On losing and finding your identity as a mother
‘Where are you, Mummy?’ asked my toddler son as I grabbed a few precious moments of quiet, closeted in a musty understairs cupboard. How a simple game of hide and seek can give a little respite; the ultimate in me time when you are in the thick of child rearing. And indeed, where was I in this new role, this role of mother?
In the delivery room, after I had just given birth to this child—my first son, some eleven years ago now—the midwife said, ‘Let’s see to Mummy.’ Instinctively, I looked towards my own mother who was there with us. Until it dawned on me, like a smack in the face, I was Mummy now. That was daunting. Would I compare, would I be any good?
I had never before realised the weight behind the role.
My experience up to that point was that when you're pregnant you're this precious vessel who people smile at.
They ask how you are, how you’re getting on with it all, regaling you with their own pregnancy stories so it's pretty much all about you. If you’re lucky you’ll get showered with gifts at a baby party in your honour, smiled at by strangers on the street, and the occasional kind passenger will offer you their seat on the train (it only happened once, facilitated mainly by wearing my Baby on Board badge).
And then once you’ve given birth, it's all about the baby, with only a cursory nod to your wellbeing. It’s like you're a sort of bystander, a now empty vessel. The adjustment is immense. The loss of sense of self is hard going at first. Would I be just a mum now?
I should have realised that that loss of me as an individual was coming, when, without asking my permission I had a stranger—a woman—touch my very pregnant tummy. I’d already become something that belonged to others. I recall my mother telling me that when you have a baby, you become someone's mum. You're not ‘you’ anymore. Hey look, I haven’t even named my own mum in this scenario (sorry, Elaine) – it’s quite clearly a perpetual phenomenon that needs to be recognised as such.
As a mother you become subservient to that cute little dictator you created. And it’s hard - a 24-7 on call, no let-up graft, especially in those early weeks.
A friend, pregnant with her first at the time, observed that in my new mum state, my ‘world had become smaller.’ I bristled at her words.
Okay, my world was physically smaller, but huge all at the same time. I was in the thick of life—the arse end of it most of the time—but I got to experience every part of life every single day. I may not have been in a busy, go-getting career, but my role was fulfilling, challenging, and ultimately rewarding.
We need to realise that the term mother can be empowering and not in any way second best to all the earlier aspects of our lives before children. And like a game of hide and seek with yourself – it takes a while to regain you.
However, I can attest as the mother of two young boys, that as the months turn into years, even though you may have lost yourself for a moment in a quagmire of sleep deprived half-living, you reemerge. Like a soldier emerging from battle (or from an understairs cupboard). Scarred, yes, but still you. In some ways a stronger and wiser version of you. A new you.
Becoming a mother becomes part of your identity, just like being a sister, a wife, a daughter. Not all of you, but a part of you. Being a mother gives you this amazing opportunity to raise inquisitive little people, find out what interests them and teach them about the world. In finding out who they are you end up also finding your own resilience, confidence, and fearlessness, and in turn showing them how to be that way too, purely from just being you.
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