Motherhood: an identity crisis?

Becoming a mum is a minefield. There are several warring factions out there and they take no hostages. One of the dominant forces is attachment parenting, developed by Dr William Sears, which tells you that as soon as your new baby is born you should never ever leave their side. In fact, it would be preferable if you could keep your beloved offspring strapped to you constantly, whilst breastfeeding on demand and sleeping in a “family bed”. Then there are the routine based enthusiasts such as Gina Ford, who are expecting three month olds to be sleeping twelve hours straight, and your life to be a precise rota, based entirely around the needs of your child. Neither leave much space for you. In fact, they frequently fail to mention the needs of the woman who has borne the child, or to consider what other loves she has in her life beyond the fertile creation of her womb.
This can’t be right. Women are more than mothers, as men are more than fathers. But so often we fail to find parenting advice and guidance that acknowledges this. Instead, there is a guilt-inducing number of books that will make you feel like you have failed if you’re not spending 100% of your time on your little one. Whether you are attachment parenting or following a strict routine, what’s really needed is better advice on how to combine motherhood with womanhood. How to continue to follow the dreams and passions you had before giving birth, after birth, whilst being the loving mother you always wanted to be. I gave up reading the parenting literature once I’d had my baby, as I found it too pressurising and depressing. The best replacement was taking advice from other mothers around me, who had recently been through the stage that I was grappling with.
Over the last two years, I have spoken with a number of new mothers who not only feel the pressure of parenting expectation, but also like they’ve lost their identity. This is partly because we are so rarely encouraged or equipped to think about how we expand our identities as mums, rather than shrink them. So often becoming a mum is defined in terms of what you are giving to your baby (or your partner, or the grandparents for that matter) and not what you are giving to yourself. When we become mothers we are adding to our identity, not erasing parts of ourself that were already there. Work is a large part of this, but so are hobbies, friendships and personal time. I found it particularly difficult managing the switch between caring for a baby at home with professional meetings that I needed to attend in the day. At first, I tried to manage the two separately, which made me feel like I was living in two worlds and then I realised that there were some meetings that I could either take the baby to or that I could change into a call and take from home. This small change helped me manage my time (and my identity) so much better.
The psychiatrist Alexandra Sacks wrote an insightful article in the New York Times about how the process of becoming a mother (known as “matrescence”) is an incredibly powerful neurobiological experience for women that brings about an enormous amount of change and adjustment. Building awareness of this process and equipping women with ways to manage (and make the most of) the change would certainly help shift the current debate. It is so often said that in times of great change we can find great opportunity. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if motherhood was seen as an opportunity for women to discover more of their potential and capability?
I would love to hear more mums talking about how they have managed to be the mothers they want to be, whilst maintaining the parts of their identity they value the most, whether in work, hobbies or relationships. Instead, I often feel like we’re trapped in another battle between the working and the not-working, which is such a fallacy. Mothering is working, working is working. It’s all work and should be valued as such. The terms maternity “leave” and “break” make it sound like you’re getting time off work, when in fact, you’re taking on a whole new job. I remember naively writing down a reading list of all the book recommendations I wanted to get through during my maternity leave. The reality was that I read less in that time than when I was working full time. These verses from a poem called “Nobody saw you” capture the sentiment exactly:
Nobody sees all of the things that you do
all of the ways that you manage
and with questions like,
‘So when are you going back to work?’
You can end up feeling like one of the hardest jobs
you have or will ever have done
is simply reduced to dossing around at home.
Nobody sees you sometimes
but you are building something
that will never be torn down
a love that cannot be removed
and sometimes it is boring
and sometimes it is the worst
and sometimes you have never been happier
Rather than focus on the old battle lines, we need to find a new approach to motherhood. One that is not about how you choose to parent or whether you return to work, but about who you are as a person. What makes you tick? What makes you come alive? What do you need and want? What are the changes you are experiencing? What do you need to thrive in the fullness of your identity? This is the starting point. We should be looking at each new mum as an individual in her own right, with her own way of being and doing and thinking. There is a need for greater empathy with individual situations and choices, not only in the parenting literature, but also in our society and communities. Mums are often the harshest critics of other mums. Take a look at The Mother “Hood” commercial for a hilarious example of this.
Men generally have a much better chance of adding parenting to the rich tapestry of life and naturally expanding their identities, rather than shrinking them. You only need to look at who is on the golf courses and football pitches at weekends to see that’s true. If we could honour each other’s right to be who they want to be (and not who they are told they should be), whilst educating ourselves and each other on the amazing process of matrescence, then we would have a much better chance of increasing the number of fulfilled and happy women around us (and perhaps reducing the number with postpartum depression). Let’s make motherhood a chance for identity creation, rather than identity crisis. I, for one, think that’s a battle worth fighting.
All readers: please share this with any new mothers you know.
If you are a mother and would like to join me in redefining motherhood, then please complete this survey. It is an anonymous survey by mothers for mothers and will take no more than two minutes.
