There are some recent mainstream terms that have been useful to describe the historically indescribable. To name my two favourites: gaslighting and weaponised incompetence. Not surprisingly these are often behaviours used against women. Go figure…
I recently read an article in The Independent which enlightened me towards a term that described my exact feelings each and every day of my motherhood journey. Maternal ambivalence.
Maternal ambivalence, not to be confused with indifference, is the internal battle of one’s feelings of love and hatred; joy and irritation; helplessness and being over-bearing.
At the end of a long day, I'll often scroll mindlessly through my social media feeds and due to the nature of my work the algorithms cherry-pick articles related to child-rearing. Every other post seems to be some superficial motivational quote of “Mama, you’ve got this”, “Don’t be so hard on yourself”, “No one tells you…” or “It’s OK to be a dirty pig, you’ve got kids!” Yet none of them offer any practical advice or information on how to actually “get it”.
I feel internal rage, daily and I started to wonder whether I was feeling like this because I was selfish. I should have known that my life would be full of sacrifice if I chose to breed. How dare I long for my old career and the 12-hour days that I used to complain about, even if it means fewer hours having to listen to my 5 year old tell me a story with no plot, no meaningful structure and no ending!
My mental health started to deteriorate when my marriage broke down. Yes, of course the divorce affected me but losing the flexibility that comes with raising children in a two-parent household affected me infinitely more. I was now responsible for everything. All decisions, all household finances, all meals, all baths, all bedtimes, all arguments, all explosive nappies, the list goes on. I also had to maintain stability in the home whilst adjusting them to the change in appearance of our family unit; never sharing my feelings with them but also not pretending I was happy in an obviously devastatingly sad situation; dreading their valid and inevitable questions but trying to answer as honestly as possible so they always felt they could talk to me about it.
The flexibility that had been factored in when deciding to start a family was going to allow me to pursue a different career: become self-employed and grow a business from scratch. I then had to reign in my ambitions and this is where the maternal ambivalence really took centre stage. I resented the fact that having children was holding me back from advancing professionally but I love them dearly and could not imagine my life without them. I had a 2 year old and a new born. I berated myself for even entertaining the "what-ifs" of my youngest not existing. Telling myself it probably wouldn’t be this hard if I only had one child to look after shrouded me in guilt. So I overcompensated by showering him with love, cuddles and kisses, perhaps to the detriment of my eldest who had benefitted from the attention of two parents for a grand total of 2 years! He would often play up for attention at the most inconvenient moments - while I was breastfeeding - and occasionally put himself in situations of mild peril because he knew I would have to get up and deal with him.
We are now 4 years in to our reconstructed family life and while it continues to be a daily challenge, I now have experience on my side. I still struggle to ask for help before reaching the absolute end of my tether however we have established our expectations and routines and we follow them...most of the time. I have a bit more freedom to develop my business only being limited by society’s lack of infrastructure for working parents. I believe this lack of support is what contributes the most to maternal ambivalence and is the reason it is so common, dare I say normal. So I want mothers to recognise it when it creeps in and realise that those feelings do not make you a bad parent. They make you realistic.
It is important to note that if your feelings go beyond an internal dialogue and you need additional support, there are organisations that can help such as PANDAS.
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