Our Identity As Mothers

Hi gang, 

I hope that you are sitting in your favourite chair, whether that is at your local coffee shop while you enjoy some much needed time-out as Bubs naps, or you are snuggled in your living room. 

Over the past month I have had lovely feedback from people who are reading my Substack, which is where I write more personally about the space between motherhood, my work as a doula, and finding my own sense of self. So, as I sat down to write, with a fresh cup of tea next to me this morning, I thought I would try blending these writing styles for you. I hope that you enjoy today’s fresh read, which offers a different look at how we see the seasons come and go. 

Read My Substack Here.

I have written before about our identity as mothers, my personal journey through five rounds of cancer, becoming a Mum in the middle of it all, and the paths that have brought me here to my  profession as a post-natal doula. None of it is new, and most days I don’t even think of it, but as spring came around this year with all its blustery energy, I heard a small voice within me say ‘Stop just a minute!’.

Each winter we are encouraged to slow down, listen to our bodies, journal, embrace family time; you know the drill. Then as soon as March comes along we are called to throw the blankets off our laps, blow the scented candles out, and exchange our journals for to-do lists. 

Frankly, I can’t be doing with it all this spring.

Quite honestly, a lot of the reason why I am starting to feel frustrated about the seasonal change at the moment is due to the fact that it feels like just another marketing gimmick so we buy more things for our homes. With Easter next week, the pressure to make our homes Pintrest-worthy or Instgram-able, is huge. Sunday lunch tablescapes that are adorned with buckets of iced drinks, matching china, thin tapered candles, flowers arranged perfectly, napkins that look relaxed yet also crisp… all this visual pressure from people we will never meet!

As we scroll through and start to feel the tug of anxiety, I think that we need to start to ask ourselves ‘What is it all for?’.

When we become mothers our identities as women change. I remember in our early 20s before I had our daughter, I had the energy and wanted to do as much as possible to make dinners look incredible! I love dressing the house up for parties, and I had the time to do it. As I think back, they were fantastic care-free times. 

Many of us feel this during our pregnancies when we start to stretch our wings and decide how we want our lives to look within our new family, and it probably won’t be the same as when we were single! The Birth Plan, although often belittled, may be a tool for a first-time Mum to find her voice in a family that has drowned hers out. The plan she creates is a way of giving her a  say in how she would like to be treated with respect. When she brings her new baby home and chooses to bottle feed, her decision is hers and hers alone. Again this may be another step along her way to finding her own sense of self for the first time. Motherhood is sometimes seen as a tie, but there is also liberation to be found with each decision you make for you, and therefore your baby. Slowly but surely, we find ourselves rooting down within ourselves with the help of the community around us. Our decisions on how we lead our family become part of who we are.

So, I hear you ask, within this space of liberation and expression, where does the Easter tablescape come in? 

Personally, I still love dressing my house for festivities and occasions, but things have changed a bit in the past fifteen years! I adore having  flowers in the house, spilling over countertops, and the kitchen is always busy. I love when the whole extended family comes together in my house, and I would not change it for the world, but I have learned how to do it in a way that gives me the rest I need within the craziness. At Christmas, for example, when people come to stay for a few days they are gifted their own mugs for the week; it is theirs to keep topped up and clean! All of which, I hope, puts what I want to say next in a bit of context. 

With the lessons that winter teaches us, in all its Hygge glory, we know that taking our time to rest and heal benefits us exponentially. Those cozy afternoons on the sofa reading magazines, listening to audiobooks, and napping are not to be forgotten just because spring has sprung! The more I help my clients in their homes, I am finding myself leaning into the lessons that both winter and my personal journey has taught me; in the space between strength and leadership, we also need to soften and relax. 

If you are a Mum of four, with your children ranging in ages, your springtime will look very differently than when you first came home with your oldest from the hospital all those years ago! You will now be balancing your need to rest and recover from your recent birth, whilst also creating the space for your other children to enjoy the sun and meet up with their friends at the park. The range of experiences you have had that form your identity now will enable you to hold that balance far more than you know; you can rely on the lessons learned and the roots that have grown that allow you to stand on solid ground. As you look back, you will be able to see how you have changed from the person you were at the beginning of your motherhood journey to now.

If you are a new Mum and are welcoming your first baby home, it may all be feeling fresh and scary, beautiful, and tiring. The very thought of having to manage multitudes of people may be far too much and that is perfectly OK! You are not supposed to be doing it all, and the softness in your surroundings that enables you to recover should be the priority, and that requires asking for help, and maybe saying ‘No’ to hosting lunch next Sunday! 

Just because we are being fed the story that we are all supposed to be jumping with the joys of springs doesn’t mean that we have to fall for the marketing. Last week, a friend of mine reminded me that as we look at a field of sheep and new lambs, it is the lambs doing zoomies whilst the Mums munch grass, lay down, take a nap, and heal. As we come into this new season, let nature teach us that laying down and napping in spring is, actually, the best thing we can keep doing.