Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- New Introduction
- Preface to the Original Edition
- 1 Childbirth and the ‘Position’ of Women
- 2 In the Beginning
- 3 Remember, Pregnancy is a State of Health
- 4 Journey into the Unknown
- 5 The Agony and the Ecstasy
- 6 Mother and Baby
- 7 Learning the Language of the Child
- 8 Menus
- 9 Domestic Politics
- 10 Into a Routine
- 11 Lessons Learnt
- 12 Mothers and Medical People
- Endnote – Being Researched
- Notes and References
- Appendix List of Characters
11 - Lessons Learnt
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- New Introduction
- Preface to the Original Edition
- 1 Childbirth and the ‘Position’ of Women
- 2 In the Beginning
- 3 Remember, Pregnancy is a State of Health
- 4 Journey into the Unknown
- 5 The Agony and the Ecstasy
- 6 Mother and Baby
- 7 Learning the Language of the Child
- 8 Menus
- 9 Domestic Politics
- 10 Into a Routine
- 11 Lessons Learnt
- 12 Mothers and Medical People
- Endnote – Being Researched
- Notes and References
- Appendix List of Characters
Summary
I’ve joined women all over the world. I feel I’m no longer an individual like I used to be, because my idea of what I was was a woman going out to work - I feel that's all gone now.
I even feel like warning people - before they become pregnant; saying, well, you know, I expected it to be all joy and roses straight away.
Looking back on the process of becoming a mother, women come to understand the visions they had - of motherhood as a bed of roses, of birth as agony or ecstasy, of pregnancy as a flowering or a burden. After the event these images are brought sharply into focus by the contrast medium of reality, which exposes the outline of what was, too often, a romantic dream.
More than a third of the women said they found becoming a mother a difficult experience. Eight out of ten said it had been different from what they had expected. The same proportion thought the pictures of pregnancy, birth and motherhood conveyed in antenatal literature, women's magazines and the media in general were too romantic, painting an over-optimistic portrait of happy mothers and fathers, quiet contented babies and neat and shining homes that bore little resemblance to the chaos, disruption and confusion of first-time motherhood.
Fairy Stories
NINA BRADY, ex-shop assistant:
What's romantic about changing that nappy down there? What's romantic about it? I think people should be told about the hard life it is to be a mother. It's not easy to be a mother. I don't think it is, I think it's very difficult. It takes all your energy out of you. The responsibility and the work: because you are kept going. If that child cries at three o’clock you have got to get up and feed it if it continues to cry, haven't you? Isn't that a responsibility? Well you can't dial nine nine nine and tell them to come, the baby's crying: you’ve got to do it. I think they should be warned more: because when you go to those classes, they tell you about your baby and they make it sound so nice, like the adverts on television, they make everything sound so nice.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- From Here to Maternity (Reissue)Becoming a Mother, pp. 244 - 262Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2018