Raising mothers
IIt takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a mother too.
It’s been a year and a half since I became a mom and I felt it’s time for a follow up to “Birthing Mothers”. I wrote my first text on motherhood when I was still pregnant trying to capture what I was learning as I prepared for motherhood. Here are my slightly messy thoughts from the other side of birth.
The transition to motherhood is called matresence. It is a sort of natural rite of passage. A time of intense spiritual, psychological and physical transformation that takes a huge amount of energy. We become portals for life to move through. This is ancient life and death magic that puts us in touch with something seriously divine and also the blood and dirt of the core of our existence.
So far the theory.
I prepared myself for birth by training hypnobirthing, a sort of self-relaxation technique and going to prenatal yoga classes. I laboured mostly at home under the shower and finally gave birth at the birth house. It was intense but I was surprised how clear-minded and focused I could remain during the whole process. I also felt very pragmatic and at peace with the idea of death, mine or my baby’s. Overwhelming tenderness and fear of loosing him only set in later.
The days after birth I felt great, sensual and full of love. I let myself be mammal, smell my baby, look into his father’s eyes, sharing deep wonder and knowing. He saw me birth. He saw me in hyper liminal space act with such rawness and power and care. His heart was bursting too, looking at this little human that now lay in between us. There was such wonder, such love.
And then there also was this seriously challenging period of physical exhaustion, recovering after labour, from carrying the extra weight, the hormones. There is a steep learning curve of how to support this new being while still being connected through skin and blood that turns into milk, that has little to do with mother instincts. Weeks on end with such little sleep, relationships dramatically changed, body healing and changing and supporting another human. I believe we forget a bit about it once it’s clearing up. It’s months in a sort of haze of hormones, sleeplessness, anxiety, love, overwhelm, awe.
I am in awe of my body, the mammal that knows how to create an internal ocean and grow life. And her who makes milk, communicating with my baby through pheromones to match its need of every feed. I felt powerful and beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with dressing up or proving anything to anyone. What could anyone have told her? I learned how to let go and let my body do her thing. And she knows THINGS I couldn’t have pulled together with any amount of study or practice.
The everything
Some people compare early motherhood to a psychedelic experience, which makes a lot of sense to me. I let myself go there and I am glad I did. I feel I’ve really been, as much as I could, present in every moment. Doing so, surrendering and not fighting it when all my being turned towards the little life also allowed me not to go crazy. I am privileged to have had the space to do so. But it also came with a huge vulnerability.
I felt so open to this one little wonder of a human being that it opened me up to all of the little ones, to seeing the little ones in literally everyone, wanting to stretch my arms and protect them all. At times I felt small and in need of much holding and caressing myself. I was thin-skinned and didn’t function well in a more strategic-thinking, self-interest preserving kind of way. I found it hard to rest and couldn’t stop researching child development and health symptoms or thinking about my baby when away from him. I was much softer and things like facing the Genocide in Gaza, the escalating climate crisis or even showing up as a sparring partner in my relationship became so much harder.
But here’s the thing that really struck me: nothing else felt really important. Which was also pretty fucking liberating. All that really mattered was the tadpole in my arms, to hold him, smell him, keep him safe and then, to sleep whenever possible and to eat loads of food to keep going. I did not need a career, Insta likes, looks or even activism to justify my existence. I felt I am Life participating in Life.
During it all I still felt mostly myself. The same as you do when you have the flu or are premenstrual or you experience great loss, or well, you’re tripping. You know you’re still the same person and remember all the same things but in this moment they don’t matter in the same way. Unlike a mushroom trip though, this experience lasts a whole while though and permanently changes the structure of the brain.
It’s a bit like reaching a mindfulness goal while loosing your edge in a more competitive, professional sense. I felt how contrary this way of being was to the values and skills prized in Western capitalist societies — values that often don’t align with the more community-oriented, nurturing aspects of life.
Motherhood also opened my eyes to systemic inequalities. Pregnancy and motherhood were my first self-felt experiences that expose the way society fails to support those who give so much of themselves to bring life into the world. My own and the experiences of other mothers around me, showed me how profoundly motherhood challenges women’s physical and mental health, social status, relationships and financial standing. We’re often left to navigate monumental change and extreme strain without the passed-on knowledge, care and resources we need.
