Moving into the final months of my maternity leave I wanted to reflect on where my brains at, to be honest it’s a to do list of half baked expectations that never got fulfilled. I had some minor hopes for this time around; changes in my life that I wanted to implement. Decent thinking on life beyond the baby, shifts that I want to navigate. Instead we leave behind a legacy of concerns, questions and disruption. My mind is once again a scramble of hopes and ideals which feel unmatched and untethered. Societal ideals bang noisily against my own identity.
I listen to podcasts which unpack a current trend for the ‘trad wife’ and I sincerely question yet again why I struggle so much to enjoy the slog of maternity leave. I think of my partner and how he comes and goes through this. Not house bound like our first maternity leave experience overcast by Covid. How his freedom achingly underpins my inability to move. Shackled is a word I regularly land on as I push the pram to and fro. Gritting my teeth is now a daily occurrence over a nightly unconscious. The exhaustion is double, triple due to the weight of not wanting to part significance with my first born. I humbly feel torn between both priorities and neither feel achieved. Can I celebrate this moment- another year of sole care? Another baby slowly created, formed and developed from static to moving, crawling. Exactly like his brother he only sleeps on me or else momentarily in the pram- I feel this as a major failure to put him down. Breastfeeding again a dichotomy of usefulness, and sometimes love but mainly frustration and loneliness. Again the word shackled arises.
Many have said that I need to lean into my role and I feel that acutely, but I also find the daily screaming matches and exhausting chase of an active baby utterly thankless. I have strived to maintain my interests; exhibitions and photography but they have felt like luxuries that yet again feel unattainable. The work of frontline childcare is always to feel pinned to one position, to feel shackled- the word sits irregularly within me like acid reflux. I wish to spit it out and start the next day a-fresh. I’ll wash my hair and make a coffee, my maternity leave a pause, but also a step forward- blinking how can I see into the light now that this baby is growing. I will look at both of my children- deep down my sadness is that I so rarely felt satisfaction from this work. My neighbours mainly all orthodox Mums who make light work of raising multiples- I try and find the answers in their eyes- how do you do this? I ask my friends who have prioritised their children over their careers. I am asked ‘are you sad’ about return to work- and I’m not. Capacity and conditions of my life and expectations are at odds, I’m neither totally sold on the notion of kids, nor totally against it- my ambivalence makes my mind a difficult space where I analyse away the good. Are other frontliners happy with just the occasional smile and laughs, are they built differently?
I question if I should pick this up again on a day that finds my resolve more resilient and think through how overall I’d rate my leave a 7.5/10. Its rhythm ensures it’s the loneliest busy you’ll ever find but the way my brain has shifted, my body has moved to define this and build this. I’m proud of who I’m becoming, it’s helped me work out how to survive, how to dig trenches of patience, self worth a horizon that’s shifted and my inner calm that likely all feel this way is shuffled away; a memory that never feels reassuring. My parental mode of choice is not to ever feel truly comfortable in my parental skin. In many ways it’s only once I say that out loud do I realise how much I’ve achieved to see that as a positive space not just for me but as I grow with my children.
