Description

Our yummy mummies discuss the many types of guilt that pregnant women and mums feel.

Transcript

Mara Lee: For me the guilt of motherhood began I think when I was pregnant and really rowing that night out on the tiles that I had before I knew that I was pregnant with my daughter and you're thinking, Oh! You know, 79 glasses of wine in one evening, would she be okay? And it started there and then I remember when I had her and trying to breastfeed and it not happening and thinking about giving it up but just you know that awful guilt but you are not doing the best thing for her and if you were -- if you perceived, you would be able to breastfeed and I couldn't and when I gave up I just, I felt just really -- Rachel Royce: How could she give up? Mara Lee: I think she was fully bottle-fed for about 6-7 weeks and I was longing to do it earlier but that sort of you know it’ll get into your health. Yeah exactly, and you know she to this day, she has asthma and she has been in hospitals a couple of times with asthma attacks. Now they are saying that breast milk can help prevent things like asthma allergies and I think it's probably guilt of -- Ingrid Tarrant: But how far -- breast fed her till then. Well you could look at it that way. You got to kind of like diminish your guilt, haven't you? But it is [Voice Overlap] Cheryl Baker: You should not feel guilty at all, it didn't suit you, it didn't happen. It wasn't right for you and physically it wasn't going to happen -- Mara Lee: Yeah, I think you are right, I mean I think I would have been worse off mother if I had in it. But I think it's just because you want to do the right thing, aren’t you? And we get so much information now of what the right thing is. So if you can't do or if you don't do it and somebody can choose not to do it. Ingrid Tarrant: Some women absolutely find the whole thought repulsive -- Cheryl Baker: I didn't like breastfeeding at all. Ingrid Tarrant: Oh! Did you not? Cheryl Baker: Didn't like at all. Ingrid Tarrant: And yet some women love it and they won't give up breastfeeding, they breastfeed their children -- Yes. Yes, which is really weird. Cheryl Baker: And I can feel guilty because I didn't like it but then I thought I did it for the same reason, it's best for the baby. Rachel Royce: What did you have? Did you have pain with it? Cheryl Baker: And I had my started from my first born and that was -- thank goodness for the cabbage leaves. But -- No, it wasn't -- I thought it was best for them, I just, I knew that I was producing milk and it was the natural thing to do. You, know parents going back to million years ago breastfeeding their babies and I am not any different, I am a woman, my breasts are full of milk, I should feed my babies and I hated every minute of it. I didn't get any -- all of that mother and baby bonding stuff didn't come from breastfeeding. Ingrid Tarrant: But it was a practical measure and actually so much easier than bottle. So but did you hate doing it. At times you are thinking, I really, I am only doing this because I feel I should. Cheryl Baker: Yeah. I felt like a cow. Ingrid Tarrant: Did you? Cheryl Baker: Yeah, I felt like a cow. Rachel Royce: Did you ever have a breast pump because -- Cheryl Baker: Yes! Well, that was the worst thing. Now well I did accord a gazey. I used to breastfeed one because I just couldn't cup and breastfeed into it the same time because one would slip off and you haven't got a hand free -- get it by the ear with your teeth, pull it back on. So I used to breastfeed one and then when I would finish breastfeeding that would come dicey, stick it on the other tit and -- I am just and then as soon as I would finish that, I don’t have enough time to clean yourself up and baby crying and breastfeeding and I think that’s possibly why I hated it. Rachel Royce: I went away for a week when my baby was just 4 months old. And which was lovely and romantic and everything, I took a breast pump and I overdid it because hardly anything comes out when you first do it, you don't think it is. And then overnight my breast swelled up so big and I read in a baby book, you mustn’t did it too hard otherwise I’ll think you’ve got to wrapping this baby on your breast, and I was in such agony. Mara Lee: But did you feel guilty when you eventually gave up. Rachel Royce: Yeah, I knew but I had to give up because I got my stage life. I just wasn't enough of a breast-feeder and I had problems with it and it just hurts so much and that kind of thing and going back to work. Yeah, then you kind of think -- I mean my boys now, they are 6 and 7, they are obsessed with tits. I think, Oh! Is it because I didn’t breastfeed them? Because they were going mummy boobies! And you got milk in your boobies mummy? And I was always kind of playing it. And I’d say, “Oh God! I haven’t breastfed them along enough. They are going to end up being crabs or something.” Mara Lee: Its funny how we play that promising things and all of the -- our kids’ actions, whether they’re babies or you know when they grow old or like ours, little bit -- you know I didn’t have any but I tend to bring it back to myself if only I hadn’t to. It's an awful way to be -- I wish you could sort of -- Cheryl Baker: You are doing that -- Ingrid