Wear and Tear
Photo Courtesy | Holly Ruskin
BY HOLLY RUSKIN
Scrolling Instagram while I lay with my daughter as she napped, I came across a phrase that I just can’t seem to shake off. It was in relation to motherhood, how we (women, men, society at large) underestimate the toll that it takes on a woman. That, while pregnancy and birth are incredibly taxing on our bodies – we literally run a marathon in terms of how hard we work to keep our babies alive – ultimately it’s the years after they’re born that we are not prepared for.
It’s the grind, the daily push and pull of parenting that wreaks havoc on us. And by us, I really mean mothers. Because while you can have the best partner in the world, the most considerate and hard working husband and father you could wish for (and I do, he’s incredible and a staunch feminist), it is women who experience the wear and tear of raising children.
I assumed the carrying would end after my daughter was born. I was prepared to give up my body for ten months, and a while after as I recovered, but then I expected to return to myself. The strength I had before, my body back and my hands free to get on with stuff. Now though, my daughter is almost three and I have never needed rest more in my life – and that includes the period immediately after I left hospital following an emergency c-section.
Three years of motherhood have worn and torn my body. I lift, lower, push, pick up, retrieve, carry, bend, stretch, reach, pull and hold every single day. Just leaving the house involves crouching to help my daughter put her shoes on, running up and down the stairs to fetch the various things she absolutely must bring with us, lifting her into the buggy (after I’ve wrenched it from the shed and pushed it into shape), bending to retrieve my backpack and her water bottle, carrying her in the buggy down the steps and out of the house while still holding all the things she and I need to last a day away from home.
***
While trying to have a coffee with my daughter in a cafe last week, I was reaching under the table for a third time to pick up what she had dropped when a young woman walked past our table to the nearest empty one beside the window. The young, childless woman was wearing a clean white shirt and cropped blue jeans. Her toenails looked newly painted in her sandals, while I could tell her hair had never known a day not washed or blow dried. She wafted past, fresh and fruity perfume left in her wake. I watched as she pulled out her chair, sat down and reached into her sleek leather tote for a laptop that she plugged in before ordering her flat white. And that was it. Her coffee arrived, she typed. And, that was it. Her body simply rested in that moment. Neat and clean, she had everything she needed and had no reason to bend or stretch or move beyond reaching for her coffee occasionally.
We left the cafe before her, but I only saw her move twice – once to shift in her seat, finding a new and more comfortable position, and another time to go to the toilet. She was there and back in less than three minutes.
I felt myself yearn for that woman. I could feel the pull of an unencumbered body. Her hair, toenails, crisp white top. I wanted her. I wanted to be her. Because, I used to be her. Regularly washed, waxed, painted, massaged and rested.
Now, I do things like apply hair removal cream on my legs while I put a load of washing on and tint my eyebrows so I can tidy toys away at the same time. I can’t afford to get my hair done regularly and I wash it once a week to save time. It’s always just a bit greasy with a hint of dry shampoo. Exercise is usually a rushed ten minutes of yoga that does very little to help ease my neck and shoulder pain, now chronic from so much consistent lifting and carrying. If I can fit in a run, it’s very slow and much shorter than it used to be, in running gear that smells stale because I’m always forgetting to wash it.
I am tired all the time. The wear and tear on my womanhood and my body is written all over me. And I would love to say that it’s all worth it in the end because that’s how we expect the story of motherhood to neatly wrap up. But there are days when I would gladly swap my daughter for the woman I was before. I would spend all day with that woman; having coffee, reading a book, marvelling at the lightness in the way we carry ourself. Of course there are moments when I know that I am glad to be here. But they are fleeting and I have to reach for them, just like everything else these days.
***
In the weeks following my daughter’s birth, we ventured out to a place we’d always loved going for a drink and some time back in the real world. A couple paid their bill, got up and left. I turned to my husband and said “Will we ever just leave somewhere so easily again?” But he didn’t answer, he was busy taking a photo of me as I sat holding our newborn daughter. You can see on my face how tired I am and how unprepared for the next three years of wear and tear I really was.
Would I change being a mother? No.
But would I give myself the gift of knowing exactly what motherhood would bring to and take away from my body? Yes. Without pause or hesitation, yes. Because I believe all women deserve to know what growing, birthing and raising another human being is really like.
A mother’s love is, honestly, our wear and tear.
HOLLY RUSKIN is a mama and lover of women’s words. A freelance writer and Film lecturer, her work includes editing books and screenplays, writing essays and poetry. Holly co-founded blood moon POETRY, a small press that publishes poetry written by women @bloodmoonpoetrypress. Her words can be found in various publications; a collection of her poems on motherhood have been featured in the Amazon bestseller Not The Only One. She writes for Motherscope and Sunday Mornings at the River. Connect with her on Instagram @hollyruskin_.