A little under a year ago my best friend in the whole world skipped town. I had been relying on her support fairly heavily and receiving it, for the most part, even though she didn't know what to say or do for me, as most people didn't. I didn't feel bad about this, I'd held her up a thousand times before. Truth be told I felt like I'd be holding her up for 12 years, but I won't say it wasn't reciprocated when I needed it. So when this friend started to come to my home and complain about things that, in the rawness of grief, I thought were offensively trivial, I found it hard to muster the sympathy. Truth is she was melting, the same old problems rearing their ugly heads, and I didn't have the strength to deal with it.
When she called me late one night and said she'd decided enough was enough and she was moving away to Sydney, leaving husband and kids behind, I hit the roof. I saw it as an example of shitty parenting. How could she just abandon her kids on a whim? Why not stay and confront her problems, instead of making her family suffer for her cowardice? And how on earth could she presume that I would support her in this? I didn't have a choice about my separation from Willow, I would have done anything to spend a second with her again and was waking up every morning sick with the pain of knowing that would never happen.
I speak to grieving mums all the time and one of the common threads of complaint and anguish for each of them is the constant exposure to nasty, abusive parents who inflict their behaviour upon their children. For the first few months after Willow died I walked around spoiling for a fight, just waiting for some derelict moron to enter my sphere and shout at his or her bawling child. I was at war with the impulse inside me to smack these people, to call DOCS, even to snatch the poor children away and tell them it was okay, they were better than their unfortunate upbringing, they didn't have to listen to the parent swearing at them and blaming them for their own existence. I had (and still have) a fierce compulsion to rescue children from their pain. I think that was a pretty natural reaction to what I'd been through.
On the day of Willow's funeral I had a ten year old girl sitting on my lap and I was enjoying her company and cuddles. A woman, who I won't even stoop to fake-name, came up to the child, got about three inches from her face and called her a lying little bitch. Little girl proceeded to bawl in fear, saying how much she hated her life. I swooped her up and took her inside and told her outright that she should never EVER allow herself to think she deserves that kind of treatment. I told her this 'person' was bitter and angry and had no right to speak to her like that. I held her and told her all the lovely things about her until she felt better. It didn't shock me that this person would scream at a child like that, she is very much the kind of person to do such a thing, but to do it on that day, to show such disrespect for a child just hours after we had buried ours and begged people to make this a day about respecting their kids? I was furious.
The friend who ran away to Sydney is not one of these mums. She's a good mum who made an impulsive decision. She ended up moving the whole family south and they are all doing splendidly. I've seen her struggle with motherhood countless times because it is a very hard job, and I commended her every effort. I don't begrudge the mums and dads who have hard days, who are exhausted by the demands of parenting, who make choices they regret and spend every consequent day trying to fix it, parents who love their kids deeply. I do begrudge those who treat their children as accessories, as punching bags, as an outlet for their poisonous abuse. I begrudge those lucky women who effortlessly conceive perfect, healthy children and spend the rest of their lives blaming the child for impinging on their way of life. Pregnancy is completely avoidable in this day and age. If you don't want kids, DON'T HAVE THEM.
So, I spoke to this ex-friend the other night, thinking to build a bridge, or at least clear up some misconceptions. I wanted her to understand how I had felt when I called her a bad parent, and that I didn't believe so anymore. Still smarting from the original insult she decided she owned the moral high ground. At first she seemed to accept my apology, seemed to understand the place from which it had come from, but being the person she is- generally insecure and selfish- she decided to launch an attack. She hadn't ceased to exist since Willow died, she said, and I should have been more understanding. I had no right to criticise anyone's method of parenting, she said, because I didn't know what it was like to be a mother. My child had died too young, in effect I had never really been a parent. I knew nothing. She was superior in her knowledge and I was pathetic and bitter. And to cap it off, she told me I used my daughter as an excuse for everything I say and do, as a bargaining chip to be forever 'right', that as long as I could throw my 'dead child' into the argument I would always WIN.
Well, thank god my child died so I never have to lose an argument again.
I'm not sure where she got this perspective of me seeing as we haven't talked in nearly a year, but there it is. I could have reached into the phone, down the phone line and strangled her. Needless to say I wash my hands of her. Any person who can happily use your deepest pain as a bullet against you is worthy of all the karma coming their way.
It smarts though, badly. To be told I have no perspective and understanding of motherhood? I think any woman who is lucky enough to carry a child, even if only in their womb and only long enough to know they're pregnant- even if that is only a matter of weeks!- knows the experience of motherhood. I may not know what it's like to have a school age child, what it feels like to hear her call me 'Mummy', to teach my daughter how to tie her shoelaces, but I have known motherhood in a way most people are lucky not to, especially my dear ex-friend on her high horse. I was a sick-baby's-mama. It's not a hat you wear, it's a badge. You'll tell everyone you just do it because you must, because you love your kid, and that is true. But you wear the badge anyway because even though it doesn't seem very brave at the time it is an achievement to see what you've seen, to repeat it in nightmares, to sit by a bed every night and day and watch your baby kept alive by machines, to work towards some semblance of normality and routine in a hospital, and to know every day could be the last.
