Wisdoms of motherhood
Michele Powles and Renee Liang share their thoughts on mess, magic and mothering
Michele
I went to a sombre outdoor event not long ago and as the crowd shuffled forward, the crackle and sigh of their feet moving through fallen autumn leaves was almost overwhelming.
The mood was downcast, contemplation sat heavy on everyone; except the children. They heard the leaves. They heard the potential. My boys grabbed handfuls of leaves and threw them in my face and it cracked the whole day open. Suddenly I heard the rustle of autumn everywhere. I felt the memory of leaping into piles of orange and gold with my brother, friends, parents. I threw leaves back at my children. We were alive. So alive!
When we talk about parenthood, there’s a lot of how gruelling and confronting and bewildering it is. There is that. There is a lot of that when you are a full-time carer and also a working parent. Doing “All Of The Things” is a beast with a prehensile tail that will as likely slap you in the face as bring you a cuppa as you try to get a scene written.
But it’s such a profound life change that I believe it brings wisdoms you didn’t ask for, or look for, or even know were there until someone points them out. Like looking up and realising the emptiness above is suddenly full of stars.
Children bring with them real mess and magic. From them I have remembered the taste of childhood; I’ve re-learned to allow an idea to drip with absurdity before it’s ripe. I’ve met wonderful new people (who may or may not end up as characters in new stories). But I’ve also met myself on an entirely different level. I am the advocate for these small people in my care. I have stood up for them and in doing so have had to stand up for myself. There is So Much Advice on parenting but eventually we have to make a decision on what type of parents, people, creators, we are and live with it.
I’ve had to become me. More me than I’ve ever been. It means understanding the power of saying No. It means letting a meeting whirl around you until there is a pause when people are ready to hear your ideas and you can hold them, firmly, in your hands and show everyone, here, look, this is what we could do. THIS! That’s what children do every day. That’s what provides my gravity while my children try to engineer a black hole in the centre of the living room.
I am a wonderful mother and a terrible mother and a working mother and someone who trades on milking emotional depth out of the smallest things. My children have stolen hours of productive time from my life. And they have given me back a shiny new cosmos of increased capacity and creative juice and trust that I’ll get it all down eventually. You, me, none of us, are able to Do All The Things, despite our incredible capabilities. There is a joy and release in acknowledging that.
Renee
As I write this, just past midnight, my kids sleep. Earlier, Mr Five had squeezed me tightly and whispered, “Mummy, I don’t need you. But I still want you.” Then he’d passed out, starfished on top. Miss Six still had her beady eyes open when I sneaked a look. She waggled two fingers, dismissing me. I headed downstairs to the dishes, but became distracted by her card: “Dear mum thank you for Being the Best mum ever” was written in careful script, studded with treasured stickers.
Before I had kids, I’d worried about what might happen when I became a parent. The media and the mummy blogs seemed full of fatigue, poor self-esteem and patronising attitudes. Selfblame or worse if the tiny thing you were in charge of wouldn’t feed, sleep, poo or do the other things it was apparently programmed to do. And yes, the struggle is real.
But then, so are the joys — and the becomings. It used to be that in order to be considered an adult, you had to complete three rites of passage: move out of home, get a job and start a family. Times have changed and so have expectations. But it is true that becoming a parent makes you different. You can feel the brightness and darkness of the world through the prickling senses of a child. There is a new understanding of time. Sometimes, with children, we are forced to wait; to breathe and pause. Perhaps that is good, too.
There is a softening of the edges that grew sharp in training or the workplace, and there is the healing. There are the new vulnerabilities. There is a blurring of absolutes. There is the ability to comfort with a kiss or embrace or a cartoon bandaid. There are the new skills of scheduling and negotiation and just making it damn happen and of herding toddlers which are much worse than cats.
There is the ability to clean up all kinds of mess, solid, liquid or indeterminate. The emotional messes too. To address the first stirrings of self — who am I? — did you ever dream you’d be able to answer that question? But you do, for your children.
There is real wisdom too. I don’t mean knowledge, which is what my dad presumably meant when he told everyone at my 21st party that I was conceived so he could practice on an actual baby for his paediatric exams. I mean that deep, spreading feeling that comes from watching your child minutely examine a leaf and then deduce its relationship to a tree. Or the way your child shifts you to a different space when they say, “I’m not sure I’m real.”
I’ve found these new skills useful at work. I am softer, more blurry. I can walk in a parent’s skin now. I think this makes me a more effective paediatrician. I also think these skills translate to any workplace and I think more employers should realise this.
But whether we work or not, it is our kids that enlarge us. When I come home and hold my children, I understand it now: that lean of a soft cheek cushions the whole world.
‘‘ That’s what provides my gravity while my children try to engineer a black hole in the centre of the living room.
Michele Powles
‘‘ Mr Five whispered, ‘Mummy, I don't need you. But I still want you.’
Renee Liang