IYHKYWU

Since becomming a mum, my perspective on the world has changed.  Not so much in a profound or existential way.   What I mean is that I've lost the structure of the working week; the distance I travel in any given day has shrunk dramatically; and I spend a huge amount of time and effort thinking about how to achieve and manage things that were once so automatic they were inconsequential (feeding, sleeping, bathing...).  I now see the world through a first-time-mum lense.   

On a forum I use arguements occasionally erupt over the phrase "If You Had Kids You Would Understand".  Typically a non-parent posts a comment (usually about kids/babies/parenting) which a parent considers insensitive or offensive and the infamous phrase is hurled forth. The arguement usually then gets sidetracked by a discussion over the validity of this phrase. Essentially, do you need to be a parent in order to truly understand what it's like to be one?

Those that answer no have the best of the arguement. As a researcher, I would want to believe that it if you listen, observe, empathise and imagine hard enough it is possible to get under the skin of someone else's experience.  But now I'm in the position of being in a situation I've previously tried to describe and translate through research, I'm very aware that I didn't completely get it.

I don't think I've ever grossly misrepresented the experience of the new mum. It's more that my understanding was sometimes shallow.  I didn't always understand the depth and quality of feeling that lay beneath things that I had previously described matter of factly.  Consequently, some aspects of motherhood have completely surprised me.  There are things I expected to experience, but now I'm experiencing them I realise my expectation was never quite right in the first place.

Does that make any sense?  I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job of explaining myself. Anyway I think I might try to set things straight over a few posts - describing how the inside experience of being a new mum is not quite as I thought it was when I studied it from the outside.

Comments

[Anne]

Oh Helen, I'm so glad you're writing this. I understand completely (this and the other posts). I felt so alienated when I had Tommy, and would agree that you don't really "get it" until you've got kids yourself. The simplest things are so complicated.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you think about it. Hope you're all well and not too exhausted.

[Emily]

Yes, yes, I agree. And now I know why just showing a cute baby works so damn well.