When I became a mother nearly four years ago, I discovered very few organised spaces in which to properly connect with other parents about our common experience. I say very few, but I must extol and recommend La Leche League and their incredibly supportive groups for mothers when it comes to breastfeeding and beyond. I have found that most other activities, however, centre around entertainment for the little ones, and it is all too easy to attend and leave without interacting in any meaningful way with the other adults in the room. In this way, the days can seem varied and interesting - even frenzied - for our children, but not so much for us. And isn’t our wellbeing crucial if we parents are to discharge our sacred job well?
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Despite the popular emphasis on chaos and despair in the world, there’s still a lot of goodness out there. There are good people, good causes, and good developments absolutely everywhere. It’s really down to us whether we choose to notice it or not, and then whether we choose to align ourselves with it or simply go with the flow of negative trends. And while it is essential to critique and oppose the bad, it is also important to highlight and celebrate the good. A few weeks ago, my daughter had a tantrum in the middle of a public square. So it was not just a public tantrum, but one with an audience of slightly embarrassed, slightly fascinated spectators on benches! They looked on unabashedly, with stone-faced expressions. Not that I could glance in their direction for long; I was too focused on my writhing, screaming little girl. But I felt the stares, the judgement, and it was oppressive. One older man passed me and started shaking his finger directly at my daughter, saying ‘behave!’ in an angry voice. I was horrified, but told him politely enough ‘I’m handling this, thank you’, but he repeated his same phrase. So I repeated mine. To which he said ‘it doesn’t look like you’re handling it’, and walked off. It appalled me that I should have to deal with this sort of interference on top of an already stressful situation. I called back sarcastically ‘thank you for your support!’, and then felt the unfamiliar weight and fire of conflict arrive in my chest - at a moment when I really needed help, and calm.
Back at the start of the academic year, my social media feed was awash with ‘first day at school’ and ‘back to school’ pictures of the sweet little faces I know in my life. Some were accompanied with written updates by proud parents on how it went - mainly that their child had gone into the classroom happily and excitedly, barely looking back and not a tear in sight. I didn’t read anything like ‘and she wailed and shook in my arms, not wanting me to leave her. I waited a while, my heart aching and unsure what to do. As the teacher ushered her in, I tried to stop myself from crying too. What a first day!’. One day, I was sitting in my favourite local cafe in Malta (Creme Cafe in Naxxar - a bustling place of Maltese conversations, books, delicious coffee and amazing raw vegan cakes). I was busy writing, as it is the sort of cafe that inspires writing, when someone with an unfamiliar but radiant face approached me and my then six month old baby. It wasn’t so much what this woman said - questions and compliments about baby Dorothy no less - but the warmth with which she spoke. There was such openness, encouragement and interest, in a quantity and degree of sincerity that we rarely encounter in everyday life - and certainly not from strangers. There was no wistful nostalgia or maternal affection that sometimes come from an older woman when meeting a new baby, either. This woman was my age, and her manner was characterised by a friendliness that is born of love, not reminiscence. When I imagined contributing my own little piece to the ever-popular discourse on births - and I wasn’t sure I would - I didn’t think I would need courage. It’s all too easy for women whose births didn’t quite go ‘to plan’, or who in fact endured something quite traumatic, to feel disempowered to speak about it. Writing a birth story almost seems like an anticlimax, or at best a cathartic exercise that won’t actually inspire anyone else! And so I decided to write up my humble experience for a number of reasons - to describe with words of truth and love a birth that is far from perfect; to encourage all those women who have felt disappointed or upset by their births to still feel capable; and to not - on principle - remain silent because the story isn’t conventionally worthy of admiration.
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