Mothering is hard. It is hard to constantly have your life controlled by a person who is solely dependant on you and yet cannot communicate in traditional ways. How do you know when somebody who cannot talk is crying because they are hungry? They may be tired or sick or uncomfortable or frustrated but somehow as mothers we are meant to know. Society seems to see mothering as an inate skill that women should aquire in the nine months leading up to the birth, this isn’t so.

Everybody struggles to some degree yet because we feel the pressure to be perfect we find it difficult to ask for help or even receive it when it is offered. All mothers over time have had their own style of parenting depending on their environment, their upbringing and their children so I have found it difficult to accept advice from other more experienced mothers, the truth is they don’t know my child, my temperament or my lifestyle but when the issue is pushed I do realise that some of what they have to say could be of value. In my own mind I was thinking that advice was haunted with insinuations of bad mothering, in retrospect I think people just want to have an opinion, be heard and hopefully help.

And so I am beginning to listen and separate the pearls from the rants. Is this to say that I now feel free to heap advice on other mothers? Absolutely not. What I do works well for me and my baby and if someone asks about something I’ll give them a straight answer but my place isn’t to convert to the Chelle style of parenting (frankly I’m not that experienced). What most of what my friends need, and they are mostly first time mothers is a simple affirmation that they are great mums; and this is true because all of them heap love on their babies and care for them more than anything.

I remember when an older hugely experienced mother said to me, ‘I think you are doing a great job at being a mother’ and it meant the world to me, it meant more to me than all the awards and praise I got at school, at uni, in the workforce because that is what I aspire to more than anything, to be a great mum.

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mums life by chelle