Eleanor's Letter: Mother's Day, bitter-sweet for many. Two wonderful books that can help

If you are childfree, a stepmother, have lost your mum or find the relationship difficult - we're thinking of you on this soggy day

Dear Queenagers

Greetings from soggy London where the world is trudging around in the rain with bedraggled bunches of flowers for Mother’s Day. The Heath was almost deserted – only hardcore dogwalkers, joggers and swimmers braving the deluge. The paths had become streams, with mini deltas forming of sand and mud; in the pond the drops were falling so hard they looked like they were emerging out of the surface of the water. But there were upsides! It was not just nice weather for ducks but all birds; tiny blue and yellow tits cheeping cheerily, a murmuration on Boudicca’s hill which is now a mudflat; and wood pigeons and woodpeckers in full voice and the willow tree springing green. It felt virtuous to be out (and we bumped into three sets of friends!)  I returned to a kitchen full of hungover Gen Zs (my girls got back from Uni for Easter on Friday and in from clubbing at 7am this morning). I made them coffee and hot chocolate - there is a heap of young uns, downstairs, slumped on the sofa. My little one gave me a present of green soap and green stone bracelets… aaahhh!

So Mother’s Day. It’s bittersweet for many of us. I big shout out today for those who aren’t mothers – over a third of our Noon community. And also a thought for all the stepmother’s out there – a difficult job but such an important one, the entwining of our intimate lives with young ones whether they are ours or not brings joy and pain. So let’s raise a glass to all the brave women taking that on and all who have benefitted from a step-mother’s love. I did! Here’s to you Tessie! My stepmother died five years ago and I know her loss is still a massive deal for my brother and sister – so let’s also spare a moment for everyone whose mother is NOT around today, who has passed, or is estranged, or where the relationship is difficult.

I know that is true for many Queenagers. We are such a pioneering generation, sandwiched between our mothers who were born and bred in the 50s with all its post-war weirdness about a woman’s place being in the home. Itself a retro lie since women during the war were very much the backbone of the war effort, working in munitions factories, ploughing the land, working as air raid wardens and medics. There was a massive propaganda push after the fighting ended to force women to be housewives again so the men could have their jobs back. Many of our mums were raised in the middle of that. They didn’t have the choices that we take for granted.

Sure, some of them were pioneers in their own right and worked outside the home – my mum and stepmum included. We Queenagers stand on the shoulders of giants. I was raised by a working mother (University lecturer), a working step-mother (MP) and my barrister aunt Barbara Mills QC and the first female Director of Public Prosecutions. I grew up knowing it was possible to be a mum and have a career and I expected to have that too. My girls have grown up watching me work and be the breadwinner (I couldn’t have done it without my husband). Normalising that is crucial.

Being a working mum turned out pretty well, I reckon. Sure, there were moments that I missed when they were little – my elder daughter still berates me for arriving AFTER she’d given her primary school leavers speech – but mostly I made it to the ones that mattered (sweaty, running from the tube, telling terrible lies to the office about why I had to leave early).

The only time I almost gave up was when I went back to work after my first pregnancy. Alice was only six months old and I missed her terribly, my boss was beyond horrid; my breasts were agony because I stopped breastfeeding so fast. I toughed it out for a few months, crying a lot, until I remember thinking – sod this. So I went in and resigned.

My boss asked me where I was going. I said I didn’t know but I’d find something, that I just couldn’t continue as I was because I felt so unhappy - failing at work and at home. It was one of those moments where I truly felt I had nothing to lose. I just needed to get out of there. But it turned out to be an unwitting master-stroke. My boss asked for a few days to come up with a plan. When I went in the next week he said: how about you work at home on a Wednesday? Back then that was unheard of. No-one at my level worked flexibly; I hadn’t asked for such a thing because I believed it to be impossible. But it turned out they wanted to keep me. Discovering I was so valued when I felt so useless, was a game-changer for my confidence and sense of self worth. And it was my boss’s idea, so he had skin in the game to make the wednesday at home work. It was a game changer. It allowed me to square the circle; to be at the school gate and meet the other mums and be part of that world - but also to be a good enough Editor. I was a flexible working trailblazer!  

