The trials and rituals of motherhood

It was in London—a dreary day (as per usual), and a woman was struggling to get her pram down some stairs, demonstrating how cumbersome it can be to leave the house with children.

It's funny on reflection—that was perhaps the first conscious thought I had had about the reality of raising kids. I mean, my own mum brought up three kids while doing a PhD—a task I'm sure was filled with difficulties more complex than dragging a pram down a flight of stairs. But of course as a child I didn't notice—perhaps that was down to the seamless job my mother did.

I think I noticed the woman struggling with the pram because I was considering parenthood myself. All of a sudden, the world of parents and children had become visible to me.

Before that, it was something I just didn't see. I didn't notice the play parks, the preschools and the child-friendliness of eateries. At most I may have been aware of a toddler throwing a tantrum in a cafe or a crying baby on a plane. But they were someone else's problem and I couldn't put myself in the parent's shoes.

I may even have given the offending child a dirty look (I've been at the receiving end of many since).

When I saw the woman on the stairs I was on a precipice. Should I dive in to the world of parenthood, despite its many apparent difficulties, or should I resist? In the end my husband and I took a leap of faith and dived in.

Becoming a mother was an immense change. I didn't want or expect parenthood to transform me that much, but like countless others before me, I couldn't help but be bowled over.

The change impacted every fibre of who I am today—someone whose identity seems to be intrinsically tied to being a mother. Of course it's not like that for everyone, but becoming a mother brought me a great deal of joy—a happiness that perhaps I hadn't experienced before.

It also brought a bone-aching tiredness that was a shock to my system. I wish someone had warned me just how hard parenting can be.

When I had my daughter we were in London with no family around us. It was only after she was born that I realised how much we needed help. I was under the mistaken impression that a baby was easy to take care of. How hard could it be to look after a small being who mostly slept and woke only to eat and poop?

Well she showed us! A few days after her birth I made a teary phone call to my mum, who was on the other side of the world, and told her to get on the next plane to London.

It's amazing how much we need our mothers or other caregivers when we become parents ourselves. Suddenly their words come back to haunt us: 'One day you'll see how hard it is to be a parent'. It is. It really is.

Before I started working on a radio documentary, I thought I would just record women from different cultural backgrounds talking about the rituals they partook in during their pregnancy and their early days of motherhood.

And while I learned a lot about different cultures, the one thing all the women spoke about was how much they looked to their family and their mothers especially, for help and advice. It was almost like becoming a parent makes you want to anchor yourself back to those who brought you into the world.

Only a few days after I made that teary phone call to my mum from London, she was by my side. She ended up staying for six weeks and helped me navigate those hazy early days of parenthood.

Though I didn't abide by some of the practices she did when she became a mother—such as confinement (where you stay at home for the first 40 days after giving birth)—I was very grateful for her support.

There's something about motherhood that makes you come full circle. You realise that yes, it really does take a village or a tribe to raise a child, and you often wish that you had such a tribe around—someone to hand a crying child to, or someone whose shoulder you can cry on yourself.

Many of the mums I spoke to don't have family in Australia they can turn to, just like I didn't in London, and then again when I had my second child in Dubai.

Perhaps this is why, even though so many of us are far from family, we create a little piece of home with the rituals we hang on to. 

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