Those of you with children will appreciate the irony: For 4 months, I've been trying to review a book called, "What Mothers Do (especially when it looks like nothing)" by British psychotherapist Naomi Stadlen. Each time I've had a moment free, I've decided it would be more productive to shower, or eat, or run into the garden for 10 minutes of exercise and fresh air... or just sleep... or do the shopping/laundry/tidying/bills...
The only reason I'm sitting here now is that a friend's 17-year-old daughter was looking for a job, so I've hired her twice a week to watch the baby. This is her first day. I've been giddy with the anticipation of having some of my freedom again and have had to seriously temper my expectations. I managed to eat a cooked breakfast and read the first half of the paper. But otherwise, I haven't been able to switch off from baby-mode at all. In fact, I've been hovering over the 17-year-old all day!
Here's a blurb from Naomi's book: "Have you ever spent all day looking after your baby or young child - and ended up feeling that you have 'done nothing all day'? Do you sometimes find it hard to feel pleased with what you are doing, and tell yourself you should achieve more with your time?
Maybe it's because you can't see how much you are doing already."
At the end of a day at my previous job with the BBC, I could point to a radio program, already broadcast, as evidence of my work. There was even a feedback session from the boss to sum up our daily successes and failures neatly. Now, after a full day at home with my seven month old son, my husband comes home and says, 'So, what have you guys been doing all day?' and my answer is inevitably, 'Oh nothing...'
Of course that's not even remotely true. According to Stadlen, the problem is that there are few words to define the experience of mothering (fathering- the two are interchangeable of course).
"Mothers live in a universe that has not been accurately described...Using habitual vocabulary sends us straight down the same old, much-trodden footpaths... But... there are whole stretches of motherhood that no one has explored." Stadlen says a new parent's isolation often comes from not being understood. And yet, "Collectively, mothers ensure the continuity of civilised life from one generation to the next." (If you believe we are civilized, I suppose.)
So what exactly DO mothers do?
This book doesn't seek to dictate rules, impose regimes or define what mothers should do. It simply gives words to the arduous labor of love already in progress, one that may well be invisible even to the mother (father, carer) engaged in it.
Apparently, in the past seven months, I've been forging new values, like patience and compassion (albeit kicking and screaming sometimes!) These new values are not ones necessarily compatible with the world of work... there are no clearly defined hurdles to overcome. Babies require a slow-paced continuity, a rhythm that can be maddening at first to the driven, ambitious adult.
I'm also taking full responsibility for another human being, or as one mother tells Stadlen: "I am keeping this baby alive, it's terrifying." It is sometimes, literally terrifying. After my son was born, for months I had terrible, involuntary images flashing through my mind... of him drowning in the garden water tank, of my big pruning shears attacking his tiny limbs... of other people hurting him. It made me feel so sick and unhappy that I often couldn't sleep at night. I felt guilty, troubled and didn't feel I could breathe a word of this to anyone.
But it turns out lots of new parents experience these 'hallucinations'. Again, Stadlen's book gives words to these unspeakable feelings: "Mothers who are starting to recognize their responsibilities also recognize their enormous power. A mother can choose to use her power for good or evil, for life or death. It can be difficult to make responsible decisions for good and for life, not for oneself but on behalf of a baby, and it becomes even more difficult when a mother (father) is alone and short on sleep...The vivid scenarios mothers report sound like an effective early warning system."
In other words, it's the mind coming to terms with all that could, but should never happen.... of how fragile human life is and how easily you could allow it to be harmed or snuffed out. It's the reptilian part of the brain fighting its own worst instincts.
This next one is a skill all of you parents will instantly recognize, and perhaps you've already defined it:
being instantly interruptible: "...this nameless act, when a mother/father puts down a whole myriad of threads of his/her personal existence as soon as the baby cries...deserves some word to acknowledge it."
So do you rush to comfort a fussing baby... or will that spoil him? I would love to know your thoughts! Stadlen says showing generosity to a small baby and building trust by responding quickly will help the child: "If an older child has become manipulative, it is nearly always because he hasn't been able to get what he needs by more straightforward methods." (Is she naively assuming all children stop only at what they need?)
Stadlen ponders this state of being permanently 'on-call' for the rest of your life (to some degree). Parents must suddenly learn to deal with the frustration and annoyance of always leaving things half (...wait - sorry - he's got himself stuck on his back and needs righting....)
done...then soon, of course, many parents must go back to work and learn the exact opposite- to stop thinking in fragments and concentrate in a competitive, unforgiving office.
There is an excellent chapter on the definitions and expectations of 'motherly love' - does it exclude hate? Is it good enough? And another on the mother herself becoming a new person. While there are dozens of guides on baby development, there seem to be few on the mother's own development. A new baby knits together one's past, present and future in ways few other things do.
(Sorry, he's fussing again... I think it's his teeth).
What Mothers Do deals only with infancy... imagine how many libraries you could fill if you started to catalogue the countless banal and profound tasks parents do throughout their children's lives!
To me, the story of one mother at my local La Leche League sums up the sweet agony of loving a child. The woman, quiet with a nervous, warm smile, said nothing all hour as other mothers shared their experiences of childbirth and breastfeeding. She patiently played with her precocious 2-year-old daughter. Towards the end of the meeting, our convenor said to her out of the blue, "Why don't you share your experience with everyone?"
The mother looked surprised, almost on the verge of tears, but she quickly recovered her composure. At birth, she told us, her daughter had been diagnosed with a severe heart condition. This meant her little girl could stop breathing at any time in her sleep. The doctors couldn't operate until she was big enough to survive heart surgery. So the woman and her husband took turns every night, for 18 months, staying up to watch their daughter's breathing...
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