The Reframe That Made One Mother Feel Seen

0:03Words have power and sometimes changing just one word can completely change the way we see ourselves and our experience. Welcome, I am Zoe. Welcome to this Monday MotherKind moment. I'm so happy you are here. In this moment, I'm joined by broadcaster and author Emma Barnett, whose phrase maternity service stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. because for so many mothers, maternity leave doesn't feel like leave at all. It feels like service. It's relentless. It's demanding. It's beautiful and life-changing all at once. And in this conversation, Emma shares how that simple reframe came to her, why it transformed the way she understood motherhood, and why finding the right language for our experience can be so validating.

0:50Here it is. i suspect that we have something in common which is a love of language and words and i write in the start of my book that words make worlds and it's so fascinating to me how one switch from maternity leave to maternity service completely reframes the whole the whole thing How did you get that genius insight? Well, I started writing quite frantically at the start of a heat wave. So I was on my own with both children because my husband was doing a business course. And I was with the baby, who is our daughter, who's six months at this point, and our son, who was five. And I had to pick up every day.

1:37And I was doing that most days anyway. But this was a really intense week. So I went at the start of the week and bought a few bottles of rosé, bought some chub rub shorts from Marks and Sparks to deal with the heat and lots of walking. And then I decided to try and write down my experience of maternity leave. And two days into writing, and I was just writing in snatched moments, notes and observations I'd had, I had this thought that actually it was more like service. And there were elements of it that were very service-like, sort of kit, uniform being prepared for anything sacrificing a lot of what you had thought of as yourself and I think what was interesting is when I started writing which is why I think if you do need something or want to do something for yourself sometimes it can be good just to start because you don't know what's going to happen especially when you're in the love trench that is motherhood and new motherhood I actually felt my brain starting to wake up again you know like the neural pathways refiring.

2:44And I do think a lot of this time, although you're having hormones and new experiences and your brain we know is changing, which I know you've talked about and looked at with matrescence and that whole process, you are also quite deadened and you are on standby mode. And I was so excited just to have a bit of a fresh thought. And that's where it really began. Yeah, it's so true that I actually experienced my maternity services as quite a creative time. And I've heard lots and lots of mothers talk about that, that there was something, maybe it was the sleep deprivation, that a lot of those blocks to my creativity or what you have to say doesn't matter.

3:25And all that internal dialogue seemed to shift a bit for me in my maternity services that did allow a creativity to come through and definitely saved me too. Was that your experience? Yes and no. I mean, I think there were just hours and hours and days and days of walking. You know, there was lots of talking as well. And I think once you could turn your mind to something, yes. But I think what you're talking about is also the symptom of perhaps sleep deprivation, the awareness that you've done something incredible, the no shits left to give because there's so much shit around you, perhaps. You know, there's a layer of life taken off you as you give life that perhaps opens you up in a slightly different way.

4:09And I totally understand women who find or could on the surface find it annoying or irritating when people produce anything else during this time. I get that because most of the time I was in survival mode for the very small person I had managed finally to create and for our older child. But I do know what you mean about there just being something sometimes a bit more unblocked? That was my experience and I completely understand that frustration when you hear people like you and I talk about creating things during maternity service. At points I definitely would have want to have punched anyone that suggested that was an option.

4:56So I'm so curious because I've done a lot of reading about you obviously in preparation for this and I am fascinated to understand your two experiences of matrescence and how that has changed you as a person and a broadcaster and a professional. How is the Emma of pre-children different to the Emma sat in front of me today? Well I think it's a really interesting question for me and thank you for saying maternity service for trying it out with me and using the phrase because I think for me it's a reframe and the reason I wanted to put it out in the world apart from this being you know a portrait of my type is I'm astonished that more portraits don't exist in some ways if you'd been on a six-month or year-long tour of something else there'd be photos there'd be recollections there'd be stories but women are then going back into the next thing whether it's their job or a bit more of what were doing before and a bit less in other ways and so I wanted to put this out in the world I wanted to reframe because I felt in answer to your question blindsided by this experience the first time around and and and also blindsided the second time around and I remember going into water stones in Manchester where I'm from and I was working at the BBC in Manchester a couple of days a week at this point I used to work at a station called Five Live and I walked in and I I said to the guy on the desk, have you got a book that isn't about babies, isn't about parenting, but is about the woman becoming a mother?

6:29Have you got something about me being pregnant and the internal story of that? And I didn't know what I was asking for, but effectively I was asking for something about matrescence and I didn't know that word yet either. and this poor guy just took me to the parenting section and there were many of the books that I knew of already having worked on Woman's Hour for many years before I joined it full-time and also just as a curious interested reader and feminist they were what I was looking for and I only discovered this word maybe two or three months into my first loving tour of duty as I now like to refer to it.

7:09And it was like a light went on. And I was reading everything I could. And I think it's, as you know, and you will have talked about with your listeners, it's a process and adolescence is a process. And I felt like I needed to have acknowledged the abnegation of self and the development of myself. And I didn't know that when my first child was born, there was also a death. There was a death of who I was. And then there was a rebirth of who I was to become. And of course, many things carried over. But there is an interim stage where you really don't know what's going to be left. A bit like when you put glue on a piece of paper and put some sand on it, the shaking off takes some time.

7:59That was the episode. I hoped you loved it. If you did, please make sure you subscribe and I will see you next time. Have a great day.