This is what really riles me up, that everything has become a scale. For the mum who lost her 20 year old son, another woman's pain of losing her week old baby pales in significance. She has 20 years of memories to pine over, she saw her boy taken in the prime of his life. He was her best friend and they supported one another, and she knew his mind and heart and soul with an intimacy you can't, in her mind, share with a baby. To a woman who has lost her baby, the other mother has 20 years of memories to be thankful for. 20 years! She got to see him grow to be a man, to pave a road in life even if he didn't get to travel very far along it. The baby's mama regrets everything she will never see; her baby's chubby infant face will never grow, never stretch and develop and blossom with age. She'll never hear her baby talk, see it walk, and she knows inside that it was her job to protect her baby because at such a young age the baby couldn't defend herself. Her grief is often tinged with a deep element of failure.
The point is, no grief is harder or worse than anothers. It is all incredibly individual and entirely based on your perspective. My friend, Georgia, lost her daughter aged two and a half. I've seen her fighting to survive the massive weight of her grief every day since her daughter passed. She told me several weeks ago how an elderly friend recalled to her the death of her husband and said, with surprising arrogance, that Georgia's grief was nothing compared to the loss of her husband. Any of you reading this will know that losing a child is a unique and incomprehensible pain. Any one who may have lost their husband could argue the same. The point is it is so wrong and unfair to diminish another persons experience in comparison to your own.
I feel the same about Mrs High Horse. Her daily struggles with motherhood might mean getting the kids to school in time, sorting out arguments, comforting them when they're upset. My daily struggles were trying to decide whether to let the doctors perform another life threatening procedure, allowing them to take blood from Willow when she'd finally fallen asleep after a long and difficult night, getting her medicine measured correctly and being responsible for administering it, and watching every change in her behaviour like a hawk to try and intercept another crash that might kill her. High Horse has a longer experience. Does that mean she is a mother and I'm not? Does it mean I don't know how to be a mum? And does it mean that the next time I see someone tell their kid in the supermarket that they are a fucking idiot that I should say 'bygones be bygones' and not be completely shattered by the cruelty of it?
The hard truth is, grief is like depression. If you've never been through it you can't understand it in other people. You can sympathise, not empathise. As for motherhood, it is what you put into it. For anyone who has ever had a child- from conception to birth and onwards, no matter how old they were when they died- for what it's worth, I acknowledge you were a mum, you ARE a mum, and you will be forever.
When she called me late one night and said she'd decided enough was enough and she was moving away to Sydney, leaving husband and kids behind, I hit the roof. I saw it as an example of shitty parenting. How could she just abandon her kids on a whim? Why not stay and confront her problems, instead of making her family suffer for her cowardice? And how on earth could she presume that I would support her in this? I didn't have a choice about my separation from Willow, I would have done anything to spend a second with her again and was waking up every morning sick with the pain of knowing that would never happen.
I speak to grieving mums all the time and one of the common threads of complaint and anguish for each of them is the constant exposure to nasty, abusive parents who inflict their behaviour upon their children. For the first few months after Willow died I walked around spoiling for a fight, just waiting for some derelict moron to enter my sphere and shout at his or her bawling child. I was at war with the impulse inside me to smack these people, to call DOCS, even to snatch the poor children away and tell them it was okay, they were better than their unfortunate upbringing, they didn't have to listen to the parent swearing at them and blaming them for their own existence. I had (and still have) a fierce compulsion to rescue children from their pain. I think that was a pretty natural reaction to what I'd been through.
On the day of Willow's funeral I had a ten year old girl sitting on my lap and I was enjoying her company and cuddles. A woman, who I won't even stoop to fake-name, came up to the child, got about three inches from her face and called her a lying little bitch. Little girl proceeded to bawl in fear, saying how much she hated her life. I swooped her up and took her inside and told her outright that she should never EVER allow herself to think she deserves that kind of treatment. I told her this 'person' was bitter and angry and had no right to speak to her like that. I held her and told her all the lovely things about her until she felt better. It didn't shock me that this person would scream at a child like that, she is very much the kind of person to do such a thing, but to do it on that day, to show such disrespect for a child just hours after we had buried ours and begged people to make this a day about respecting their kids? I was furious.
The friend who ran away to Sydney is not one of these mums. She's a good mum who made an impulsive decision. She ended up moving the whole family south and they are all doing splendidly. I've seen her struggle with motherhood countless times because it is a very hard job, and I commended her every effort. I don't begrudge the mums and dads who have hard days, who are exhausted by the demands of parenting, who make choices they regret and spend every consequent day trying to fix it, parents who love their kids deeply. I do begrudge those who treat their children as accessories, as punching bags, as an outlet for their poisonous abuse. I begrudge those lucky women who effortlessly conceive perfect, healthy children and spend the rest of their lives blaming the child for impinging on their way of life. Pregnancy is completely avoidable in this day and age. If you don't want kids, DON'T HAVE THEM.
