Words by Anwesha // illustration by Rachael Wu
One afternoon, after a particularly desperate nap time settle, I found myself laying in bed with my baby asleep in my arms. Out of a force of habit I open Instagram to come down from the chaos and find a fellow mum’s post about their latest overseas travels with their 6-month-old. Smiles and perfection through and through. Not a single outfit ruined by baby food or snot, not a single sleep deprivation-induced eye bag in sight. There are no posts about the long evenings spent trying to settle an overstimulated baby in an unfamiliar environment. No talks of the difficulty of plane rides with a restless and pissed-off baby while being strapped in next to a stranger. Only a perfect family living a perfect life with their perfect baby.
Social media is the place of half-truths. It will have you believe that there are people out there that have managed to hang on to their pre-baby lives without having to make many sacrifices. They still travel, or go to the gym when they want, or take on creative endeavours, without having to pay for it later on by having to make up for the hours they spent not doing the laundry or not puréeing baby foods. Worse still, it will have you believe that this is the norm, and if you haven’t managed to achieve this ideal, then it’s probably because you didn’t prioritise it. If only you were on top of it all – following the right mum-lifestyle insta accounts – would you then be living the life you lived before, but now with a cute baby by your side.
I’d be lying if I said I haven’t felt the urge to package my life into a pristine social media post every so often. The likes and comments can provide a sense of validation that, if nothing else, temporarily pulls you out of the banality of mothering an infant. It can help bring some kernels of recognition to an ostensibly thankless role. I’ve felt the urge to gloss over negatives that usually only those with kids can relate to. “Usually” – as I’ve noticed that having kids doesn’t necessarily guarantee the self awareness to allow everyone (including yourself) access to the full spectrum of emotions that accompanies early parenthood.
So much of parenting can feel like a struggle to jam a square peg into a round hole and then getting disappointed when it doesn’t feel right. It’s fascinating that we are even sold the idea that travelling with an infant is something that we should strive for. It’s a symptom of something bigger – this need to pretend that parenthood in the context of late stage capitalism and the nuclear family configuration isn’t a constant financial, emotional and existential struggle to keep your head above water – it’s actually all very doable and everyone should be aiming for it!
Why the need for the sales pitch? Who are we trying to convince – who are we trying to fool? (By the way, these aren’t rhetorical questions, I have my thoughts on the answers to these questions, but I’ll save them for another article. But as a bit of a teaser: it is my belief that the patriarchy and the modern day ruling class have something to do with the moderation and censorship of women’s honest voices when it comes to motherhood)
On the topic of travel with an infant – whilst it’s understandable that some people might find the space and willpower for it, it’s far from a necessity. Perhaps the term parental “leave” makes it sound leisurely, and little do we know that we’re about to enter an era of constantly finding ourselves at the edge of our nervous and immune systems while trying to get through a “normal” day at home with the baby. But it is absolutely not a requirement to throw in this gigantic hurdle in the early chaotic years of parenthood.
I found this pressure to have an instagrammable life present right from my pregnancy days. I expected to feel like a goddess, and instead I felt nauseous, bloated, irritable and gassy – while wondering what was wrong with me for not feeling the ”pregnancy glow”. Then came the birth. A medically necessary induction meant I had somehow “failed” in my head. Failed what? Having a non-medicated fairy-light and essential oil adorned instagrammable birth? These ideas I had imbibed from my surroundings, that were constantly being pushed upon me and other pregnant people from every direction were so astonishingly unhelpful that they bordered on harmful. They were essentially pressure and fear packaged as “empowerment”.
Parenthood can sometimes feel like such a competition to try and make it all look effortless – when it sure as hell isn’t. If there are prizes for those who manage to make their lives look the most unchanged from pre-baby times, I’m yet to learn about them. Not only is it unrealistic to set up such delusional expectations, it is also harmful for those who are preparing to go on their own journeys.
Yet we continue the charade for the sake of God know what – perhaps appearance? On the topic of toxic positivity – while there are definitely some examples out there of mothers being honest and candid about the slog, more often than not there seems to be an unspoken rule that a negative cannot be stated without an accompanying positive. “it’s brutal and incrediblel” Jennifer Lawrence says about motherhood in a vulnerable interview at the Cannes film festival. Yes, it is technically true that it is both those things. But for once I’d like to be able to state the intensity of my experience without having to qualify it with a side of positivity, and not be judged for it. Rachel Cusk’s “A Life’s Work” received copious amounts of vitriol for not being “positive” enough about motherhood. Isn’t there enough forced positivity about it in the world for us to be able to have a handful of books about the unabridged reality of the hardship of it all? It is my belief that the experience of mothering is intense enough to warrant a free pass for occasional no-strings-attached complaining about the drudgery without the additional task of having to turn it into poetry. That’s the least society can do in exchange for us practically raising the future generation with one hand while running the household with the other.
Now I’m not saying that we stop all activities altogether and bunker down in our postpartum caves with our food stained pyjamas and grumpy babies until the end of time (unless that’s all you have the capacity for). I’m definitely guilty of isolating myself too much from the world, perhaps as a method of self preservation when everything started to feel too overwhelming and any amount of uncertainty seemed to push me over the edge. And I’m also not suggesting that we stop celebrating our wins. What I’m wondering, however, is if there’s a way to share our journeys of parenthood in a more real way so the uninitiated are presented with a more honest picture of what’s to come.
Something like:
“Here’s our family on a day trip to the beach, the baby cried inconsolably for 2 hours in the car leaving us completely exhausted and drained before we even got there but here we are putting on a big smile for the camera”
Or…
“Here’s our family in Greece. We got multiple annoyed looks on the plane here from 20 year olds who believe that they’re entitled to a child free world, and the baby’s kept us up all night after a grueling flight. But we downed all the coffee we could find to be able to travel to this tourist spot and take this photo”
Perhaps part of the need to package it all as this picturesque dreamscape comes from the denial of the fact that our lives are different now, and they will be for the foreseeable future.
For some it can be a tough reckoning. It definitely was for me. Give in, or keep fighting? When do we find acceptance in our lives being irreconcilably different as parents? When do we give in to the mundanity of this existence and stop trying to make it something it’s not? on the other hand, when is it important for us to fight for a richer life as a parent, to challenge the status quo of the isolated one dimensional existence of a mother?
I’ve personally found a lot more peace in my parenting journey once I found some acceptance in the mundanity of it all, and ironically that acceptance has given me the room and headspace to get parts of myself back. An example of this is that I’m currently writing this article on my phone while my baby naps in my arms, as I’ve come to accept that sitting at my laptop in a quiet room is, for now, a privilege I won’t get very often.
If Instagram is the place that most “high-achieving” parents go to get validation for their experiences, where and how can we unite those that are struggling to get by on a day to day basis? Where do those with ultra-sensitive little humans go for solidarity? Perhaps some day we’ll have a culture of more honest sharings about parenthood on social media which could make those of us with less instagramable parenting lives feel less lonely and more seen. Until then, I’m happy to keep writing my silly little words into my phone for catharsis.
