There is no winning at motherhood – whatever you do, you still shoulder the blame

Telegraph

20 hours ago

There is no winning at motherhood. A year ago I stood in my kitchen, feeling uncomfortable, while a female friend of my son raged at her mother for sending her to a top boarding school when she got divorced, yelling: 'You took the easy option and sent me away!' I had to intervene and explain that her mum had worked like a navvy to help her brilliant daughter get a scholarship and avoid family turmoil. But now many children talk darkly of having 'boarding school syndrome'.
What all these dread parenting tags really tell you is no occupation on the planet is as fraught with anxiety, contrition and self-loathing as motherhood; whatever you do, you'll still shoulder the blame.
Narcissism and gaslighting
Our burden is made heavier by living in an age where our young are so proficient in therapy-lingo (psychology is the second-most-studied topic at A Level) that standard-issue mums, who fall short of perfection, are routinely accused of 'narcissistic personality disorder'. Counsellors often advise clients to cut ties with any member of family who might constitute negative emotional baggage. Meanwhile, any white lie you might have told a child to protect them from adult misbehaviour (as your grandmother once advised) is routinely categorised as 'gaslighting'. Although none of this is quite as bad as the period in the 1950s and 60s when US psychiatrist Leo Kanner blamed childhood autism on 'refrigerator' mothers, who lacked maternal warmth.
Ever since I first contemplated parenthood, I've been aware there would be judgement from others. Even when small, I suspected I might become one of those 'bad mothers' you heard so much about in the 1970s: the women who worked, socialised and actively relished spending some time away from the fruits of their wombs.
My little sister was born when I was 11 and, while my big sister cosseted her like a Norland nanny, I couldn't wait for this boring baby to become a person. Twenty-three years later my older sister would become one of the most devoted parents I've ever observed (much like our own mother).
By contrast, when my own first son arrived, my maternal feelings were slow to emerge, not helped by the fact it had been an exceptionally traumatic birth. Two decades later I still feel riven by memories of watching my baby cry in the cot beside me and not reaching out to comfort him. Nor could I breastfeed, as he had an undiagnosed tongue-tie, which made the process agonising for both of us.
I resumed work immediately and since one of my tasks was being a Booker Prize judge, I spent most of the year staring at novels, rather than my lovely boy's face. In desperation, I paid my nurturing big sis to do some childcare for me and watched, jealously, as she happily performed the acts of devotion that I found so hard. My husband also picked up a lot of the slack, wielding bottles and babygros like a pro. Feeling inadequate as a mother, I turned back to work as my tried-and-tested method of achieving self-worth.
'Of course, his mother is often away'
In short, my household gradually evolved into one with a working mum who travelled a fair bit, while my husband reduced his professional hours and became a stay-at-home dad.
When one of my boys was naughty at school, the class teacher said to my husband with elaborate emphasis: 'Of course, his mother is often away.' Although self-reproach was sharpest when my older boy went through a period of extreme anxiety, finding school such an ordeal that he simply stopped going. Everyone knew it must be my fault, because it is always the mother's fault. For years I walked around my Cambridge home issuing copious apologies for not being the ideal model of nurture.
For all the self-recrimination, the worst has not happened. Neither my boys nor I are in an asylum, prison, hospital or the gutter. My sons are now 17 and 21 and appear to have survived an idiosyncratic, but not unhappy childhood. They are kind, funny young men, who have hinterland, passions and friends of both sexes. Neither shows any sign – yet – of ostracising me. Yesterday, I met my older son, a psychology undergraduate (of course he is) for a drink in London. When I asked him what he thought of my intense guilt, he laughed and said 'comes with the territory', reminding me that I'd sent him Philip Larkin's This Be the Verse ('They f--- you up, your mum and dad') when he was 14, just to get in there first.
In the course of conversation it became clear that the main reason I feast on mummy misery lit is therapeutic. Whatever my maternal shortcomings, they're not even in the same demented ballpark as Crawford's or Jong's.