The societal response to this is often to “help” mothers re-enter the workforce and “go back to normal”. And the goal of childcare institutions in turn is mainly make our children productive members of the work force. Our society is structured around productivity that is exploiting our planet and draining resources from future generations instead of nurturing LIFE.
And not to say mothers that for some mothers, their work is a means of self-care. But we need more. We need emotional, spiritual, nutritional, physical, restorative support for mothers. I feel a lot of negative stereotypes about mothers as nagging, resentful, over-anxious, sexually uninterested, self-sacrificing are just symptoms of lack. If we could reduce sleep deprivation, provide steady access to nourishing food, and give mothers the space they need to rest, heal and nurture, I believe many maternal mental health struggles would either disappear or be far more manageable.
In the absence of the village very often the partner becomes the first layer to provide this support. And it is too much to ask. Fathers are transitioning too, they are arriving to a new reality as well. And then two stretched people might start to compete for rest and holding, ask each other for something neither can give more of. I see many fathers struggling as well and relationships becoming extremely challenged in those first years.
A Need for Save Passage
With birth, women have a rite of passage built into their physiology. One that sometimes feels more like punishment than gift. Many cultures developed these rituals to support the transition from one role in the community to another. The liminal or in-between time is often marked by challenge and danger, where the old self dies but also by communion with creative forces and divine guidance. It’s something that requires special care and preparation. Without assistance, many of us might be focused so much on just surviving, we never really notice or integrate what is happening.
Recognising what is happening, can not only make transitioning much safer and easful but also allows us to catch the fertility of the in-between. To find strength and growth and orientation to bring back to our lives, families and communities.
Secure kids come from resourced parents. Parents and kids are meant to be surrounded by a village, not two sleep deprived humans and daycare. — Janne Robinson
And as communities we should prioritise taking care of children and supporting those who do before most other things. The brain and our attachment patterns, how we literally relate to the world and wether we feel safe in it or meet it from a state of fight and flight are being formed in the first years of our life. We should want this time to be as held and supported as possible, because literally EVERYBODY you will meet and who will become part of your reality, arrives like that. Who could really want ill-regulated nervous systems to run our communities and shape our future. If we‘re not ready to do it for the mothers for some reason, we need to do it for the the babies.
I’ve spoken to midwives and elders, and it’s become clear that we’re meant to be held by the wisdom of the older generations. But as western societies have lost traditions and many of us live far away from our own mothers, the task of creating support often lies with those who need it.
As a way to create the space I myself needed, I’ve started organising moms’ circles with my friends Talya and Alice. The first group we started is still running in Warsaw, a second one started off last spring in Gdynia. They are places to find community, witness ourselves and each other and use playfulness, imagination and small rituals to renew our wells.
Concluding Reflections and an Invitation
Motherhood is a deeply unique journey for each person. I’ve gone there and it was harder than I could have imagined. There were times I seriously questioned the decision altogether (something we should talk about more too!). I also found it to be insanely beautiful. And it could be much easier with better support. Of course there are other issues in the world, but this affects not only about half of the population (!) but how EVERYONE starts out.
Motherhood is a portal, crazy magical but also intensely challenging and potentially soul-crushing. I wish for a world where we hold it better. Imagine the mothers we could be, how much we would grow and enjoy, how much we could give and how much everyone could feel more connected, needed, playful, creative, loved.
Putting life at the centre can take many forms. Motherhood is only one way to do that. As humans we have a choice to make about what we are here fore. And caring for future generations of humans and more-than-humans on this planet seems like a much worthier pursuit than shareholder value.
If you’re a mom, or a future mom, or simply someone who cares about the future of our world, I invite you to join me in creating communities of support. We start by holding space for each other.
Get in touch if you’d like to join one of our Moms Circles Warsaw or Gdynia, or are interested in organising one for your community.
The circles we started off in Warsaw continue to run on a regular basis, you can find our facebook group here. Since spring 2024 we’re also gathering in Gdynia, here’s a link to our facebook group. I’m also happy to organise one-off circles in places I’m traveling, create an online offering or think with you how to support your community. Let’s have a chat.
If this stirs some thoughts or you have more resources on the topic, please share them by commenting on this article or reaching out to theresafend@gmail.com!