friendship | Mummy Kindness

Wow. What a journey this new blog is taking me on. Again, I’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to leave comments here on the blog and also on the facebook pages where I’ve invited discussion on the topics I’ve looked at here.

So far, in the four days since I started this adventure, mummykindness.com has had over two thousand views. That just blows my mind. I say this not to toot my own horn but to illustrate the point that maybe, just maybe, I’m on to something here. Maybe my ideas and thoughts are echoed by others. Maybe I can make a difference to people by being open and honest about my own struggles, and helping others to think about being kinder to themselves and to one another.

The Shirley post struck a chord with lots of people and I received some really heartfelt messages from women who have put up with some incredibly hurtful comments from their fellow mums. In fact, the topics they shared with me will undoubtedly be the subject of future posts.

Other comments offered suggestions as to things I might like to consider writing about. This is one of them:

“Rachel – I just wanted to say I love your blog! I am not a mummy – I am a baby care consultant who meets lots of wonderful mummies who have suffered at the hands of Shirley. I have also met lots of Shirleys! What I would like you to consider writing – if you are able to get your head round it – is something from Shirleys point of view. In my experience Shirley is often the most insecure mother out there who is really struggling and life often isn’t how she is portraying it. The only way she can make herself feel adequate is to make those around her feel inadequate. Now I am not saying that is right or even that it’s OK but it might be a perspective you would like to explore. I would be most interested to see what you make of that thought. Bless you! You are raising such an important awareness.”

This really interested me. Several of the comments via Facebook had been from women honest enough to admit to being Shirley at one time or another. I wanted to look in to this further. I was hoping to get some insight into what makes Shirley tick so I posted on two mum forums where I knew I’d get full and frank answers. I asked women to tell me about instances where they’ve been made to feel inferior by another mum, or explain situations where their inner Shirley may have come out.

One mum had a newborn baby so intolerant to lactose that she couldn’t even tolerate breast milk. She was devastated to have to formula feed her baby but genuinely had no choice in the matter. You can only imagine how she must have felt, whilst giving the baby her bottle in public, when a nearby mother loudly voiced the opinion “Look at that poor newborn with rubber in her mouth! I get so angry when I see that! She can’t even be a month old!”. My mind boggles as to how any woman could so openly criticise a fellow mother, especially within earshot, but this actually happened. Of course the poor mother ended up in tears. This goes beyond unintentionally triggering someone else’s insecurities by a country mile.

I was a bit unprepared for one of the first comments I got, though….

“Rachel, with regards to ‘Shirley’, every mother is one. Including you. If a mother tells you her child walked at 15 months and your child walked sooner than that, unless you lie about when your child started walking, you too are being a ‘Shirley'”.

Whaaaat?!! I thought. She has completely missed the point, did she even read the blog post in the first place? I was just about to send her a message highlighting these points when I started thinking about it. Could there be some truth in what she was saying? Whilst I was pondering this, she added to her original point by saying that we are entitled to feel “smug” about our kids from time-to-time. Now this raises something really interesting. Of course a parent is entitled to feel proud of and to discuss their children’s progress. If the fact that someone else’s child walked before mine made me feel bad, that would be my issue and not their responsibility for bringing it up. If we all walked on eggshells around one another for fear of offending the parent whose baby doesn’t walk yet when ours does, play dates would be pretty tricky and conversation would be stifled to say the least. In short, articulating your pride in your children does not a Shirley make.

(I highly recommend you check out this fantastic blog if you’re interested in why it is that we may feel it’s inappropriate to sing our childrens praises).

Another astute mama (I’ll call her Laura) expressed how proud she is of the routine she’s managed to get her daughter in to and the fact that her baby has slept through the night from an early age. Laura worked very hard to do this but worries that she may come across as a Shirley to other mothers for discussing this with them and potentially making them feel inadequate for not having accomplished what she has. I’d say that this is a really good example of how our insecurities (and sleep deprivation, in this case) could easily find us comparing with Laura and finding ourselves to be lacking. But Laura isn’t intentionally trying to make anyone feel bad, far from it. I’m sure if asked she would gladly offer advice and tips to her sleep deprived friends. The issue here is in the mind of the beholder. Another example of how we may read unintended meanings into our conversations, assuming that we’re terrible mothers because our children still wake regularly and someone else’s slept through from eight weeks.

Even as I write this, more and more brave mamas are sending me messages about situations where they’re unsure if they’re being a bit “Shirley”. Kate makes a really interesting point. Her son has been very easy when it comes to sleeping, eating and discipline. But Kate feels like he has to bite her tongue, she feels judged for having it too easy, like she isn’t entitled to contribute advice to her friends because she worries that they’ll think her “smug”. Not having a common complaint makes her feel alientated from her friends.

