Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

Do you ever have one of those days when things just don’t flow? Today I struggled to enjoy myself and as a result I feel exhausted although I’ve not done much - I think because I was fighting things rather than flowing with them.

Half way through the night the Pibler’s fever lifted, thank goodness, and he seemed much perkier this morning so I decided to escape the dishes and dirty living room floor and take him to a new playgroup not far away. I felt indecisive about whether to go or just stay at home, but in the end I went, and the minute I got there, I regretted it.

It was basically just a lot of rather tatty plastic toys and dirty-looking dolls in big piles all over the floor, and some scooters and tricycles and jungle-gym type equipment, with an arts and crafts table for the older ones. My little one seemed to be one of the youngest (it’s a toddler - under 5’s group) and he sat there bleating little baby noises every now and then and cuddling dolls, but didn’t want to do much, so in the end it was just more work than being at home. None of the other moms talked to me and I felt very uncomfortable. I left after half an hour, at the first sign of the little one rubbing his eyes - oh he needs a nap!

It’s strange because several of my ‘mom friends’ go to this playgroup and enjoy it, on another day that I can’t make. I’ve got better, recently, at realising what I really do and do not like, and accepting that the Pibler might not like something even though it’s ’supposed’ to be good.

He fell asleep on the way home but then woke fifteen minutes later when we got in, and as a result was even more clingy and cranky for the rest of the afternoon, due to tiredness. When my partner came in from work I shortly afterwards made a grateful escape to go and write in a cafe not frequented by moms and babies, or children of any description. Aah the relief!

I read a bit more of ‘The Mother’s Tongue ‘ by Heid E. Erdrich that I mentioned in my last blog. I was disappointed to see that she too knocks Dr Sears and attachment parenting - saying Dr Sears’ book is ‘oppressive’… I had to wonder, to whom? I think it’s equally oppressive to force mothers into jobs (if they don’t want to) when they are already doing the most important one on earth. I must remember to email the BBC Radio 4 ‘Women’s Hour’ - after listening to the show last week in which the new moves to cut benefit provision to single mothers was discussed without a single mention of the importance of a free choice to be a full-time mother (or at least to work hours that are flexible around her childcare commitments), and of the implications to children of that happening even less than it already does…and nor was any mention made of the rights of the children to be looked after by people who love them, instead of an endless, changing parade of ‘care-givers ‘.

Today there was further discussion on this on BBC Radio 4, and the comments were that people need to ‘face up to their obligations’. This phrase was repeated over and over to justify why most people on benefits should be forced into work - for mothers, from the time their youngest is a mere three years old. I’m all too aware that there are people who ‘milk the system’, but that shouldn’t justify creating a situation where mothers are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Back to the ‘anti-Sears’ backlash and its connection with feminism…it makes me think about how I reconcile my own feminism with my attachment parenting principles. Do I think it’s oppressive to women to validate their intuitive need to be close to their baby, in the face of all the enormous pressure in our society to force babies to be ‘independent’ from a very young age? Do I think it’s oppressive to give them information and support on how to provide for their children’s very real attachment needs, borne out in numerous studies? And yet, I can see how it could be perceived as oppressive, if you read Dr Sears like a ‘bible’ of ’should’s’. My instinct was to parent this way, and so I found what Dr Sears said validating, but there are obviously as many ways to parent as there are individuals. But just because Dr Sears might be perceived by some as smug and ‘know-it-all’ doesn’t mean that attachment parenting isn’t based on solid principles and real-life experience.

The poor Pibler is ill again - he’s only just got over his cough and cold, and now has a fever again. I’ve been quite concerned because the fever is the only symptom - other than him only wanting to be nestled up against my chest all the time.

We just had a bath together - the first one together in a while - and he lay on my chest the entire time, not moving or playing. I felt overcome with protectiveness and love, because he’s quite a big boy now and I remembered bathing with him as a newborn, how small he was.

Today at the breastfeeding drop-in there was a one-week-old baby… it’s so hard to imagine I was once in the throes of that stage, and utterly clueless about what I was doing.

I borrowed a poetry book by Heid E. Erdrich called “The Mother’s Tongue“. I’m excited to read some poetry about the experience of being a mother, as my own poetry has run so dry since the Pibler’s birth, and I could do with some fresh inspiration.  I was blown away by reading ‘Sisters, Stay on the Other Side’, her poem that speaks from the world of motherhood to those who have not entered that state. It perfectly captured the sense of never being able to go back, and that making the choice to be a mother is not a choice all mothers should make:

Sisters stay dry on the banks, do not even
touch toe to test the water. Stop your ears
when you hear siren sounds: wet, sweet wails
that insist you can never understand
life, love, woman, man – until you birth
or nurse or raise a child in this world.