“Good feminists” are Having It All. They juggle a sensible, grown up, gives-back-to-society job with their Tuesday yoga, Thursday Pilates and Saturday yogalates, and they always floss after brushing and always manage to eat both fruit and veg every day. They are attending work brunches and conferences and don’t just wang their silky tops or wool jumpers into the regular wash because they can’t be arsed to do it by hand. They have a night time cleansing routine. They spend their lunchbreaks engrossed in a collection of essays. They glide onto the train platform before the train actually arrives, meaning you’ll never see them frantically wafting their armpits in the carriage to remove errant pit stains. They are listening to podcasts and read Stylist not zone out to Absolute radio. They are washing their hair instead of unleashing entire cans of dry shampoo on it. They invest time and energy into personal projects not relent and watch Love Island on ITV catch up. They successfully feed their child carrot sticks and wedges of watermelon and they have myriad educationally stimulating activities up their sleeves because screen time is basically like giving your child crack cocaine.
This is not my life. Not even close. I’m trying to be a good feminist – I really am – because what choice do I have? My parents ate lentils and baked beans so I could go to a nice school and sail off to University and get a degree; and women who don’t even know me campaigned and fought really, really hard to ensure that we could Have It All. So who am I – whiny snowflake millennial – to throw that in their face? I’m also trying to be a “good parent”. But applying the Have It All approach to parenting (and life in general) is exhausting. The thing is, when things are Going To Plan and work is busy but manageable and life is busy but in a fun, exciting, this-is-totally-what-we-imagined-way-back-when-we-first-dreamed-up-a-family-together kind of way, Having It All seems achievable. I mean, the perfect work/life balance is a tad unicorn-y, but there are days when you glimpse it and you think, yeah, perhaps this is it? Everyone was fed today. Our clothes were clean. We were actually pretty great in that meeting thingy. Our child didn’t scream when she was wedged into the pushchair on the way home BECAUSE SOMETIMES THE IDEA OF TAKING FIFTY MINUTES TO DO A TEN MINUTE WALK HOME IS JUST TOO MUCH. She went to bed without complaint. We had a nice supper and lounged next to each other on the sofa in a mutually delicious, uncomplicated kind of way. This is totally Having It All! And then one thing goes. One thing that is tiny but is actually huge. Said child starts waking in the middle of the night – something she hasn’t done routinely since she was 8 months old – and it’s not a little newborn bleat that wrenches you from your sleep; it’s a blood-curdling wail that shrieks “Mummy” over and over. It’s a person standing up in their cot, their whole body shaking from the gulped back tears and shuddering breaths. It’s little bunched up fists opening and shutting like an angry mechanical claw game at the fair, yelping to be picked up and held. And even after rocking and shushing and hair stroking and all the “things” that you learn, like unlocking a secret level in a game, she clings to you like a soggy limpet when you try and put her back in bed. So you acquiesce. It’s been an hour and a half and everyone needs their sleep, what’s one night of bringing her into bed with us so we can all get up the next morning and function?
That was five weeks ago.
The reality is, phases (those deviously innocuous-sounding little bastards) can take a lot longer than five weeks. Pages upon pages of advice and scientific research and general chit chat found plastered all over the internet will tell you it’s normal and natural and all part of a toddler’s development – but when your child wakes you for the fifth night in a row you will forget all of that and instead feel like the only person in the world this has ever happened to and feel truly, deeply wounded. Not for nothing, is sleep deprivation used as a form of torture. Our captor was clever though. Sometimes Carlo and I would wake with the sun and stare at each other in giddy glee as we realised we’d all had an uninterrupted night’s sleep. But then the next night it was back to square one and being kicked in the face by the bag of ferrets she’d transformed into once getting into bed. (Fact: toddlers are small but require a football pitch-sized space to wriggle their 360 degree rotation around; fidgeting like a junkie itching for his next fix. If you have a triple extra wide extra long king seized bed it will still not be big enough to escape the wriggling.) As my husband and I slept-walked through the last weeks, I wouldn’t just feel sick and slow, my brain thick with exhaustion, I began to doubt almost everything I was capable of. I questioned my ability as a parent, I believed I was letting my child down because obviously there was something I was doing to make her do such an about-turn and I started to doubt my ability as a creative, where everything I wrote just seemed stupid and thoughtless and cavalier. And with all the self-doubt I began to let slip the very foundations that make up my self-care: yoga, running and long, hot baths on the weekend where I drink gin and eat peanuts and listen to podcasts and read until my skin shrivels up like a prune. I neglected it because I was “too tired”, “too busy”, “too whatever”. I felt like I fell out of love with all of it and it paled into insignificance when it came to MAKING MY TODDLER GET SOME FUCKING SLEEP. It all came to a head last week when I realised I hadn’t publicly acknowledged my husband’s birthday. A pretty tiny thing, sure. I brought him a present. I made him a bloody cake. But when he – similarly shattered and starved of affection from a partner who’d become a passing ship in the night – mentioned it, I cried for an hour. An hour. AN HOUR. Now I’m not made of stone, but even for me that’s a tad over the top. Me and my puffy eyes went to work and I realised I was frazzled. Discombobulated. Like someone had scooped part of me out and left it on the side to curl at the edges and go a bit yellowy, while the rest of me felt missing and fuzzy and unfinished. I felt like if I’d finally got around to having that bath I would have just dissolved; disappeared as if I was made of sand.
So I spoke up. The thing is, Having It All comes with that dangerous footnote of assumed capability. People who are Having It All don’t need help – they can manage. They’re fine. Fine, fine, fine. I’ve said that word a lot recently and it is a plague. So I asked my husband for help so I could self-care the shit out of the upcoming weekend. I ran, did a yoga class and had the longest, hottest bath known to man. I asked my friend for help and she took my child away for three whole hours one afternoon, so I could get some peace and do some gardening and then just chuck the trowel down and drink wine in the little sliver of sunshine instead. I swallowed my middle-class guilt and asked for help with the ever-piling-up housework. A wonderful woman came to my house and when she brusquely demanded, “You want me to get on with it?” I almost cried with gratitude and then almost cried again when she left two hours later, my house shiny and smelling faintly of bleach. And then, thanks to several genuinely concerned and lovely parent friends, I reached out to a sleep consultant (a title that pre-parent-me would have scoffed at for sounding very woo-woo) and begged for some help. Sure, there’s a three week waiting list, but that booking gave me an ounce of autonomy in a situation which is totally out of my control. I’ve been hugging that date close to my chest; the promise of practical help keeping me warm and cosy and making each broken night feel just a little less awful.
Every time I asked for help I could feel myself stitching back together, becoming whole and balanced and human again. And that’s the thing; the continuing education of what it means to be a parent and the secret to getting it all right i.e. making it work without falling apart. It’s evolving. Just like you. Just like your child. You’ll lurch in and out of phases and some days you’ll genuinely believe you are the best parent/professional/person since sliced bread and other days your head will spin with the effort of leaving the house with shoes on both feet. And really, we’re all just muddling along. So let’s muddle along together and always feel big enough to admit that, sometimes, we just need a bit of help.
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[The sleep saga is ongoing, but I wrote this today – having stored it away like a squirrel all this time – because Edie has had TWO blissful nights of uninterrupted sleep. I won’t be celebrating just yet, but I’m crossing everything crossable that this might be our little light at the end of the tunnel.]