Tarrant: Don't you but we should -- yeah should always beat ourselves up. We can never do anything right and something -- well, we feel that when something goes wrong and then it's like oh well that's why it went wrong. When it seems why we don’t question it, do we? Mara Lee: Actually that's true. It’s kind of escape goat! It's like you need to find a solution, why isn't he or she sleeping? Oh well, that's because -- I can’t, you know -- didn't give them enough food or whatever it is. Rachel Royce: Get back to work or whatever and -- I think that going back to work is the biggest gauge to me. My little boy, I mean even now he sits and he wanders around the house picking up money and going, mummy here is the money, you don't have to go to work now. Ingrid Tarrant: They hate it then that you work. Rachel Royce: They hate me going to work. Ingrid Tarrant: And what about when you leave in the morning? Is it kind of all the tears when you’re saying bye? Rachel Royce: No, no, no, not like that. But I have actually luckily managed to get my work down to just 3 days a week which is so much better because I used to be doing 50 hours work a week and never seeing the kids. But they still will do this, how long is Cheryl looking after, which is the nanny and how long are you looking after. And they -- you are not looking after as many days and I don't know if they are deliberately trying to make me feel guilty or if there is something that they [Voice Overlap] Ingrid Tarrant: It’s hard to be hard but they do have nag. But the thing is, they at sometimes -- it is down in absolute innocence because we do feel guilty. We immediately see it that way, kind of it's an accuse, a re-statement or a question, and it's actually not very often. But it's funny actually, a friend of mine, I mean she was -- she has this tremendous sort of guilt trip and her children and Alice have like grown up all the time. She’s like, I shouldn't have done this, I shouldn't have gone away. Her husband was at work, so she would go away with him and sort of the children were looked after by nannies and so and it was so forth and everything. And now the children have grown up and she asks them, did it make a difference. They couldn't even remember. [Voice Overlap] Yes. Mara Lee: I know, I think that the thing is we wear it -- we probably should just let it go. I mean I have taken to thinking, well, whatever I do, they are probably going to reproach me in some way at some stage because you do, don't you? You look at your relationship with your own mother and you think, “Oh geez! That was rubbish or that was good.” or you know, “I will do that, want to do that.” You take little bits and you do become a little bit -- Ingrid Tarrant: It's selected memory really -- if you are unhappy then there will always be something and then they make you feel guilty because probably you actually are. Mara Lee: Yeah, maybe you are right! And I think you do the best job that you can do, don't you, at the time. And with what resources you have and I guess I think we probably need to be bit more realistic, don’t we? And not be -- Rachel Royce: Well, but on the other hand, I mean there are all things you should feel guilty for as well. And I think there has been enough research now, people know they shouldn't drink and take drugs during pregnancy but people still do. And I have got a friend who shall remain nameless, whose child has real problems like attention deficit and hyperactivity, constantly drumming the table. Well, she took some serious drugs when she was pregnant. And now come on -- Ingrid Tarrant: Did she know she was pregnant? Rachel Royce: Yes. Yes. She did. Ingrid Tarrant: Did she not want the baby? Rachel Royce: Yes, she -- Well, I think it was an unplanned pregnancy but she was very young, she was 20, she had met her husband very early on and he was quite hippy kind of bloke and he was into experimental drugs to expand the mind and this is won’t harm your baby, I mean this won’t harm it. It's a cactus, it's natural. And maybe it didn't harm the baby but maybe it did, but whether it did or didn't, she has now got this terrible guilt that her son's behavioral problems are because of her experimenting with -- Ingrid Tarrant: No data, I mean -- Rachel Royce: They might not be, I mean who knows. But I think you have to be careful when -- Cheryl Baker: You have to be responsible, it's just not for your own well-being but you have got a little baby and whatever you put in your gulp, is going to go into the baby. Ingrid Tarrant: And you do get mixed messages, don't you, I mean at the same one minute you shouldn't drink at all and now it's been like a glass of wine is actually very good for you, it relaxes you, it's good for your blood pressure -- but how do you know where you to -- Rachel Royce: And then they say no alcohol at all. I think it's probably safe if there is no alcohol at all when you are pregnant. Cheryl Baker: I think so too. Mara Lee: I think that's the required. That's pretty much the young -- they don’t know -- from medical society, they say, we don't know, on alcohol, I think they don't know and so they say, better of not to. But certainly things like cigarettes and drugs, that's documented that it's an absolute no sign. Ingrid Tarrant: Yeah.