I think the real point here is our definition of “Shirley”. She clearly represents different things to different mums. Everyone who read the original Shirley post seems to have their own mental picture of who she is, and what she means to them. She is voicing our inner insecurities. Often literally.

My friend H works full time. She doesn’t want to but she has no choice. A stay-at-home mum recently told H that she was damaging her daughter by going out to work each day. H was understandably left feeling devastated and more guilty than ever. But the stay-at-home mum has barely enough money to put petrol in her car. She is struggling to make ends meet. Could it be that her comment to H came from a place of envy? Could it be that she wishes she had a way to contribute financially to her family? This does not excuse the mean and thoughtless thing she said but it does illustrate that her unkind words probably came from the place where her own self-doubt lives. Her Inner Shirley was speaking.

The point I’m making is this. What if we ARE all a bit Shirley? What if Shirley was all in our minds, all along? A bit like Fight Club?! What if she is the devil on your shoulder, causing you to doubt your parenting skills? Making you read judgements where actually none were intended? What if by having more faith in our skills as mummies, we could silence our inner Shirleys? Or to take this logic one step further, what if we harnessed the power of our inner Shirley to ask for help?

Here’s an example.

It’s playdate time again. You turn up at Shirley’s house, and you’re dreading it. You’ve been up all night, pacing the floor with a screaming almost-toddler in your arms. You’re exhausted, emotional and by your own admission you look like you’ve just survived a natural disaster. In a way, you have. You’re asking yourself why you didn’t just cancel the arrangement, but in a toss-up between an afternoon with Shirley and an afternoon listening to the ironing pile calling you, Shirley wins by a narrow margin. Let’s look at how this conversation might go and the meanings that you may very well be reading in to the conversation that weren’t actually even there.

Shirley says: Hello! Crikey! You Look tired!
You hear: Oh God, I look even worse than I thought. She can see right through me. How on earth has she managed to get mascara on both of her eyes? She hasn’t got porridge in her hair either! And look, her socks are matching! How does she do it? I’d sell a little bit of my soul right now for some sleep. Did she REALLY need to point out how rough I look?!!I

This is a prime example of how one comment from Shirley can be like the starting pistol on your very own mental marathon of self doubt. Pointing out that someone looks tired is never the most tactful thing to say. But what if, actually, Shirley was coming from a place of care and concern? What if she doesn’t feel comfortable offering unsolicited advice to you, for fear that you might think her “smug” or a show-off? Or what if she worries you’ll-think-that-she-thinks-that-you’re-doing-it-all-wrong? What if, actually, what we’re all doing is paying too much attention to our Inner Shirley and second guessing each other all the time?

Think about it. Shirley here could have said “Sweetie, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you look shattered, is there anything I can do to help? We’ve all been there. I know exactly what it’s like to feel so utterly exhausted that you look at childless friends with envy, knowing that they’ll have no-one to interrupt them just as they get comfy tonight. What can I do to help you?”. Now this could open up floodgates. Shirley could stop being someone you feel is judging you and start to be the person who directs you to the one sleep-training technique that saves your sanity. (For me it was the Baby Whisperer’s Pick-Up/Put-Down technique but I’ll go into that another time).

By listening to our Inner Shirley and paying attention to what she has to say, we can ask for help and guidance. Equally, by thinking a little bit more about the words we use with others, we can affect change. We can be more confident in our own abilities, both as parents as friends.

Most of what we hear when other people speak comes from our own Inner Shirley. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. That I do know. The woman you think of as “Shirley” has undoubtedly got her own issues and most of the battles we’re fighting are with ourselves.

So, in answer the the question posed in my last post: “Are You Shirley” the answer, in all of us, is actually Yes! But some of us are more capable of keeping her in check than others. She is the voice inside us that makes us sometimes doubt ourselves. We (read: I) need to learn to ignore her when she is in our heads causing us to doubt ourselves, or recognise that we need support in certain areas and ask for it.

I was asked to look at Shirley through her own eyes. Turns out her eyes are brown, like mine.

(Picture credit: Pinterest)

PS.. I’m going to paste some of the Facebook comments below, where is says “what do you think?” as to put them all in the blog would’ve been a bit of a lengthy read.

PPS.. as always, please do leave your thoughts here and share via Facebook if you think a friend would like what’s going on here.

I thought writing my first post would be difficult. I was baring my soul and sharing my darkest secrets. The thought of it was so scary. But actually, writing it down was easy. It just kind of wrote itself, really. But writing this, my second post. Now this is daunting. Now I feel the weight of expectation.

You see, the feedback and comments I received after posting my Getting Acquainted piece 72 hours ago have been incredible and eye opening in so many ways. People, lots of people as it happens, agree with me and they understand. They more than understand. They are living with the depression I admitted to having in my last post. They agree that comparing their lives with Facebook images of picture-perfect parenting is making them feel inferior. They feel pressure to compete with or to fit into cliques of mums. They often feel inadequate.

