‘I was utterly ripe to be devoted’: the fraught business of modern mothering, 2000

In 2000, Nicci Gerrard explored five facets of the fraught, freighted business of modern mothering.

Dorothy’s mother died when she was 11, but it took her five years to accept it. ‘She was this living, pulsating thing inside me.’ Other people’s stories and memories were just confusing: ‘To me, she was just Mum.’ It took her a long time to dare to imagine motherhood herself, but when she had children, ‘I found her again… I can see her. I talk to her.’

Peter grew up without a mother (‘Among happy families, I was an outcast’), but at 19 he became one, sort of, when his partner left him as primary carer for their two children. ‘Sometimes it was hard, but I was utterly ripe to be devoted… to be the mother I hadn’t had.’ At 30, he found his own mother, but it was bittersweet. ‘I adored her… It was too late, because she was the one who needed looking after.’

Joan was one of the 20% of western European women who had actively chosen not to have children. Growing up, motherhood looked like just one option among millions and not the one she wanted. There had been ‘no real heartsearching… no regrets’. After all, both mothers and non-mothers faced the same ‘torrents of abuse’.

Claire, a working mother of two, lived ‘two separate lives’ at home and in her pressured job – fine in the short term, but eventually something had to give. She stepped back, finding she ‘wanted to be the person who was there for them… meet their friends, know about their days.’ She found herself wondering, ‘Who needs who?’

When her husband was diagnosed with cancer, Carrie found she ‘needed to be the foundation, the rock, the Good Mother’. When Martyn died, she needed to be even more present but, three years on, realised she wanted an existence outside motherhood: ‘Self-esteem, a sense of who I am.’ For her son Joe, she wanted to be the bow to his arrow: ‘Strong, resilient and flexible. I try…’