“The Greatest Life Lessons I Learned Becoming a Mother During Lockdown”
from Vogue Magazine-BY SARAH RAPHAEL June 19, 2021
We think a lot about motherhood and identity, and childbirth, and postpartum isolation. And all of this- even in a good year. But what about our pandemic mamas? How have all of these things impacted us in the big and small ways? We talked about this along the way as we saw it coming from afar, and then happening and then ongoing longer than we could have possibly imagined. We had an amazing chat with Dr. Britta Bushnell about embracing the unknown and making meaning even in uncertain times. We talked with midwife Jessica Diggs about the ways our birthing plans might be disrupted or not. We gathered for yoga, sharing circles, discussed changing to home birth plans… you name it. But whether we like it or not- our pandemic mamas had a different kind of experience. This article really brought it home for us. There is so much to be gained from sharing our experiences the way author Sarah Raphael has. So much to be realized from the things we share - the common pains, mournings, celebrations and moments. If you’re a pandemic mama looking for healing and space, we are here for you.
“I’m sorry, I forgot,” I heard myself say when I realized I had neglected to put my mask back on in the minute break between contractions. The midwife looked at me pitifully, exclaiming that if anyone told me off for not wearing a mask in the final hour of labor, she’d throw in the towel herself after 25 years of midwifery. l bet she said that to all the girls on the COVID-19 labor ward.
My son was born in December 2020 just as one lockdown ended and a similarly restrictive system was implemented in the U.K. My parents had to meet their grandson separately on individual walks outside in the freezing cold. He was so wrapped up, they didn’t see his tiny hands or feet until he was a few months old. Now, his feet are the first part my dad kisses when he sees him. Those early months pushing the stroller around the same two squares near my flat with all the other masked, sleep-deprived mums until the grey sky went black at 3:00pm were bleaker than I let myself acknowledge at the time. It seemed so absurd and unreal, I kept expecting one of us to break into song with that line from the musical Oliver! (“Who will buy this wonderful morning?”) or Les Misérables—all the babies jumping out of their strollers in unison to deliver the oh-so-poignant: “One Day More.”
The proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” has been painfully at odds with the realities of pandemic parenting. I was lucky not to have experienced postnatal depression; according to a study by University College London, almost half (47.5%) of new mothers in London in lockdown did—more than twice the European average of 23%. Still, my maternity leave was spent between four walls in my flat, mostly staring lovingly at my baby, but not infrequently crying from exhaustion, nipple pain, and, once my husband went back to work after statutory paternity leave, caring for a newborn alone.
Not that friends and family could have saved me from the newborn delirium (which saw me wake up chewing an ear plug, brush my teeth with moisturizer, and rock my bowl of pasta to sleep), but seeing new mothers on Instagram in pubs and restaurants, with their friends and family by their side, cooing over the baby, I recognize that something has been lost. I don’t think any of us will truly understand what we lost in the pandemic for years to come, but I’m certain we are underestimating the impact it has had on us.
In motherhood, I have felt myself dissolve and expand at the same time. In my light, short sleeps, I dream I am so powerful that I scare myself and others—a poltergeist soaring through the universe. (My mum says that I just need more sleep…) The indecision and anxieties of my former self have, for now, left my consciousness, as I focus all my physical and mental energy on lifting and loving my son. Before having a baby, I worried about taking a break from work, about my mind turning to pureed banana, which it has, but there’s wisdom in pureed banana; a few things I was always confused about have become clear.
Every mother pushing a stroller around all day must surely think herself a philosopher by the end of it, watching human life evolve in real-time as their baby’s eyes begin to focus on the blowing leaves, their tiny hands reaching out curiously to an unknown world. Mothers or not, we are all coming out of the pandemic changed and to a changed world; as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.”
Pre-motherhood and pre-pandemic, I didn’t make a habit of talking to strangers. I’d barely ever seen my neighbors, let alone spoken to them. While a baby is an easy conversation starter, everybody’s guard is down post-pandemic—we all seem more friendly, more grateful for each other. Personally, I have lost a lot of cynicism—to the detriment of my sense of humor perhaps—but I’ve realized that life is too short for cynicism. It’s too short not to say good morning and to find common ground with a stranger in a line. It’s too short not to swap numbers, pay any mind to unwashed hair or petty grudges. As a mother, it’s definitely too short to waste time googling celebrity children in the snatched hour I have to work while my baby sleeps.
Mothering through a pandemic has felt like a 24-hour mindfulness class. Through the eyes of a baby, you realize how wondrous everything really is—how freakishly tall trees are, how captivating the sight is of one pigeon trying to hump another. A baby forces you to slow to a snail’s pace and rediscover the world you thought you knew inch by (sometimes painstaking) inch. Lockdown has had a relatively similar effect. With no plans and just endless walks in parks, we’ve all been forced to live in the moment and learned to value what we see there. Almost everyone I know posted the cherry blossom on Instagram this year. Nature has overtaken selfies and outfits.
Pre-baby and pre-pandemic, I hated social media—in fact, I wrote a whole book Mixed Feelings: Exploring the Emotional Impact of Our Digital Habits (Quadrille, 2019) on how bad it made people (read: me) feel. But as a lockdown mother, it’s been a lifeline, and I’ve found tremendous support on Instagram from other mothers. I also surprised myself by posting dozens of photos of my son online—something I never intended to do, and indeed agreed with my husband that we wouldn’t. But I was lonely and most of my friends hadn’t met my son or seen me in my new role as a mother and I felt a strong urge to show him off. A classic case of pics or my baby didn’t happen.
I’m not ashamed to say that I wanted some attention for him, since I felt I wasn’t getting it in real life. I’ve always judged people who sought validation and attention on social media, but now I realize it’s a normal human urge and probably the result of a lack of attention elsewhere. Journalist Charlie Brooker once wrote in The Guardian: “There has never been a single tweet that couldn’t be replaced with PLEASE AUTHENTICATE MY EXISTENCE.” The first few months of motherhood were such a surreal, exhausting experience, I felt I needed outside confirmation that my baby and I did, in fact, exist.
Losing your identity is a common experience for new mothers. I can hardly remember the person who commuted to work and went out for dinner several times a week with friends—who had gossip to share, slept more than two hours at a time and showered without singing “The Wheels on the Bus” to a miniature version of myself on the bath mat. Maybe that person will re-emerge, but I have a feeling she won’t. To a greater or lesser extent, we all have to re-find ourselves coming out of the pandemic. We have to remember to make plans again and bother to go to them. It’s the whole world, not just new mothers, asking, “What did we use to do? What did we use to say?” People have lost relatives and jobs, had babies, landscaped their gardens, watched all of The Wire—we’re not the same as we were, our collective identities have changed, and we may find that we don’t want to do and say the same things we used to. That’s OK, I think. Maybe it’s healthy.
In her brilliant book My Wild and Sleepless Nights (Penguin, 2021) mother-of-five Clover Stroud writes of the newborn period: “These days pass so slowly, but are over too fast.” Part of me feels grateful that I had nowhere to be for the first six months of my son’s life. I was never distracted trying to sound relevant and like my old self in conversation in the pub juggling breastfeeding and a roast dinner. My one maternity-leave fantasy, pre-pandemic, was going to art galleries with the baby—I thought that sounded nice. Now things have opened back up again, I realize that I am just as content with my local park, looking at the huge red poppies and bright pink peonies. I’ve learned, as poet William Blake wrote, “To see the world in a grain of sand.”
