Hi there,

Me again another year older and definitely another year wiser! I feel that I have definitely grown and matured in this first year of my FU forties!

Hubby and I went to the big smoke today, we often went into London after we got the results of our failed IVF attempts. But today, we chose to go to get a different scene and some much needed inspiration. I fancied looking at some photographs, professional ones. So I looked up photograph galleries and found one off Oxford Street. We went in and looked at the different exhibitions.

Ironically, their main exhibition was called ‘Home Truths about Motherhood’. There were a range of themes to the photos all from a range of artists. Some were quite graphic and shocking. Many involved nude pictures of mother and baby; some showing the scars of Cesarean sections or breast feeding. Another section tackled the role of the over 50 mother and how she tried to view herself as a sexual being and reclaim her identity now she was no longer ‘needed’ as much in her child’s life.

There was a huge image of a woman, a mother, who had been photographed, suspended from the ceiling of a lounge and through her legs (so that it she appeared to be trapped) was a dolls house. I found it annoying. For me it symbolised a lot of what I experience from many mothers. They act like martyrs and moan about not having a life because they are too busy with their children. This got me thinking about woman and how come a lot of women end up having kids but don’t have a sense of fulfilment.

In my work, as a primary school teacher, I come into contact with a lot of mothers: mothers of children that I teach as well as work colleagues. I do see a lot of doting mothers who ‘love’ their children to pieces, which is lovely. BUT, many of these women have happily given up their lives to be a mother and therefore put all their efforts into being everything to their child. However, I also see the other end those who couldn’t care less about their offspring. Send them into school without a bye or a care, clothes which haven’t been near a washing machine; children who can’t communicate without getting cross because that’s what they’ve experienced  at home.

It got me thinking. Why do women who clearly don’t like children have children? Surely, they would have been happier without these ‘burdens’? So why did they get pregnant and have a family?

After a lot of thinking I wondered if it came back to what I thought when I started to ponder my purpose. Do these women think that they will find meaning and purpose to their life once they become a mother? Or is it related to the fact that society expects woman to get married and then have children? Therefore these women have children because that’s what is expected of them rather because they consciously choose to have them. WHY? Why does this happen?

I think it’s because, despite the feminist movement and the birth of the contraceptive pill, society portrays the function and purpose of women is to procreate. Women ‘like the idea of becoming a mum’ but often the reality isn’t always the ‘strawberry and cream Cath Kidston world’ of their imagination.

 Again, I started to think, if this is true, then, “Are we doing our girls, our women, a disservice?” There are many ways to find one’s purpose and meaning and quite often it doesn’t come from having children. Why aren’t we educating our women? Why aren’t we asking our young girls to find out who they are, before they become someone else? (A wife, a mother.)

I guessing it has something to do with what I believe to be the main cause of society’s failure: ‘The breakdown of the family unit’. More and more children are growing up in a family which lacks a father and the influence of worldly wise grandparents. Girls are growing up and becoming women without a father and crave the balanced family unit which they themselves lacked. Boys also are growing up without the positive male role models.

May be we should do more? But what?

One section of the exhibition really ‘floored’ me. It was a photographic recount of a woman’s IVF journey. Hubby and I both choked back the tears as we walked along this woman’s too familiar journey. The photos were framed and displayed at heart level on a shelf and so you we able to literally walk the journey. Under the different sections were pages of a Filofax calendar with familiar markings of different dates which spanned across several years. On each photo the woman was pictured alone and the clear emotion which screamed out from the pictures was desolation. Other people at the exhibition saw the different images, but I guessing unless you have been through or connected to someone who has travelled through this path many of the images would be lost on the viewer. However, I hoped that the pictures would provoke a question about the process. It was good to see that it was represented as part of the motherhood home truths exhibition, as it did show a balanced representation.

So we found inspiration in a way. Well, it was more like we shared a bit of our pain in a way, as the exhibition struck a chord in both of us. However, we are both much more stronger because of the IVF and in spite of it and it was a shared experience which binds us together.

Another 30 days until my big review of the year…. Better look at what I was intending to do this year…