I’m not
an awful cook, I can follow a recipe just fine (so long as it isn’t too long),
but I find it all a bit tedious. It is my husband who describes me as the “Domestic
God-Help-Us” – for my lack of culinary skills, my inability to use an iron, my
general sloppiness around the home… and so on and so on…which would be fine if
I didn’t throw such massive hissy fits at the end of the month along the lines
of, “I can’t live like this, this house is a pig stye, Argh! Argh! Argh!”
Anyway, I don’t want to spend too much time dwelling on what has already gone but so that you
understand where I’m coming from as a “Mother” here is a little trip back through my motherhood journey to date…
My foray into the world of mothering has thus far been rather
different than I how I had envisioned it. I saw myself as something of an earth
mother-to-be, I genuinely wasn’t afraid of giving birth because I believed my body would ultimately know
what to do (I thought so many women ended up having caesareans because they
were out of touch with nature, with their bodies, too brainwashed by modern
society and removed from our natural instincts – I still believe there is a lot
to be said for that in a straight forward birth). And there was no doubt in my
mind that I would breastfeed, you should have seen the paddy I threw when a
well meaning relative bought me feeding bottles!
The reality was somewhat different: a knotted umbilical cord
resulted in a closely monitored labour (strapped down to monitors, nothing
natural about it) followed some 13 hours later by an emergency caesarean. The
breastfeeding was absolutely nothing like I expected – I worked my arse off to
make it work, I almost drove myself insane and I know I couldn't have tried any harder than I did. My inability to "successfully breastfeed" completely broke my heart (the full story can be found here if you’re interested.) But the
bottom line is my baby ended up being mixed fed. It was never the plan but it resulted in a happier, healthier baby and a mother with her sanity just
about intact.
But all of this left my beliefs in tatters and I could feel
my imaginary crusty peers turn their backs on me. (I didn’t, and still don’t
really know that many real mothers – I’m not a signed up member of any mummy
mafia) I didn’t know where I fitted in on the mummy spectrum anymore. Had
Mother Nature abandoned me? I’d had a miscarriage before this pregnancy so
perhaps I wasn’t supposed to be a mother in the first place? Had I bulldozed my
way onto a road that was never intended for me? Nothing seemed to come
naturally after all. My confidence as a mother was completely shattered. And
yes, I still struggle with the rough start we got off to, this is one of the
motivating factors behind writing a blog, the urge to find my new voice and own
it, now I’m not the crunchy domestic goddess I assumed I’d grow up to be. Ah
well!
But no, I don’t want to spend too much time looking back, as
my recent driving lessons have clearly demonstrated to me, if you spend two
much time dwelling on what has just gone – you’re not paying enough attention
to what is happening now (my driving instruction has nerves of steel I’m
telling you, because I do that a lot). So I might do a little dwelling from
time to time (I’m the kind of woman who needs to make sense of something before
I can move on) but hopefully not too much. There’s enough going on now to get
my head around thank you very much.
Well, I’ve already said too much so I will leave it there
for now and just get on with it…
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| My beautiful furry boys |
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