In October 2022, I became a mum.
It didn’t happen as they warned me in 90s sex education. I didn’t look at a man and get pregnant. It was a four-year slog, that drained us emotionally and financially.
These four books punctuate different stages of my journey of becoming a parent. In my experience, the contemplating, the conceiving, and the caring for a child is both brilliant and brutal. These four authors have helped me immeasurably.
Shelia Heti, Motherhood
Whether to have children is still a relatively undiscussed topic, so when I was in the research phase of my own motherhood project, I was pleased to find this book.
When I was contemplating the big decision of “motherhood” - wondering if I’d be committing a climate offence by having a baby or voluntarily lighting a match on my mental health - it was refreshing to read someone else’s considerations on whether having a child was a wise and moral choice.
Shelia wrestles with the question of being a mother and what it feels like to be a childfree woman of childbearing age. She poses that with every decision there are losses and gains, and this thinking continues to bring me both courage and comfort when making decisions, not just about children.
This book is a much-needed investigation into womanhood, parenthood, and about how we live, and who we live for.
Laura Dockrill, What Have I Done?
Having lived through a breakdown, I wondered what I’d be doing to my mental health if I were to have a baby.
I read Laura’s gruelling experience of post-partum psychosis as homework. Rather than ignoring a possibility of becoming very unwell again, I faced my fear and thought it best to be prepared.
Like me, Laura had never experienced mental illness before her crisis. But shortly after the birth of her son, Laura became paranoid, delusional and suicidal. On Mother's Day, just three weeks after giving birth, Laura was institutionalised without her baby.
Rather than a toss away comment in a pre-natal class, Laura describes the debilitating reality of postnatal mental illness - the shock and the suffering, how to have hope and where to get help. This is a difficult but important read that challenges romanticised expectations of perfect parenthood.
To be able to read about Laura’s experience of mental illness so explicitly, inspired me to write about my own. Her sharing helped my understanding, and my understanding helped reduce my fear. If my writing can help reduce the fear of mental illness for even just a few, I’ll be very pleased.
Claire Lynch, Small: On Motherhoods
Claire knew that having children with her wife would not be straightforward and is generous in sharing their experience in this frank memoir.
Her poetry and prose are both devastating and uplifting, as she considers whether it is our smallness that makes our lives so big.
She describes the microscopic cells subdividing in a petri dish in a fertility treatment centre, tiny lines announcing or denying pregnancy, and the miniature oxygen masks that her children wore in their live-saving incubators.
Conceiving children with a group of scientists and a catheter is a unique horror and honour. I’m glad to be able to hear from other people in the club.
Clover Stroud, My Wild and Sleepless Nights
When my three-month-old baby slept next to me, I consumed My Wild and Sleepless Nights. As I read, I felt so completely understood and cared for by Clover. She shares her experience of the arrival of her fifth child whilst continuing to navigate mothering her other four, and in particular, her first born who was fifteen at the time.
Her story so viscerally described what I was feeling, the madness of birth and the early weeks and months of a new child, whilst giving me insight on what might be to come. She describes the intensity of motherhood, and how it is filled with both ecstasy and boredom.
Clover’s brutally honest reflections of motherhood supported me as I was starting to navigate what it might mean to be a mum to my baby.
Have you read any books or articles about mental health and parenthood? I’d love to hear your recommendations.