Secret Mothers’ Business. What’s it all about?

From the moment you give birth to your first baby you instantly join a worldwide, ancient club with the pregnancy and the birth being the initiation into this club. To some of us the initiation process is relatively easy and to others not so. Although the members of this club may be from different cultural and religious backgrounds they all speak a universal language of motherhood.

Can anyone prepare you for what it means to be a mother? Well quite frankly no they can’t. All the prenatal classes, books and movies in the world cannot prepare you for what’s to come. And it is probably better that way because some of the stuff…some of the secret mother’s business is enough to make you think twice about the whole idea. Did I ever imagine that one day I would be tickling my baby’s bottom with a parsley stalk dipped in olive oil to try and ease his constipation.* Or could I imagine that I would have to hold my little bundle down while a doctor tried to insert a tube into his nose so he could breathe? Did I think I would have to stay up night after night trying to get my little sick bub to sleep? Use a nasal aspirator to extract snot from his nose, and the list goes on. No, no, no, no, no. I did not think I would be doing these things…but they were necessary and all part of being a mother.

BM (Before Motherhood) I would not stop a stranger to ask if they were happy with the toddler seat attachment for the pram they were pushing. Who even knew what a ‘Parents Room’ was let alone where each one is located in every local shopping centre? And when I found out that Sophie Delezio was unlucky again to suffer horrendous injuries it felt like my heart was being pierced with a sharp barb. I could not hold back the tears.

There is a universal bond with other mothers that gives you comfort in those difficult times – a sense that you are not alone and going through what ever challenge it is, alone. Both my boys were not good sleepers so there were many a night spent sitting in the dark on my couch in the wee hours of the morning and what got me through this was the thought that I was not alone. How many other mothers in the world were also awake at this time trying to feed/comfort/settle their little one?

The secret mothers’ business isn’t all bad…when your newborn follows your every move with their eyes, or your little one says mummy for the first time, chooses you above no one else in the world to comfort them and runs to you with open arms when you have been away – these are the magical moments, the moments that make your heart sing. To see your first born embrace the new addition with such affection, or pull funny faces because he knows it makes the baby laugh gives you a wonderful, ‘too much’ feeling. Growing up my cousins and I had a saying for when you had an overwhelming sense of love for something. We labelled this ‘too much’ as in ‘too much love’. As a mum I have these ‘too much’ moments every day.

So mums, through the good and the bad stuff we need to stick together and help and support each other. Sometimes we can be too critical and harsh on each other. Breast versus bottle, cloth versus disposable, control crying versus not letting baby cry, working mum versus stay at home mum…every mother has an opinion on these issues and others but we need to respect each others opinion and support each other in the choices we make even if we don’t agree with them. It’s a hard enough task without being critical and judgemental on ourselves.

To all the mums out there keep up the good work, think about the rest of us when you are just getting through the day and to all the new mothers out there…welcome to the club.