My maternal identity crisis

DIARY OF A GAP MUM

‘Parenthood itself has morphed beyond all recognition, thanks very largely to social media’

This week: The fog of motherhood has descended – and brought an identity crisis with it…

There’s a term often used to describe the first year of motherhood. It’s known as “The Fog”.

Unlike actual fog, it’s not restricted to early mornings or the colder months; this one lasts all year, all day and all night, and just like the real thing, Maternal Fog makes it impossible to see clearly.

Everything becomes shrouded in hormonal confusion, distorted by a thick layer of exhaustion, rendering us incapable of such helpful things as rational thought and not breaking down in tears when SOMEONE moves the toaster dial from a perfect five to a breadnuking eight.

The most annoying thing about Maternal Fog, and I’ve learned through three previous experiences of it, is that I only ever realise I’m in it after it has cleared.

Like a camera clicking into focus after months of blur and confusion, suddenly everything becomes pin-sharp – often in a surprising way.

It was often well over a year after having a baby, having thought I was coping superbly and gaining extra points in the pointless Supermum chart, that I was able to look back with fresh, newly rested eyes and a settled mind, and realise some of the decisions I’d made during a time when choosing not just which type of tea I fancied, but whether I wanted a cup of tea at ALL, could take all morning.

Whatever I chose was wrong anyway, because I actually loathe tea.

And that’s to say nothing of the questionable career decisions I’d made, catastrophic wardrobe choices and house-décor epiphanies involving statement wallpaper and baubles. All of which I regretted latterly, but didn’t seem even remotely ill-advised at the time.

Strangely, and counterintuitively, one of the things foggy motherhood can also do is clarify things. Most crucially perhaps, it can change how we feel about ourselves. Who we are, what we want, and how we want to live.

It’s the biggest identity crisis I know, and having already lived through it three times, and then enjoyed a decade of being “myself ”, experiencing this new maternal identity angst is a shock to my system. One that, foolishly, I didn’t expect. It’s been made all the greater because not only have I changed since I last had a baby, but parenthood itself has morphed beyond all recognition, thanks very largely to social media.

I feel like an oldfashioned mum in a new parenting world that I don’t quite understand, or feel much affinity with. The constant pressure to share every aspect of my and my child’s life – known as “sharenting” – to remain relevant, current, and have any kind of “influence”, is something I feel deeply uncomfortable about.

I feel gentler, less fierce than much of this new-age motherhood seems to demand of me. I just don’t feel I belong in it. Or have the confidence or pace to be constantly broadcasting.

I crave simple presence, connection and calm. I also know how fast my baby will grow up, so what I want most of all is TIME with her.

I’m trying to remind myself that I’m probably still deep in The Fog, vulnerable to worries I would usually bat away.

But it feels real. It feels as if I really do want something different. As if I am different. Sometimes the only way to see the fog is to move out of it.

So, I decide to take our baby to the doorstep in Venice where I sat a year ago, sick with pregnancy, and wrote a love letter to her – and made her a promise.

Perhaps it is time for another letter. To my family and my new self. And to honour that promise.

Next time: A new life for us all