A young woman pushing a pram looks up and catches my eye. I smile at her and she smiles back shyly then walks on. In that brief glance we have exchanged a multitude of feelings. There is, I hope, compassion and understanding in my glance just as I sense exhaustion and solitude in hers. Motherhood, as I and many other women know, can be the hardest and the loneliest job in the world.
My daughter has just turned eighteen. She is an adult now. She is also my child and will always be an amalgam of baby, toddler, adolescent and teen. No matter how old she gets or how mature, she will always reside as a child in my heart. I cannot explain this to her, just as my mother couldn’t explain it to me. Motherhood has to be experienced, it has to be felt.
When I went through 27 hours of labour and an emergency C section at the end of it, not once did it cross my mind, whether it was worth it or not. One glance at her perfect face and I knew that my life had changed forever. Sleepless nights, colic, worries about cot death, projectile vomiting, explosive diarrhoea, teething, temperatures and tantrums, all became the new normal. My mother had passed by the time I had my daughter and in all the years and the many, many ways I missed her, I never missed her more than at that particular time in my life.
Only a new mother can understand the sheer fatigue and loneliness of taking care of an infant. When the baby wants no one else but you. When the baby cries at the exact moment you take the first bite of your meal. When the restless baby will only sleep if you let her sleep on your chest. ‘My little parasite’ is what I used to call her jokingly. A part of me despaired that I would never have a normal life again. A part of me felt as if my life had been hijacked forever, changed beyond comprehension. Yes, it had, but only in the most wonderful and enriching way.
As a species, we mate and reproduce. That is our biological destiny. As a species capable of producing great art, music and poetry or innovative technology and groundbreaking scientific advances, this simple act of producing another human being remains the most astonishing.
I have been blessed to have a husband who was supportive and understanding at all times. He took on the bulk of parenting when I travelled on work and calmly, efficiently, quietly got the job done. He, no doubt, had his share of lonely moments. Moments where he doubted himself or yearned for a carefree night of putting his feet up and watching Television, instead of having to deal with a fractious child. In so many ways, he has been the better parent, the more stable and dare I say it, less emotional of us two.
When the teenage years began and my daughter and I clashed, I took too much to heart. Each of her actions, designed to hurt, found its mark. Her dismissal and scorn of me, her turning away when I wanted to hug her, her inability to accept my love were scorched into my soul. It was my husband who pointed out that these were ‘phases’, a natural process, a growing up and growing away that was not just inevitable, but also important.
As my daughter is nearing the end of her teens, I find that I am able to go back to a lot of my own pursuits and pleasures. My life, the normal life that I was so afraid I was losing when she clung to me like a limpet, is returning at a faster pace than I had envisioned. Yet, I find, it is I who cling to her now. I, who feel lonely and afraid that she will soon fly the nest, and may only return sporadically, if at all.
Motherhood- what a strange and wonderful journey you are. Now, more than ever, I appreciate the beauty and sadness within you.
