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Hollie McNish: The things new mothers aren't always told
Hollie McNish is a poet who writes about motherhood - from morning sickness and breastfeeding in public to the impossibility of ever finishing a hot cup of tea. Here she argues that taboos still prevent people talking openly about childbirth and bringing up a child.
Until she gave birth to her third baby, my now 90-year-old grandma thought that her first two children might perhaps have been born out of her bottom.
Last week when I interviewed her for a new series on Woman's Hour, on Radio 4, she told me the story again but followed it up this time with a rather worried, "Of course you won't want to say that on the BBC."
I think what she meant was: "Please don't put that on the radio for my bridge club friends to hear."
The first time the subject came up was when I was pregnant. I think I was complaining about how little people had warned me about the heap of (negative) emotions, sickness and pains that can be related to growing a small child inside your body.
No blood was mentioned and the word 'vagina' was almost sinful to even think about
When she said the words "born out of my bottom" I almost spat out the tea she always makes me before we sit down on the two armchairs in her lounge to chat.
I asked her to tell me the story again after I had given birth to my daughter.
I was by then even more interested in (and fairly angry about) the taboos still surrounding motherhood - from those emotional highs and lows so often veiled in the perfect "falling in love" birth story to issues surrounding sex, the mother's body, loneliness and claustrophobia, which all remain heaped under photos of clean white sofas, white linen shirts and the standard images of white upper middle class families walking down a beach with a very shiny coated labrador.
Find out more
After having given birth myself, I was shocked and a little saddened by the idea that any woman could be told so little about where the baby would emerge from. True, when giving birth, I was also told to "push through my bum" and it did kind of feel like that. But having received swarms of other info surrounding the whole event (I can't think of a better word) there was no way I could actually have made this mistake.
So when I was asked to spend two months interviewing mothers and fathers about their experiences of having and bringing up children, I almost begged to be allowed to interview my gran - to have a cup of tea as we always do and sit on those two reclining chairs, just this time with a microphone in our faces.
etc...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37630561
Hollie McNish is a poet who writes about motherhood - from morning sickness and breastfeeding in public to the impossibility of ever finishing a hot cup of tea. Here she argues that taboos still prevent people talking openly about childbirth and bringing up a child.
Until she gave birth to her third baby, my now 90-year-old grandma thought that her first two children might perhaps have been born out of her bottom.
Last week when I interviewed her for a new series on Woman's Hour, on Radio 4, she told me the story again but followed it up this time with a rather worried, "Of course you won't want to say that on the BBC."
I think what she meant was: "Please don't put that on the radio for my bridge club friends to hear."
The first time the subject came up was when I was pregnant. I think I was complaining about how little people had warned me about the heap of (negative) emotions, sickness and pains that can be related to growing a small child inside your body.
No blood was mentioned and the word 'vagina' was almost sinful to even think about
When she said the words "born out of my bottom" I almost spat out the tea she always makes me before we sit down on the two armchairs in her lounge to chat.
I asked her to tell me the story again after I had given birth to my daughter.
I was by then even more interested in (and fairly angry about) the taboos still surrounding motherhood - from those emotional highs and lows so often veiled in the perfect "falling in love" birth story to issues surrounding sex, the mother's body, loneliness and claustrophobia, which all remain heaped under photos of clean white sofas, white linen shirts and the standard images of white upper middle class families walking down a beach with a very shiny coated labrador.
Find out more
- Listen to Becoming a Mother – a Hot Cup of Tea with Hollie McNish
- Hollie McNish will be live on Woman's Hour on Monday 17 October at 10:00 BST on BBC Radio 4
- Listen again via the Woman's Hour website
After having given birth myself, I was shocked and a little saddened by the idea that any woman could be told so little about where the baby would emerge from. True, when giving birth, I was also told to "push through my bum" and it did kind of feel like that. But having received swarms of other info surrounding the whole event (I can't think of a better word) there was no way I could actually have made this mistake.
So when I was asked to spend two months interviewing mothers and fathers about their experiences of having and bringing up children, I almost begged to be allowed to interview my gran - to have a cup of tea as we always do and sit on those two reclining chairs, just this time with a microphone in our faces.
etc...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37630561
