There's no such thing as a perfect mom

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Published Nov 4, 2015

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London - Thousands of women are putting off having babies because they are afraid they won’t make the grade as mothers, according to a report by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

Almost three-quarters of the women surveyed said that pressure to be the “perfect mother” was the main thing discouraging them, along with money worries and the lack of male support (nothing new there, then).

Oh dear! Might the end of mankind come about not through plague or war or famine, but because of an excess of to-do lists and pram envy?

This idea of the “perfect parent” is a relatively new thing. Babies, it’s long been understood, are tiny terrorists, sent to blow great big holes in our sanity, egos, sex lives and bank balances. Forget perfection. Just keeping them alive - and staying on speaking terms with the dad - is challenge enough.

I remember, after the birth of our second child, apologising profusely to the health visitor as she gingerly cleared a seat for herself amid the wet wipes and muslin nappies clogging up the sofa.

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “It’s the tidy ones we worry about the most.”

As my own mother once told me: “If people thought about having children for more than a split second, the human race would have died out long ago. You just have to take it one day at a time and hope for the best.”

But then, getting pregnant and having a baby wasn’t always the commercial, obsessive, emotionally over-wrought industry it is today. There were no baby showers or daily Facebook updates, no birth plans or online pregnancy diaries. It wasn’t a lifestyle choice; it was just what people did.

No one cared what you ate, what you drank, how you dressed or whether your baby came out back to front, upside down or doing the Conga. Breast, bottle, natural birth, Caesarean: there was no right or wrong.

The majority of children grew up in a state of benign neglect, their parents being too busy working or otherwise getting on with their lives (in my parents’ case, mostly playing tennis) to bother with the nippers.

My mother’s idea of mental stimulation was to tie the feet of my baby-grow together and then watch me crawling in circles, a memory that still amuses her to this day.

Once, when I wouldn’t stop crying, they put my cradle in the bath. The wailing sound reverberating off the sides startled me into silence, and from then on that was where I slept. My brother, meanwhile, could only go to sleep underneath my bed for some reason.

Did they stress about it, consult paediatric psychologists and spend hours analysing where they might have gone wrong? No. They just put a mattress and blanket under there to make him feel more comfortable.

The truth is there is no such thing as the perfect mother - nor, for that matter, the perfect child.

And yet, we persist in fetishising both, materially and intellectually. And the more books and gadgets we acquire on the subject, the more abstract it becomes - and the further removed from the actual reality.

Which is: being a mother is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, fantastic yet frustrating.

It will push you to your limits and turn you inside out - but you will also experience moments of happiness beyond all reason.

So, ladies, don’t let your fears hold you back. There is never going to be a good time to have a child. If you want babies, ignore all that nonsense about being the perfect mom.

Who cares if you can’t afford a fancynappy bag or pram, or if you’re married to the Missing Link.

Being a good mother isn’t about any of those things. It’s about love, luck and wipe-clean surfaces.

Oh, and the odd large glass of wine also helps.

Daily Mail

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