Here are some of the comments you kind and lovely women have left, here and on Facebook :-

“I can totally relate to your observations about how reading other people’s status updates can give a very one sided picture of life! Also, I totally agree that us mums should be nicer and more supportive of each other and we should all be kinder to ourselves!”

“There is a huge stigma regarding antidepressants, but once people come out about being on them it’s amazing how many others take them too.”

“I suffered with depression years ago, before kids, and it took me four years to dig myself out. None of my friends understood what I was going through either, I didn’t really talk about it. To be honest, I didn’t think anyone would understand it unless they had been through it.”

“I suffered in silence. I didn’t even tell my parents. My mothers empathetic response would have been “get over it”. I wish I could have. That was all I wanted!!! It’s a dark time and now I’m through it I feel so sad I’ve missed out in those years with my kids (hopefully they were too young to remember it!)! Unless you’ve been through it I also believe nobody will understand. The more people talk about it the more those suffering will realise they can get help and they are not alone!”

“I think as mummies we struggle with feelings of being inadequate regularly. The honesty of your blog is refreshing.”

” I feel like you’ve gone into my brain and written about my life. Describing PND and being ‘in recovery’ is the the way I always describe it, too. It was lovely reading this and knowing there are others out there feeling the same, so thank you.”

We’re all different, with our own unique set of strengths, weaknesses, and let’s face it, insecurities. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to overcoming our issues. But I think I know where we can start and it’s quite simple, really. We can be kinder to ourselves and kinder to each other.

I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll undoubtedly repeat myself countless times when it comes to this point. Here’s an example…

You’re on a play date at someone’s house and your baby has just started to walk. Suddenly, your little explorer has a whole new dimension of things to touch and they’re all about a foot and a half off the ground. At coffee table height. You enter the lovely, tidy room (your house is never as tidy as this) and your heart sinks a bit. Oh look, you think, a coffee table. With lots of pretty and fragile things on it. You can see this ending badly. So you speak to your hostess, and ask her if she minds you moving the breakables out of the reach of your newly vertical offspring. A straight-forward request, you think. You’re not prepared for what happens next. Your hostess frowns, tilts her head to the side and utters these fateful words:

“Oh! Will he touch them, then?”

Your mind begins to race. Should your one year old child already know not to touch breakable things? How on earth has she managed to train her child to obey so quickly? Will your child ever listen to you? She must be a much better parent than you, surely? Look how tidy her house is! And she is still breast feeding, and you’re not. And last time you got together with this woman she told you the reason your child doesn’t sleep through the night is that you didn’t breastfeed him for long enough! Aaaaargh!!

We’ve all encountered her. The Mother Who Makes You Feel Like Shit. For ease of reference, we’ll call her Shirley (just because I don’t have a mummy friend of that name so there’s no danger of offending someone). Let’s deconstruct this situation for a moment. You’d got together with Shirley before. She had made comments previously that brought you down. But still you got together with her again. We’re all guilty of this and I’m not sure why…. If it was a date-date and not a play date, there would be no second chances if the guy you went to dinner with was inappropriate, rude and offensive, would there? There’s a lesson there if you think about it.

But anyway, we were talking about kindness. We can maybe practice some kindness to our fictional Shirley here, giving her the benefit of the doubt by assuming she was just tactless with her words. But let’s be honest. We’re grown ups. We need to take responsibility for our words and think about the affect they can have on others, especially mums, who if the responses to my last post are an accurate depiction, are a very vulnerable bunch.

That being said, we also need to practice some kindness to ourselves. In an ideal world, we’d avoid “Shirleys” like the plague, but that’s not always going to be possible. So, when a Shirley makes a comment, you have a choice. You can decide to let your inner “Anxious Annie” run rampage. You can let yourself believe that you’re a terrible mum, with uncontrollable offspring, a filthy house, deficient boobs… (((insert your own complex here))). Or you can practice some kindness to yourself. As I said in my “about” page, you can’t control what others say, but you can control how you react to it. You can have faith in the fact that you are absolutely best parent for your child. That you know them better than anyone else. That one day they’ll know not to touch stuff that they’re not supposed to, but for now, you’re there to protect them (and the innocent ornaments that inconsiderate Shirleys leave within their reach). In case you missed it the first time, I’ll say it again. You are absolutely the best mummy for your child. Please let that sink in.

Now, one final thought for you. I’ve talked a lot about Shirley here, and what we can do to control our reactions to the thoughtless, insensitive or judgemental things she might say or do. But consider this. Could you be Shirley? Without even realising it? This is why I’d like us all to practice speaking with kindness to each other. Remember the comments at the start of this post and think about whether the person you’re speaking to could have just written one. I try to see the good in people and I sincerely hope that the Shirleys out there aren’t intentionally trying to make the rest of us feel inferior. Let’s choose kind words, for our inner voices as well as our outer ones.