TIES THAT BIND
Jade Jagger became a mother for the third time and a grandmother for the first within weeks.
People are often amazed to hear that, three years ago, I delivered my first granddaughter, Ezra, myself. My daughter, Assisi, had a home birth, just like I did when I had her. Over the course of her 72-hour labour, I held her hand as we walked around the Cornish countryside and breathed with her through the contractions, while her partner Alex, sister Amba and the rest of the family anxiously waited to meet the new arrival – a professional midwife on hand to allay their concerns. All of this might have been slightly easier to handle if I hadn’t been almost nine months pregnant myself. But I suppose that’s the sort of thing that happens when your family doesn’t worry too much about convention.
I was just out of my teens when I gave birth to Assisi, with Amba following three years later. At that point, I was still young and naive enough to have no real fears about becoming a mother – or much else, really. My parents, Mick and Bianca Jagger, had divorced when I was a child, and I’d lived a split existence between the London of Cheyne Walk and the New York of Warhol’s Factory. It was shortly after I left boarding school in Wiltshire that I met Piers, Assisi and Amba’s father, and we began our own family together when I was 20.
As it turned out, motherhood came naturally to me – and it gave me a sense of clarity and focus that had been missing from my life. Piers and I split our time between London and a house in Dorset, working as artists and staging exhibitions together while raising our babies. Eventually, we parted ways, and my daughters began to grow up – as did I. I founded my own business and travelled more than ever to far-flung destinations around the world. I was keen for my daughters to explore and experience as much as I did from a young age – while still having some semblance of a routine. When I reflect on their early childhood now, it comes back to me in snapshots: the girls playing on the beach in Goa or toddling around our home in lbiza.
Before I knew it, my first baby was an adult and deciding to have a baby of her own. When, at 21, Assisi told me that she was pregnant, I panicked, even though she was older than I had been when I had her. I learnt first-hand that becoming a mother ends your childhood and changes your life in a way that nothing else can.
As an added complication, I had recently found out that I was pregnant as well. lt was a shock to both me and my husband, Adrian. I was 42 by that point, so the two of us thought that we had reached a different stage of life. Instead, I was starting the journey to parenthood all over again. As an older mother, I had to keep my pregnancy
a secret for months – a difficult task in a family as open as ours. That said, once I told Assisi that she was going to have a little brother – and wrapped my head around the idea of becoming a grandmother in my early 40s – being pregnant at the same time as my daughter became a truly bonding experience. The two of us bought copies of The Contented Little Baby by Gina Ford and studied it religiously. Our due dates were only weeks apart, which meant through the last trimester I had somebody to confide in about cravings and feeling the baby kicking. My confidante just happened to be my first-born.
Just weeks after Assisi had Ezra, I gave birth to Ray. The two of us supported each other through all of the ups and downs of that first year with a newborn. I was the person she would call in the middle of the night when the baby was screaming or refusing to breastfeed. In turn, she counselled me through all of the doubts that are a fundamental part of early motherhood: “Am I doing this right? Is the baby okay? Will l ever sleep again?” Even though I was a generation above her, it still felt like we were going through the same learning curve. It had been nearly two decades since I last had a baby, and the experience was totally different – as was I.
As the years have gone by, the two of us have grown in confidence and started to rely on each other less – relaxing into our own parenting styles. Assisi has settled into rural life on a farm in the countryside, where Ezra follows her around like a shadow. I technically reside in north London, but, in reality, I’m still constantly on the road for my business, whether to make jewellery in Jaipur or build fincas in Formentera – frequently with Ray in tow.
In the end, though, the ties that bind us are stronger than ever, not just within our immediate family, but the Jagger clan as a whole. My father now has eight children with five partners – a globetrotting support network that seems to be ever expanding. ln any given year, the whole lot of us might decamp to the Caribbean for a holiday or hit the road in Europe for a Rolling Stones tour – family gatherings where traditional roles lose all meaning amid the chaos and laughter. As a general rule, we’re too busy trying to find a restaurant that will accommodate several dozen screaming Jaggers for the evening to worry about someone’s place in the family tree.
Recently, my husband and I bought a house in Gloucestershire as a gathering place for all of us. It’s a traditional British home – for a less than traditional British family. At get-togethers this summer, my son will tear around the garden with his niece, who’s less than a month older than him. My father might show up with his new son, Deveraux, the youngest of us all, ready to play hide-and-seek with the children. My half-sister, Georgia May, will likely drop in to catch up with Assisi and Amba – both of whom are more like friends to her than nieces. Maybe it is all part of some eccentricity that we seem famous for – or maybe it’s just part of being a modern family.
“The ties that bind us are stronger than ever, not just within our immediate family, but the Jagger clan as a whole”