Motherload

Why Love Matters (Susan Gerhardt, Routledge, 2004) was first published when my daughter was about one year old. I heard about it, but could not bring myself to read it. It sounded like the kind of argument I was already struggling so hard with that it could only cause pain -- it sounded as though it would tell me that my place was in the home with my baby, and that only mothers could provide the kind of affection and attention that their babies need to thrive. When I finally sat down with it, because of the reading list set by a School of Life course on the family, I could not put it down. Yes, it does in large part advocate a social organization in which it is possible for caregivers to stay at home with their babies, solely focused on their needs, delights, demands and neuro-cognitive development. And that's fine, because it's pretty much the conclusion I came to during my own early-years development experience. Gerhardt would love to live in a society without conflict, ...

So, in November, I have signed up to the 'write a novel in a month' website ( http://www.nanowrimo.org/ ). This means I am aiming to write 50,000 words of my book on motherhood. I have already written reams and reams of words on motherhood, and done a lot of interview-based research. I get up every day at 6am (ok, sometimes I don't make it, but a lot of the time I get up). But I feel terrified, and unable to progress. During the day I go to work, write all day, in a very different style, and execute tasks. My checklists have become clean and ordered, they are accomplished checklists. In the evening, my time with the children has become contained and neat: a bedtime story and we're done. Occasionally, alone in the dark morning, I glimpse a future in which my battery-farmed children will emerge, pale-skinned, into the adult world, devoid of personal interests, utterly narrowminded, unable to cross a road by themselves, and in debt for the rest of their lives because I cou...