Dear Becy,
I’ve been thinking about this idea that motherhood on its own is fulfilling. The given expectation (still, in the 21st century) is that before we had children we were just waiting to find our purpose. Now we do have them, oh joy, finally we can feel whole. We were given wombs for a reason after all and heaven forbid that we don’t make the proper use of them.
It ties in with your experiences at the conference — how can you possibly cope with a business and children? Don’t you feel guilty? There is an expectation that a woman with a family will be putting them first in a domestic sense. Never mind that you are providing for them with the money you make, we are women, we should be at home changing nappies and reading stories. It is what we have always done, this is the traditional role of a mother. So of course it must be questioned when you choose to nurture in a different way.
There is an anecdote which my mum tells us from the time that she was doing her MA. This was the early 2000s and my brother and I were in our early/mid teens. She was doing this alongside her normal job and probably on top of the bulk of the housework and all of the cooking. As she neared her dissertation hand inm she was writing in every spare minute she had. One day she was so busy that she failed to notice it was time to make us dinner. She remembers that instead of bothering her, we let her carry on working and my brother and I made the dinner ourselves and brought hers up to her. I don’t remember why my dad didn’t do it, maybe he was late home from work? Maybe it is because up until relatively recently his cooking was moderately dubious. (I digress.)
As I write this, Rose is refusing to nap. She will not let me leave the room and so I am writing on my laptop on the bed while she babbles, squeaks and yodels. Downstairs there is bread in the oven — it’s going to be shit, I can tell, but I’ve tried! All week has been the same story. She squeals and creaks and I try to write and read and all the while I feel a sense of guilt that while she flips and bounces around in her cot, I am ignoring her. I am choosing instead to read poems, to analyse texts, to write and to try to learn how to be a better writer. Is it at the expense of being a better mother though? I hope not. My mum’s story would suggest that there is a world in which a mother can sometimes choose to put their own interests first and that that choice will be respected and understood. I understand now what a struggle it must have been for my mum to juggle all those different aspects of herself. Though I also know how important it is to be able to choose how you define yourself — it is all very well if you want to be a mother first and foremost but I don’t know that it’s all I want. While I am Rose’s primary caregiver, it is not the only thing which defines me and would I want it to be? What kind of example would that set for Rose as she gets older?
I wonder — how do you think you would do if you were the stay-at-home parent in your relationship? Would you still be a photographer? How would being a full time mother affect your writing? Do you think that you would find yourself feeling fulfilled or do you need to work and create to gain that sense of yourself?
I think I shall leave this letter here for now. It almost feels concise for a change!
Tess x
Dear Mother 