'Becoming a mother has made me very angry': The moment Steph 'snapped'
I started my business, Motherland, when I was at breaking point. One day, as my baby boy crawled around on the floor next to me and I faced another day of solo parenting while my husband went out to work on the farm, I snapped.
It wasn't unusual for me to burst into tears when the door closed behind him, but this day felt different.
I felt so incredibly alone, and I thought, 'If they say it takes a village to raise a child, then where the hell is mine?'
It was a moment of pure rage and despair.
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Becoming a mother has fundamentally changed the way I view the world. Becoming a mother, I now realise, has made me a very angry woman. I'm angry about a lot of things.
I'm angry that I consistently seem to fall short of the mum I want to be.
I'm angry that I'm so overwhelmed by my neverending to-do list .
I'm angry I don't get to spend enough one on one time with my husband
I'm angry that the 24/7 nature of farming requires him to work so damn hard.
I'm angry we don't have family nearby to support us.
I'm angry that I'm so ambitious
I'm angry that being a mother isn't enough for me. There, I said it.
My burning flame of rage is starting to lose its heat though. Because over the past year I've come to realise something that's been screaming back at me all along.
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I am doing this whole mothering thing all wrong. We are ALL doing it wrong.
I believe the way we parent in today's modern world is so unnatural in so many ways that is it any wonder mums and dads in the western world are the unhappiest and most stressed parents on the planet?
Since the dawn of time, mothers banded together to raise their children and they shared the joys and challenges of motherhood. But we've since lost our villages.
We used to scrub our clothes in rivers together and spend our days sharing stories, and sharing the workload. We used to care for each other's kids, and seek support and guidance from our elders. We were never alone.
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But today, we're parenting within an individualist culture, and mums (and dads) are suffering as a result.
The pressure on the nuclear family unit is so great, and we are under enormous pressure to do everything on our own; things that entire communities used to provide each other.
We've modernised and complicated parenthood. We've added stress and created a divide through parenting books and labels such as 'working mum', 'SAHM', 'gentle parenting', 'sleep training'.
The judgment and comparison culture is exhausting and it's fuelling mental health struggles for new mums especially. We are constantly looking outwards instead of inwards for validation, and I've had enough.
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Leaving the rat race of the city and moving to our farm has been a form of therapy for me. I've observed natural systems, I've reflected on how first nations people might have parented on this land, their land, long before me.
And while I offer no solution to our modern world of mothering, acknowledging the above has really helped me.
Because now, when I feel angry or overwhelmed, when I snap at my kids and then immediately feel like the world's worst parent, when I face another day of solo parenting, when I feel like I'm failing, I remind myselfกญ Steph, it's not your fault. I repeat, it is not your fault.
You are an amazing mum, it's just the environment in which you're raising children is hard. It has let you down. You have no village, so cut yourself some slack.
I know I'm not the only one who feels the modern world of mothering isn't all it's cracked up to be, and it often leads us to feel like WE are the problem.
My anger has long been trying to tell me something, and I now understand what that was. I've been so focused on my own flaws, I have failed to take a look around and acknowledge that I'm living in a world that often feels like it's turned its back on the sacred role of motherhood.
So given the circumstances, I've decided I'm absolutely nailing mum life.
Stephanie is the Founder & CEO of Motherland, a not-for-profit and a charity that's on a mission to eliminate the crippling isolation so many rural mums face. Over Christmas, Stephanie announced the launch of her book, Motherland, which is based on her hit podcast. You can pre-order a copy here.
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