THE "MOTHERBOOK"
The Bad Side of Motherhood

Lotta Lehmusvaara

Kids are wonderful. Little baby pyjamas, first fabulous smile, first steps and first shoes… We all know this and that holy motherhood brings out the feminine in our consciousness. But there is the other side of the coin. The tiredness, endless screaming and smelly diapers, boring days and bitterness.

Susanna had her first when she was 29, I had my first when I was 31. We had both studied Political Sciences and had a job in publishing and media business. We had lively middle-class city lives with parties and gossiping, travelling, second hand shops, films and cafe au lait…And suddenly we were stacked home with pink screaming creatures. Why didn't anyone tell us? Why didn´t anyone say what it was really like to become a mother?

Because we both liked writing, we decided to write a book about motherhood. Most of these books in bookstores were Anglo-American in origin and came from a different cultural background. Finnish women become mothers rather late in life and are already part of the labour force with a "9 to 5" life style.
We wanted to tell our sisters about our experiences. We knew that every woman is different and so is every baby, but we thought that there is a social image of "a good mother" in our patriarchal culture, and that no one can avoid it when one stops menstruating and announces that one is pregnant.

Your body is not yours anymore. People start telling you how you should live. You cannot travel where you want, eat and drink what you want, people you don't know start making remarks about your body at bus stops…And the worst is your mother in law.

Survival kit

Susanna and I started to meet and it was very easy to decide on the basic concept of our book. We wanted it to be a provocative, deeply personal and entertaining book about motherhood. We wanted other women to find companions in these pages. It was also therapy for us to meet and discuss the content because we understood each other well. We were not alone with our anger anymore.

The "Motherbook" came out in 1993. In the foreword we said that we did not want to tell the reader how she should or should not behave. We wanted the book to be a survival kit for a woman, who has to face all kind of pressures whilst being pregnant and once the child is born.

The first section talks about pregnancy. Being pregnant is not enough - the woman is asked to experience pregnancy. People try to sell you maternity bras, maternity swimming suits, maternity body lotions, and of course tell you that the baby in your stomach wants to hear classical music… Baby mental growth CDs are probably on their way out soon!
Is the creature inside your body part of you, or does it belong to other people or to your country? Because you don't know exactly what to do, you start living according to the concept of "better to say no than to regret it later in life". Even if a woman knows that one glass of sparkling wine will not do any harm to the baby, she still has a glass of coke at a cocktail party…Just in case. She does not travel with her husband to Russia…Just in case.

Many women feel depressed because society expects them to flourish and the mirror tells quite the opposite. It is also frustrating that every one expects you to change. You may want to be the same person you were before and talk about the same things as before but…Are you allowed to do that?

Susanna wrote that when she was pregnant one woman told her that she was depressed after having two children. For how long? Susanna asked. 'For seven years', the woman replied. Try to flourish after hearing that!

For many of us it is also a big shock to realise that we are connected to our husbands' families for the rest of our lives. Grandmothers and grandfathers would now be part of your life…Whether you like it or not.

Because people have fewer children nowadays, grandparents and other relatives start to interfere into your life with their little tips and hints. I refused to buy the lotion my mother in law recommended, and one day she insisted on visiting me…with the bottle of you know what. Your life is not yours anymore.
The second part of the Motherbook talks about the first months with the baby. We were both upset and horrified with the newborn at home. There was nothing good about becoming a mother. We both felt betrayed.

Because you are not a motherly type, your identity is lost. You are supposed to take care of two people - twice as much as what you are used to. So you don't take care of yourself anymore. Your life is over. But don't you worry…After a while you will probably get used to the idea of being a mother.

You are worried about your career, and you miss your social life. In our book we encourage women to take the first steps themselves. If your friends - especially men - do not call because they think they might disturb you, stop playing victim and call them.

The whole choir of experts tell you that breastfeeding is the right way and you better succeed. If you don't you are an enemy of Mother Earth and need therapy! In our book we say that if a woman does not want to breastfeed or is not able to do it - so what? There are many others who have also 'failed'!

So the third part is about experts and professionals who you cannot escape from even if you want to. In Finland every pregnant woman is supposed to go to a public clinic for medical care and social support, and she or the father are also expected to take the child there for check-ups for several years. These visits, as well as giving birth, are free of charge. The system is good but many people feel that even these experts usually don't give direct advise and that they somehow try to manipulate their clients. For example if you are a vegetarian you do not usually get support from them.

In Motherbook we recommend these services but we also point out that we are the ones who must make the final decision. We do not have to ask permission to make our own choices , we can ask for one opinion… and even a second opinion.

We all want the best for our baby and we go overboard. We buy things we do not want or need. Because new parents are usually insecure they are a good target group for the advertising industry. They know too well that you are ready to do everything to maximise the security of your newborn. 'New plastic hat to rescue little eyes from shampoo.' Are you sure your baby gets enough of 'our product'?

We also buy products for our own comfort, like the organic wool blanket that gives your baby the best dreams! (and provides you finally with a good rest, too!). Everyone should have a wise friend to warn one about this nonsense.

It also seems that it is not enough if you try to live like your parents did when you were a kid. Now you need special knowledge to make the right choices. There are more and more magazines, books and internet sites which try to convince us that this is the right thing to do and the right choice, which is of course all because of the companies that advertise in these media. They want our money!

What was before quite natural and simple is now complicated and needs expertise advise. We are bombarded with 'new evidence based on scientific results'and the 'latest practices'. What was the right thing to do last year is not recommended this year. Nutrition in particular seems to be a difficult area. What is actually needed is common sense!

Fight for your rights!

We knew that there was a need for our book. In our culture mothers are expected to handle the baby, even those who have no practical skills. The pursuit of perfectionism is connected to motherhood. But there are fewer and fewer superwomen - if any existed after Snow-white!

The Motherbook was a great success in Finland. Because most of the journalists are also mothers, they welcomed our message and gave the book a lot of publicity. book which was suppose to be full of fairy tales, was full of scary tales. Suddenly mothers were ordinary human beings - flesh and blood. From that moment it is acceptable to publicly talk about the bad side of motherhood. The book is still available in public libraries in Finland, so that every one who is interested can read it.

Lotta Lehmusvaara is a content designer and freelance journalist living in Helsinki, Finland. Her e-mail address is: Lotta.Lehmusvaara@a-klinikka.fi

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