BY ALEX BOLLEN
But it is easy to feel
haunted by images of
the ‘supermum’. In the
NCT Early Days courses
I run for new mothers,
she often comes up
spontaneously. When different groups are asked to describe the ‘supermum’, similar themes emerge each time. Her home is spotless, she bakes cakes and cooks dinner for her partner, she always looks immaculate and she fitted back into her skinny jeans within a few weeks of giving birth. Her baby is angelic, never cries and is signed up to every baby class going. She takes everything in her stride and never feels down.
On a rational level, we can recognise that this perfect person does not – cannot – exist. We can also understand that the social media lives of both our friends and the famous are, by their very nature, selected highlights and not the full reality. The messier and more negative aspects of parenting – the tracksuit bottoms covered in sick and the tears of exhaustion and despair – are often edited out.
Even so, this does not
necessarily stop you from
feeling like you are failing in
some way because your home
is a mess, you can’t
remember the last time you
brushed your hair properly
and you haven’t cooked
anything since your baby
was born. A crying baby
or feeding problems
can be particularly
difficult to deal with
and can undermine
your confidence.
One of the best
antidotes to
negative feelings
is to hook up with other
new mothers. It can really
help to realise that others
are experiencing similar
highs and lows
Super Mum
Parenting is full of uncertainty. It can be when we are at our most unsure that we compare ourselves to others – and feel that we come up short. New motherhood is usually a particularly vulnerable time. You are on a very steep learning curve as you get to know your baby and it is normal to feel full of doubt and anxiety about how you are doing. Research
shows that it can take many weeks and months to really feel like a mother.
Technology can sharpen the sense of anxiety new parents feel by serving up an endless stream of idealised images of motherhood. There are friends’ Facebook and Instagram
pictures of beaming families and updates on the latest baby triumph. Meanwhile
Twitter gives us a window into the seemingly perfect lives of the rich & famous, not
only taking parenthood in their stride but somehow managing to turn it into a
glamorous fashion shoot as well. This can leave even the most robust person feeling inadequate at times.
Indeed a US study among new parents found a link between more frequent
visits to Facebook and parenting stress. This is not to say that Facebook is
necessarily a bad thing – the same study found that when more of
mothers' Facebook friends were family members or relatives,
they reported better parental adjustment. Whether
Facebook has a positive or negative impact on
emotional wellbeing depends on the
place it has in our lives.