The Motherhood Movie Trailer

Why So Many of Us Feel Excluded from the Motherhood Story We Were Sold

The Motherhood Movie Trailer

FADE IN. A mum, with a great body wrapped in matching athleisure wear, jogs with a sleek pram down a sunlit street. CUT TO a bustling café: laughter ripples, babies squeal, and the camera zooms in on her, laughing with her mum friends, sipping her latte whilst it’s still hot. CUT TO a bathroom scene in which she wraps her cute baby in fluffy towel, puts on his pyjamas and lays him down in his cot. He falls asleep instantly. MONTAGE of her evening: meditation, yoga, healthy eating, and a wholesome early night with a book

Now, FADE IN again: me, slumped in an armchair, pumping, unsure if it’s day or night. So dangerously fatigued I am beginning to doubt if I’m fit to be a mother. ZOOM TO THE COT IN THE CORNER: The babies cry endlessly. I walk over and do my best to pick them up one at a time. I make up bottles as fast as I can but it’s no use. They keep crying, and then so do I. I can’t remember my last meal, or shower, or the last time a friend came over. MONTAGE of the rest of the day: feeding, winding, changing nappies, sterilising bottles, getting sloppier and sloppier as the day goes on. By the end of the day, the kitchen is covered in a thin, sticky film of SMA powder, the laundry basket is overflowing, the dishes have piled up in the sink, and there’s no food in the fridge but biscuit and chocolate wrappers are scattered all over the sofa.

Which motherhood trailer did you watch?

Other Mothers

When my triplets were tiny, I barely had time to go online. And whenever I did, nothing about the mainstream motherhood narrative resonated. Not the tone in baby product marketing. Not the glossy magazine imagery. Not the match-matchy curated reality on social media. Even triplet mums were managing to stage perfect photos with matching outfits. Even if we started the day matching, bodily fluids would end up on at least one outfit within hours.

I was deep in the comparison trap. I was having an “other” motherhood. A mixed-race triplet mum with undiagnosed PTSD, just trying to survive the day without killing her husband. My reality wasn’t reflected back to me anywhere.

Eventually, I opened up. Maybe it was fuelled by maternal rage but so many of us are having “other” motherhoods.

At the time, I thought it was just me struggling with dark thoughts, who didn’t have a circle of mum friends, who didn’t have that village.

Now I know that many of us for a multitude of reasons, are excluded from this very narrow mainstream narrative of what motherhood “should” be and look like.

I know that in this amazing F*** Mum Guilt community, there are mums of multiples, single mums, breadwinner mums, stay at home mums, mums of children with severe health problems, mums struggling financially. Mums who struggled with mental health, mums who struggled with physical health and a hell of a lot of mums with no village. Mums who don’t fit that mainstream narrative, and if we’re honest totally disprove it.

I believe there are way more of us “other” mothers than the regular, perfect ones. If you don’t know who I’m talking about - rewatch the trailer at the top of this article.

If there are so many of us, why are we so silent?

In a word: mum judgement - that nasty, bitchy fuel that ignites mum guilt.

Bupa found that nearly two-thirds of mums have driven themselves to exhaustion trying to be a “supermum”. And a third had sought help for mental health struggles but kept it secret from loved ones.

That really hit me because it says everything about modern motherhood.

We are struggling, but pretending we’re fine because we’re scared of the judgement we’re opening ourselves up to.

And I’ll be real, it still exists in some corners. I’ve had it in mum WhatsApp groups, and I’ve been trolled online. So I can’t pretend it’s not there. But honestly, it’s the minority.

Badges on board

Last week I shared my idea of badges that have “mum guilt on board” “, PTSD on board” “Anxiety on Board”, and it’s gone wild, particularly on Instagram. Mums have shared it in other languages and mums have commented:

“THIS 👏🏾👏🏾 I’ll order immediately!!”

“I’ll take one of each”

I had a dream that mums would open up, wear these badges and share their truth, and guess what, mums are up for it. We’re done wearing the mask.

Throughout Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week we’ve seen brave celebrities (I’m looking at you Kimberly Nixon), GPs, Mental Health Professionals and mums from all walks of life putting their hands up and saying I struggled. My motherhood didn’t look like that movie trailer version. It was dark. It was frightening. It was hard.

They’ve shown incredible bravery and have been shown compassion, empathy, and love. Yes, I’ll go that far.

The perfect motherhood movie was always fiction.

Real motherhood is messier. Harder. Uglier. Much more diverse than that.

So although the awareness week may be over, we must keep sharing our truths to break the shame, save lives and collectively create a new “trailer” for motherhood.

Because the “other” mothers are not the exception.

We are the majority.

What if the women you think are coping perfectly are waiting for someone else to speak first?

I write for mums who are DONE with mum guilt, perfectionism and the “supermum” myth. Come join us…