So, I spoke to this ex-friend the other night, thinking to build a bridge, or at least clear up some misconceptions. I wanted her to understand how I had felt when I called her a bad parent, and that I didn't believe so anymore. Still smarting from the original insult she decided she owned the moral high ground. At first she seemed to accept my apology, seemed to understand the place from which it had come from, but being the person she is- generally insecure and selfish- she decided to launch an attack. She hadn't ceased to exist since Willow died, she said, and I should have been more understanding. I had no right to criticise anyone's method of parenting, she said, because I didn't know what it was like to be a mother. My child had died too young, in effect I had never really been a parent. I knew nothing. She was superior in her knowledge and I was pathetic and bitter. And to cap it off, she told me I used my daughter as an excuse for everything I say and do, as a bargaining chip to be forever 'right', that as long as I could throw my 'dead child' into the argument I would always WIN.
Well, thank god my child died so I never have to lose an argument again.
I'm not sure where she got this perspective of me seeing as we haven't talked in nearly a year, but there it is. I could have reached into the phone, down the phone line and strangled her. Needless to say I wash my hands of her. Any person who can happily use your deepest pain as a bullet against you is worthy of all the karma coming their way.
It smarts though, badly. To be told I have no perspective and understanding of motherhood? I think any woman who is lucky enough to carry a child, even if only in their womb and only long enough to know they're pregnant- even if that is only a matter of weeks!- knows the experience of motherhood. I may not know what it's like to have a school age child, what it feels like to hear her call me 'Mummy', to teach my daughter how to tie her shoelaces, but I have known motherhood in a way most people are lucky not to, especially my dear ex-friend on her high horse. I was a sick-baby's-mama. It's not a hat you wear, it's a badge. You'll tell everyone you just do it because you must, because you love your kid, and that is true. But you wear the badge anyway because even though it doesn't seem very brave at the time it is an achievement to see what you've seen, to repeat it in nightmares, to sit by a bed every night and day and watch your baby kept alive by machines, to work towards some semblance of normality and routine in a hospital, and to know every day could be the last.
This is what really riles me up, that everything has become a scale. For the mum who lost her 20 year old son, another woman's pain of losing her week old baby pales in significance. She has 20 years of memories to pine over, she saw her boy taken in the prime of his life. He was her best friend and they supported one another, and she knew his mind and heart and soul with an intimacy you can't, in her mind, share with a baby. To a woman who has lost her baby, the other mother has 20 years of memories to be thankful for. 20 years! She got to see him grow to be a man, to pave a road in life even if he didn't get to travel very far along it. The baby's mama regrets everything she will never see; her baby's chubby infant face will never grow, never stretch and develop and blossom with age. She'll never hear her baby talk, see it walk, and she knows inside that it was her job to protect her baby because at such a young age the baby couldn't defend herself. Her grief is often tinged with a deep element of failure.
The point is, no grief is harder or worse than anothers. It is all incredibly individual and entirely based on your perspective. My friend, Georgia, lost her daughter aged two and a half. I've seen her fighting to survive the massive weight of her grief every day since her daughter passed. She told me several weeks ago how an elderly friend recalled to her the death of her husband and said, with surprising arrogance, that Georgia's grief was nothing compared to the loss of her husband. Any of you reading this will know that losing a child is a unique and incomprehensible pain. Any one who may have lost their husband could argue the same. The point is it is so wrong and unfair to diminish another persons experience in comparison to your own.
I feel the same about Mrs High Horse. Her daily struggles with motherhood might mean getting the kids to school in time, sorting out arguments, comforting them when they're upset. My daily struggles were trying to decide whether to let the doctors perform another life threatening procedure, allowing them to take blood from Willow when she'd finally fallen asleep after a long and difficult night, getting her medicine measured correctly and being responsible for administering it, and watching every change in her behaviour like a hawk to try and intercept another crash that might kill her. High Horse has a longer experience. Does that mean she is a mother and I'm not? Does it mean I don't know how to be a mum? And does it mean that the next time I see someone tell their kid in the supermarket that they are a fucking idiot that I should say 'bygones be bygones' and not be completely shattered by the cruelty of it?
The hard truth is, grief is like depression. If you've never been through it you can't understand it in other people. You can sympathise, not empathise. As for motherhood, it is what you put into it. For anyone who has ever had a child- from conception to birth and onwards, no matter how old they were when they died- for what it's worth, I acknowledge you were a mum, you ARE a mum, and you will be forever.
my heart aches for you and what you have had to endure from people who do not deserve to have somone like you in their lives. its one thing to be moved by words but i hope that what you have said in these posts will linger in the back of my mind to influence me in the way i parent my son everyday - so when things seem tough to see the beauty in the imperfection that everyday life has. im sure you will affect many people with your story and hopefully inspire some people to have a hard look at themselves and make some changes.
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