My daughter is refusing to put her cardigan on, her little face red with rage and her body taut with resistance. This struggle has been our pre-breakfast ritual for a while now. I try to (gently) explain the need for an extra layer: it’s cold, you might get sick etc, etc. Reason is lost on her. I try to (gently) move her flailing toddler arms into the scratchy pink wool before giving up – a heavy sigh for me, a squeal of delight for her.
In truth I’m yearning to be at my desk with a coffee, working, sending emails… even doom-scrolling feels preferable at this point. I glare resentfully at my husband’s back as he disappears into our office.
Less than 30 seconds later, my girl presses her soft nose against my cheek, her sea-blue eyes gazing intently into mine. “Cuddle,” she requests. My heart swells almost painfully.
This is an emotional rollercoaster I’m never getting off of, isn’t it?
Before I became a parent, I had a laughably, almost offensively one-dimensional view of what being a mother would be. I thought it would be almost exclusively isolating, boring, gruelling work – and my identity would become somehow flattened.
I did not get this idea from my own mother, who has always been a wonderfully complicated person. Maternal: sometimes. Generous and thoughtful: always. But other things too: steely, evasive, ambitious, wildly creative, hard to read, tough as nails.
(Aside: when we were growing up my mum had this rule that when she went to the bathroom, she wouldn’t answer me and my siblings if we called. Totally ignored us, to put it bluntly. At the time of course I was indignant, like, how dare she? Now that I am a mum, I think of that fondly: she was grabbing her own micro sanctuary just for a few moments. And she was unknowingly modeling boundaries… I say, as I pee with the bathroom door open lest my toddler need anything at all.)
No, I think I quietly and over many years absorbed this compacted view of mothers and the labor of mothering from TV shows, books and movies and just, like, the ether. I also saw how tough having a newborn was for some of my closest friends, and I confirmation-biased that data so I couldn’t see the beautiful parts of their experience.
But after I had my own daughter, I couldn’t believe how naive I’d been. It is so much more textured than I’d feared. Joy and grief; guilt and hope; rage and engulfing love – it’s all there inside me now. The light and dark, the agony and ecstasy. Becoming a mother tore me in multiple directions like nothing in my previous existence ever did. Mother, writer, worker, friend… I am a fragmented being now.
I will forever be trying to explain what it is to hold these multiple feelings at once… and that’s what this Substack is about: the ambivalence of motherhood. It seems like we’re still so often presented with two extremes of motherhood: constant bliss, or interminable drudgery. (Chappell Roan’s recent “parents are in hell” comments really highlights that this kind of binary narrative is still prevalent).
But what about the messy middle? The thorn on the rose? I’m trying to get at that nuance, to put language around that liminal space.
My daughter is about to turn two. I’m feeling more myself – not my old self, because I’m pretty sure she’s gone. But the storms of early postpartum have calmed, and this feels like a good time to make sense of motherhood.
Full disclosure: this is me figuring shit out as I go. Sharing what’s helped me along the way, and what occupies my thoughts in this new, intense, life-affirming job.
I hope this will be of some comfort to you, if you’re walking your own path in motherhood. And by the way, I define mother in the broadest possible terms – as broadly as I define womxn. All are welcome here.
As well as musings on the big mixed feelings of motherhood, every issue I’ll send you recommendations for shows, films, books, memes and other writing that has made me feel and think more deeply about the complexity of modern motherhood. Oh and since I’m an audio journalist in my day job, if I’m feeling time-rich I'll make you little soundscapes too … sonic dispatches from motherhood, if you will.
Thank you for being here 🌹
💎 The motherlode
For the first issue of Cutting Teeth, I wanted to share three of my all-time guiding lights when it comes to motherhood…
📚 Like a Mother by Angela Garbes: I read this when I was pregnant and feeling lost in a sea of patronizing advice. This gorgeous book made me feel excited and fascinated by the process of pregnancy and birth.
📖 Matrescence by Lucy Jones: I’ve gifted this book to so many of my friends – it’s about the radical transformation of motherhood and how it’s overlooked on a societal, scientific and cultural level. It profoundly changed the way I think about parenting. Lucy’s chapter on ambivalence (and how that in itself is misunderstood!) was also a huge inspiration for this newsletter.
✍️ What we never say about parenting by Amil Niazi in The Cut: I think because my view of mothering had been so negative, this was such a balm. It’s not common to read writing that accurately puts into words the complex joy of parenting, but this hits.