The Rise of the Stepford Mum

The media has been dominated with the story of baby Catherine lately, the beautiful baby girl who was abandoned by her mother in a Melbourne hospital on Mothers Day. Coverage about the possible where-abouts and disposition of her mother has sparked widespread debate - and so has the media's angles, in particular the Daily Telegraph's front page headline which proclaimed 'how could she?'

I was having a much needed glass of red last week with two girlfriends (also fellow mothers) and after seeing further front-page coverage, we began sharing our post-birth experiences.

We spoke about the rollercoaster of emotions and the crazy hormones, the torchurous sleep deprivation, the sudden responsibility, the immediate lack of 'self', difficulties with breast-feeding and the absolute shock. Then there were the bad days, the times when you sat at home feeling despondant and alone, crying and feeling as though you had lost all of that strength you once thought that you had.

It was liberating to have this conversation as I can freely say that they are rare. I've written about this in my journals over the past couple of years and remember a story that belongs to a good friend of mine. She claims no one spoke about depression or the bad days in her mother's group. She used to broach the subject and was met with silence and nothing in return.

I remember I went to a mothers group once with Hugo when he was very young. The mothers all had strict routines, personal trainers, everyone was happy and content and managed their homes, careers and children with perfectly groomed hair, their manicured fingers still clean. I felt so random, unorganised and out of place.

I only went to one meeting as grasping a little bit of chaos helped me cope. I needed space and air to adjust. Time became three-dimension. Some days were wide and tall and round, others were blinking and staccatto. I wanted to lie in bed with him, sometimes for whole days, I needed to nap together, to smell his baby neck and feel the folds of his legs, I needed to stare to see what our child actually looks like, learn what his different cries meant and quite simply bond without the notion of an obligatory timetable.

If anything, I feel for the mother who left baby Catherine, I don't think any empathetic human being would want to judge her. We can only imagine what she's going through and at least she showed the care to leave her baby at a hospital and not in a random and isolated area.

I don't think there are any simple answers or solutions to this. Life is messy and unpredictable and expectations of perfection, routine and happiness are utterly unrealistic for mothers and quite frankly, don't help the truly 'character stretching' experiencing that parenting is.