non-fiction book of the month
MOTHERING HEIGHTS
Rachael Mogan McIntosh
$ 34.99 $ 29.99
Mothering Heights is a memoir detailing a year of joy and survival in the trenches of early parenthood from Rachael Mogan McIntosh , the author of Pardon My French . We join Rachael as she navigates her way through modern-day motherhood , on her transition from two to three children where rules become hard to follow , children are always hungry and endless shenanigans take place . Rachael perfectly captures all the highs and lows that come with early motherhood , beautifully expressed with a lot of humour and even more heart . We hope you love Mothering Heights as much as we do .
Congratulations on being the Collins Non-Fiction Book of the Month for April ! Can you tell us a little bit about your book and what made you want to write it ?
Thank you so much ! What an honour . I ’ m delighted .
I ’ ve been tinkering with Mothering Heights for many years . That ’ s why the book itself covers a wide span of motherhood ; ranging from pregnancy to adolescence . Or pull-ups to P plates , perhaps . For me , this book needed to be born , just like my three children , and it emerged from me as they did : slowly and painfully , with a big dramatic rush at the end . I think stories that explore the magical , idiosyncratic , private land of early motherhood are important and somewhat rare , even though it ’ s a core aspect of our society . Not all of us will be mothers , but we have all come from one . ( Unless AI has made some strong recent advances . Definitely possible ...) Early motherhood can be really lonely and isolating : the highs so transcendent , the lows so heartbreaking . I wanted to dig into that world and open it up to the light , capturing the intensity and the joy .
This book delves into all the highs and lows of motherhood . How have you learnt to deal with those days where everything goes wrong , and all parenting attempts feel like failure ?
I was really lucky that I wrote a parenting column for a magazine for seven years when the children were really small , so that even the worst moments could be turned into copy . Like when a child lifted my top in the butcher and shouted ‘ Look ebby-body ! Big fat tummy !’ Or when another pulled my shirt down to expose my bra to the shelf-packer at BiLo . Or the time my trousers untied themselves in the preschool car park and slithered to the ground , leaving me bent at the waist and presenting my rump , luscious and resplendent in greying nanna knickers , to the gridlock of cars at pick-up time . ( All these stories , I realise now , involve comedic near-nudity . Note for therapist .) The bottom line : Look for the comedy ! You ’ ll find it .
There is a constant reminder from social media on being perfect mothers , having perfect families , perfect bodies , perfect diets , and being # blessed . How do you think this pressure affects parenting today ?
Oh , its outrageous ! And as new parents , the stakes feel so high that we are ultra-susceptible to these pressures . In the book , I write about the crazymaking land of Motherhood Internet .
Online , I could get advice on being a ‘ yummy mummy ’ sporting the three Ts ( teeth , tits and tan ), or an attachment parent who practiced toilet training from birth , or ‘ elimination communication ’, which required holding the baby over the bowl for long periods while presumably thinking hard about those expensive years at university . I could get advice on ‘ modesty mothering ’ through blog posts like ‘ Getting Real about Yoga Pants and the Lusty Gaze ’, learn from ‘ fitspo ’ mothers who posted pics before , during and after pregnancy that displayed how they ‘ got their body back ’. ( Start with a hot rack in the first place , Beverley , I would think to myself , add patriarchy , bulimia and a sprinkle of self-loathing to your postpartum depression , and shazam !)
It ’ s a mad pressure , underwritten by marketing algorithms . We need to resist with all our might , and embrace each other in all our real , imperfect struggles .
Mothering Heights and your previous book Pardon my French are both written with a lot of humour . What kind of role does humour play in your life ?
A huge role , for better or for worse . Ask my kids !
Is it challenging to write about your own life in such an unflinching and honest way ?
Yes . Juggling my responsibility towards the people I write about with my desire to be authentic and honest is hard . Zoe Williams ’ words on Louis Theroux in The Guardian struck me recently : ‘ There ’ s something in the extensive chronicling , the soup-to-nuts transparency of the Theroux family , that must be a ) hard to live with , and b ) create an unusual tension between the public and the private .’ This is a tension that has changed in shape as my family has grown up , making writing memoir an incredibly difficult line to tread . How do I explore and express my experiences as a mother without trespassing on the stories of my children ? I have tried to navigate this line with care . Where I ’ ve failed , I ’ m sure the kids will let me know in therapy . Or their own memoirs , God help me . Fair is fair !
Do you have any advice for first ( or third ) time parents ?
I think my best advice would be to relax into the chaos a little . There is no magic advice for navigating the upside-down madness of early motherhood . Nobody gets a drama-free ride . And who would want one ? It ’ s in the struggle that wisdom is born . Some family situations are harder than others , and some days just bite the wiener . Seek out the glimmers of joy . You ’ re doing a good job ! You really are !
What do you hope readers will get out of this book ?
I hope I have brought enough vulnerability and honesty to my story that even though the details are particular to me , the struggles feel relatable to others . I floundered at times through the year in which this story is set . Sometimes I felt as though I was failing utterly . But I also adored being immersed in this magical , hilarious , ridiculous world , and I grew stronger because of the tough parts .
I also hope that the book is more than a story of motherhood ; that it speaks to the universal experience of suffering as we grow to full adulthood . The details may differ , but we are all forged in life ’ s painful fire at some point . If I can make another person laugh , I ’ m so fulfilled . What a joyful job to have . But to make a reader feel seen , understood or less alone in their tough days ? That is my highest aim .
This is your second memoir . Do you have plans for another book ?
I do have a third memoir , the last in what I think of as the ‘ motherhood series ’ – ( pretentious ? Moi ?). It ’ s in draft form , a wild mess of notes , and it covers a huge amount of ground around menopause , adolescence and aging parents . Working title , paraphrased from a brilliant meme : ‘ What To Expect 15 Years After You Were Expecting ’. But my current work in progress is fiction : a psychological thriller set in a Wollongong therapy clinic . I ’ m having a great time in this made-up world !
Do you have any favourite books you ’ ve read lately to recommend to our readers ?
I ’ ll confine these recommendations to the genre of motherhood , otherwise I ’ ll go on for pages ! In terms of memoir , three excellent offerings are Anne Lamott ’ s Operating Instructions , A Life ’ s Work by Rachel Cusk , My Wild and Sleepless Nights by Clover Stroud and Meg Mason ’ s Say It Again In A Nice Voice . In fiction , the incisive , funny , very-Sydney story Grace Under Pressure by Tori Haschka . Finally , a hard recommend for the brilliant graphic novelist Alison Bechdel ’ s Are You My Mother ?
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