‘We haven’t come as far as we think in dealing with past’
While we’d like to think we’ve consigned most of the dark aspects of our past to history, we have not come as far as we think, writes Fiona Sherlock
THERE are stories that we tell ourselves. There are stories that we tell our children. Tonight, parents across Ireland will put their babies to bed, singing the same lullabies as the women in Bessborough hummed to theirs. To comfort and to create a moment of peace for their little ones, a safe space to fall asleep.
Now we’re being told one of Ireland’s saddest stories. After it was outlined in the Mother and Baby Homes report published last week, we’re coming to terms with how the most vulnerable infants and pregnant women were treated. It is more than a story — it’s a nightmare for the souls who lived it.
And we are learning of this dark chapter in Ireland’s history while in the middle of a pandemic. Most of our children are at home, closer to us than they have ever been. It takes a lot of time and attention to mind babies. Scrambling eggs for breakfast; changing leggings after a mid-morning baby puke; changing nappies. It is an all-consuming job, fuelled by love. Each time I did these things for my son last week, I couldn’t shake the thought of how those babies weren’t cared for. Weren’t fed. Soiled nappies weren’t changed. Children left in wet and dirty clothes. Skin burnt in the sun. Never picked up. Never comforted. Hunger cries unanswered.
So I am singing plenty of nursery rhymes to my own children now. And these lyrical stories survive much longer than one single human lifespan. Nursery rhymes recount our collective folklore. Lullabies aren’t just copyright-free content for enterprising animators on YouTube, they are intriguing articles of our history. Public health warnings were imparted to children in “Ring-a-ring-a-rosies, A pocket full of posies, A-tishoo,
A-tishoo, We all fall down.” This simple verse is said to chart the development and conclusion of the plague. A rosy rash, a herb posy to ward off the stench. Sneezing was a final fatal symptom before you dropped down dead.
I cherish my daughter’s tuneless humming and even her scribbling in my 2021 diary. But parents are fulfilling every role for their children. Teacher. Soccer coach. Nurse. For those in the trenches with small kids, it can be overwhelming and exhausting. The lockdown has gifted many parents more of their children’s lives. The daddies of lockdown have spent more time with their children than at any other point in the history of the Irish State. Extra bath times, bedtimes, another read of The President’s Cat. So why are today’s parents so stressed, when life has never been so good?
Of course, it’s not the same for everyone. Domestic abusers continue to injure the most vulnerable members of our society. Some homeless families are locked down in tiny hotel rooms. So while we’d like to think we have consigned most of the dark aspects of our society to the dustbin of history, we have not come as far as we think.
Before this report was published, I had started to miss the mammy groups and baby classes of pre-lockdown. No baby yoga, baby massage or Gymboree. Zooms aside, no space to hear advice and tips from wise old mother hens. “The days are long, but the years are short,” I was once told. I am grateful for every bum wipe, episode of Gabby’s Dollhouse and every avocado smear on my jeans.
But for parents in a safe home, there are other strains. Caring for small children while working at home is nigh on impossible. Just like Hansel and Gretel were kept
‘Babies who were not cared for, not fed, never picked up, never comforted’
captive in the witch’s kitchen, kids occupy a playpen whilst mammy hides the lunchtime mess from the boss.
But back to the horror stories that emerged last week. Every story has its villain. To most children, they are abstract or fictional. The Wicked Witch of the West. Cruella de Vil. A grotesque monster, black of heart. However, the villains in this real-life horror story recite decades of the rosary. The baby homes story also had a cast of silent characters. The mothers’ families. These babies’ fathers.
It’s only by good fortune that I was born in 1989 to a loving family. Pregnancy outside marriage was
stigmatised then. No two ways about it. Maternity hospitals could forbid fathers from visiting, if they were unmarried. Weddings were foisted upon young couples. Some girls were still being sent to the nuns into the 1990s. For people in their 30s, like me, it’s an uncomfortable truth that this was also our Ireland.
The unthinkable inhumanities inflicted on mothers and their babies serve as a stark comparison to our trifling complaints. Our children are safe, loved and well cared for. As we sing, “hush, little baby, don’t say a word,” to our own babies, let us think of all the children that did not get to speak.