The Mummy Myth

When I was pregnant with my little one I thought that on her arrival I would instantly be knighted into the "mummy club" and turn into some funky version of Mary Poppins. I had images of myself sat in a coffee shop surrounded by fellow mummies kitted out with our posh prams, sleeping babies and extra cheesy smiles - a bit like Sex and the City without the cosmopolitans. I thought that I'd gotten so used to pregnancy insomnia that the night feeds would be a breeze and I was more than excited to shed hundreds of pounds through breast feeding.

She's nearly two and I'm still waiting for any of that to happen.

You see, my problem was that I wanted my baby SO very much I had this huge romanticized ideal of it all. I was that person who took the conception vitamins, who drank a pint of milk a day to boost fertility and ate foods I hated and avoided those I loved because some wacky made up website told me I'd get pregnant. I was that person who whilst I was pregnant wouldn't touch anything on the forbidden list, who checked for blood every time I went for a wee and forced the infirmary into an early scan out of fear. I read and read parenting books (I even took notes and memorized them as if I was sitting some kind of test) and thought all the mummies in the streets made it look so easy. After such desperation and studying, I couldn't believe my experience as a mother would be anything but easy.

But it wasn't so easy. It wasn't easy at all. My anxieties over my babies welfare did not vanish with pregnancy. The parenting books were seriously a waste of my time. I didn't have a single fellow mummy as a friend and as for the coffee shop, my baby was lucky if we made it into the yard. I was tired. I cried. A lot. I ate. A lot. I stressed. A lot. I still stress - A LOT. I certainly was/am no Mary Poppins.

Parenting does not come naturally to me. It's something I welcome with open arms and love to do more than anything but I really don't always find it easy. And I'm here today to say that's okay. It's okay if I don't live up to some made up ideal perfect mother figure... I mean seriously, if I gave my daughter a spoon full of sugar every time she needed medicine I think the dentist and the authorities would have something to say about it.

I might struggle to get out and about sometimes and I might have only just after almost two years braved playgroup and started to meet other mummies, but I really really seriously care about, love and try my best for my daughter and THAT'S what makes me super mum. THAT'S what matters to my daughter.

That ideal version of "mum" is a myth. Some may find it easier than others but at the end of the day we're all just people stumbling about and making it up as we go along. I think sometimes people think I'm mad when I say I want a huge bustling family full of kids and I'll admit cats. I want four children (three if you're reading, my lovely partner) because although I get stressed out and upset from time to time, all this struggling is actually strangely what makes me happy. Some nights when my little baba is in bed fast asleep I'll admit I enjoy the silence, but other times when baby's asleep and hubby to be's at work... I feel... lost.

Being mummy very well may not have come naturally to me, but it certainly has become me. I am my own unique version of mum and so are any mums reading this. There is no perfect mother, we are just mothers in our own special way with our own matching special babies.