These days many working mums benefit from such arrangements; flexible working is even enshrined as a right in law. This has all happened in the last two decades. Women like my mum, and step mum and aunt broke down barriers so it wasn’t so hard for us. Indeed my stepmother Tessa Jowell MP alongside Harriet Harman MP were part of the 100-strong posse of Blair Babe MPs (terrible name) who drove through reforms around maternity leave (it changed from six months to a year between my two pregnancies) and the right to flexible work (see above). Many of the women at the newspaper where I worked who were ten years older than me had had to return to work when their babies were only four months old. They wore the scars of that. My hope is that all the women who work and are mothers change the working world a bit so it is less hard for the women who come after. My push now and over International Women’s Month is around Queenagers and looking out for them in the work place; this is the final frontier. We need to keep pushing for progress - and not grudge the younger lot their relative good fortune. There is nothing worse than the senior woman who reckoned that she suffered, so everyone else should too. I am happy that it will be easier for my daughters – or I bloody well hope it will!!! - that’s the point of the push. That’s the only way change ever happens!

Let’s also spare a thought for all the childfree women in companies who pick up the slack for the mothers who have to leave early. Let’s remember that the childfree have personal lives too. We may not all be mothers but most of us HAVE mothers or elderly parents who will need caring for. And many women are caring for disabled siblings or partners too. Nearly a quarter of women over fifty are doing more than 10 hours of unpaid elderly care a week – and the intersectionality on this is sobering. Pakistani and Bangladeshi Queenagers are doing up to 50 hours a week of unpaid care (figures from the Centre for Ageing Better).

It seems to me particularly important on Mother’s Day to say – and mean – that motherhood is not a pre-requisite of a woman’s life. That there are many ways for our legacies to live on in the world without having procreated. Indeed if we are ever going to get beyond a patriarchal valuation of women – as useful for our fecundity and fanciability – then de-centring motherhood as the defining female experience is crucial.

Mother’s Day itself has always been controversial. It is an early 20^th Century institution. It began as a day when the religious would return to their mother church. And was publicised in the US as a day for the troops to remember their mothers. The mother of mother’s day, Anna Jarvis, hated the way it immediately became commercialised and spent her whole life fighting the industry of cards, flowers and restaurant meals that grew up around it. It is now the third biggest commercial ‘holiday’ in the US. And not just there, my email has been full of Mother’s Day bollocks (flowers, restaurants, clothes I could buy) for weeks. I can only imagine how triggering all of that is for those whose mothers have just died, or who are childfree and not by choice.

So by all means call your mum, give her a hug, tell her how much you love her – and if you are a mum I hope your offspring are spoiling you today. But let’s not go nuts over Mother’s Day and let’s remember that being a mum is NOT the be-all and end-all of who we are and what we can do as Queenagers.

And remember: our mothers, particularly when we love them but they drive us crazy, are our greatest teachers. I love the bit in the TV series Ted Lasso when he talks about parents. His advice is: focus on the good bits, think of all the gifts they have given you, and forgive the bad…. If you haven’t watched it, do, it’s a treat. Oh, and if you are looking for a good read, I’ve read two wonderful new books this week, both about mothers. A new novel by Sharon Blackie called The Bright Delirious Burning Blue (all about a Queenager and her mother, dark and light, beautifully observed, about the damage we can do each other but also the redemption that is possible with forgiveness).  

And, Save Me From the Waves by Jessica Hepburn – a tour de force memoir from a woman who climbed Everest, ran the London Marathon and swam the channel – and listened to ALL the nearly 900 episodes of Desert Island Discs while she did it. Her book is about the pain of not becoming the mother she always wanted to be, the grief for the children she never had and for the great love(s) of her life who betrayed her. But how she found salvation in the words of wisdom and music of others on Desert Island Discs and in huge physical achievement. I really loved both these books. They are my Mother’s Day present to all of you!

By the way: thanks so much all of you who came to the Noon Birthday Circle (to celebrate Noon turning three) on Friday, I’ve been scoffing cake ever since! I’d love to know how doing it online worked for you and any thoughts you have about how we could improve it… first one to email me eleanor@inherspace.co.uk gets the Happy 3rd Birthday Noon Biscuiteers biscuits,

Love

Eleanor

Oh and for all of you Paid Subscribers there is a little extra treat, below the line…

Yes it’s the first peak at the cover of my book! I am so excited -out August 1^st and being announced at the London Book Fair this week. Watch this space… hope you like it!