DAY 11 - Translator (21 DAYS OF RAGE)

This is the 11th instalment of a 21 day writing series about maternal rage and anger.

A friend of mine said recently that she doesn’t like taking parenting manuals to the charity shop, because that means some other poor mum or dad will get their hands on them and have to suffer through advice which is extremely unlikely to work for their particular child. She said the only way to ensure that this stuff gets out of circulation is to burn them, and would I like to take my books to her garden for a ritual scorching?

Some parents never read a word of advice and I suspect they are happier, but for most people there will be a journey of reading blogs or books, attempting to implement then probably giving up. Of course, some books are brilliant and there are many wise people out there assisting with the important work of raising children. There are also a lot of charlatans and money grabbers and idiots in the billion dollar industry of baby and childcare advice.

The biggest challenge for me as a parent was always related to sleep - the fact that my daughter never did much of it for long, and always attached to my body in some way. As someone who generally followed the rules, I read about sleep training with a mixture of horror and fascination, wondering if this thing that purported to work could or would work, and if I could ever leave my baby to cry alone in order to “teach” her to sleep.

I pondered endlessly and I read a million forums and comments and advice columns and I spoke to people and I listened. This elongated mental battle was sort of about sleep and my values as a parent but it was also about me learning to listen to something beyond information and knowledge. There are pros and cons to everything, intellectually something may make sense but how does it feel in your body?

Thinking about leaving my baby to cry and the times I made one or two attempts to implement better sleep by leaving my baby to cry felt horrendous in many parts of my body. Full somatic horror felt like a pounding heart, a dry mouth, a clenched jaw a knotted stomach a body that curled into itself.

That was all that mattered. All that should have mattered. It’s not an intellectual statement about the likelihood of trauma in an otherwise responsive relationship, it’s not a judgement on those who go down this path. It’s just that my body said no. This should give ease and save energy because it has spelled something out for me. It means there’s no need to get lost in weighing up pros and cons. Nothing else needs to be interrogated. Not for me, not now. 

Becoming a mother gave me plenty of chances to listen to my body and at many many times, I have not listened. I will continue to keep trying to listen and sometimes I will fail. My head will win out, thinking it’s best for me to keep trying to finish something even if I’m overwhelmed or anxious or exhausted, that it’s ok for me to be attached to my phone, that only weak people ask for help, that I should be thriving in this or that scenario. My body will keep nudging me towards something and over the years, I have many opportunities to become a better listener, interpreter, translator. Making space to reckon with that higher wisdom is probably the work of my life.