First thing’s first. I am not writing this to accuse you or berate you. I am not coming here to tell you everything you’re doing wrong. I am not telling you that your experience would be WILDLY different and better if you would just do this one thing. I am about to write to you about a societal endemic – NONE of this is your fault. You are the victim here and it’s really not ok.
You are being failed as a mother. You are being failed as a woman actually but right now I want to tell you that society is absolutely failing you as a mother.
You are being served a vision of motherhood that is totally and utterly void of connection. In a time where we as humans are the most “connected” we have ever been, the world is at your fingertips, in the very palm of your hand you’re told that you hold the answers to everything you could possibly need. This is a lie. And it’s a lie that people are falling for.
As recently as when our grandmothers were becoming mothers, there was a community surrounding them and their early motherhood experiences. They were supported by their own mothers, sisters, friends, daughters, cousins and other members of their communities. The childbirth room was a woman’s domain and women’s wisdom filled their ears from birth to death. A postpartum woman was cared for and checked on by professionals and community members alike. Although I am not one to be nostalgic for past decades, which certainly had their own problems, I am deeply deeply nostalgic for sisterhood.
And this is where you are being failed. You’re being failed by your sisters. We are failing you. In these big cities, away from our families, away from our communities, we have fallen into the trap of believing that our autonomy is the only good thing. We are strong, independent women who don’t need help. We are resourceful and we are independently wealthy (thank god) and we know how to do absolutely anything we need to do. And YES, I thank all the gods that here we are like this and we have the freedom and autonomy to do whatever we wish with our beautiful, short, intense lives but, but….
…That part of you that aches when you see a day stretching before you inside your apartment alone with your baby, that’s the part of you that longs for connection…
…The trauma you feel at the sterile room you gave life and birth in, the flinch at the thought of the professionals masked and cold who surrounded you, that’s the part of you that was starved for connection…
…The mind numbing social media scrolling you do once your child is asleep, feeling yourself comparing and contrasting the beautiful bright lives of the motherhood influencers in your screen with your lonely reality, that’s the part of both you and that influencer that pines for a real in person bloody connection…
Your sisters have failed you and they in turn have been failed. They don’t know how to support you, they don’t know how to love you in a real, tangible, in person way. Our midwives have been institutionalised (and there will ALWAYS be midwives called to their work who fight against this institutionalisation) our wise women have been removed from our communities into retirement homes, our maidens have been sucked even further into a virtual world where they are fighting to find themselves and the mothers are left floundering alone in homes with their children, disconnected, isolated and adrift.
Pre-covid our mother circles and bumps to babies groups were full. Those places are where I met all of my friends in those early days with my baby. We basically lived in each other’s houses, surviving off of tea and biscuits and I rarely had a day where I didn’t see someone. I live in a small, village-like area of Paris and everyone I knew lived a short walk away. Now, covid seems to have produced a cohort of mothers who have been so traumatised by lockdowns, travel restrictions and isolation that it’s incredibly difficult to get a group of them together. Through absolutely no fault of their own, women have been further programmed to believe that they can do absolutely anything alone.
And they shouldn’t fucking have to. You shouldn’t have to be doing any of this alone. I wish for you everything that I had, every beautiful connection. Because I HAD women surrounding me and it was still the hardest thing I ever did. Now I strive to be that connection for the mothers I come into contact with. It’s my reason. I’m that stranger who smiles at mums on the bus and encourages the public breastfeeder and chats with the mothers in the supermarket and I will never ever stop striving for connection.
I just don’t want you to settle for anything less than authentic, beautiful, powerful connection. I want you to be able to seek out and receive sisterhood support. I want you to know deeply that the para-social connections you have from watching peoples highly edited motherhood experiences on social media are not what connection is about. I want you to get to a local mother baby circle, or an intergenerational women’s circle. Connect Connect Connect.
From June, I’ll be hosting mother and baby circles and intergenerational women’s circles in the West of Paris.
Message Paris has a network of bumps to babies groups.
Petit foret Paris has masses of opportunities and classes to attend.
Petit Paris Playgroup has play sessions you can sign up for.
And of course, nothing is stopping you from hosting your own open houses, mothers groups, crafting circles and anything you want. Let’s show up in person in sisterhood, motherhood and beyond.