This week’s Dispatches from New Motherhood offering is I DON’T WANT YOUR ADVICE, an impassioned and rhythmic poem by Kate Saunders-White. It’s both retort and plea – and bristles with energy.
Kate says, ‘It's a bit angry this one! It's not really autobiographical - it was inspired by comments made to other mum friends as well as to myself. I was surprised from my conversations with them just how much unsolicited advice we had all received at some point, not only from close family members or friends, but even strangers we happened to meet while out and about with our babies! I wish I could have covered more but the examples in the piece were the ones I remembered most clearly in my heavily-pregnant brain fog.’
Of her process, Kate says, ‘Finding the opportunity to write was a challenge, not only because of a very active toddler but I was also expecting baby number 2 at the time and finding the pregnancy really difficult for various reasons. When I did manage to write though it felt wonderful. I remember comparing it to going to the gym - in the madness of life it sometimes feels impossible to find the time or energy, but once you seize any opportunity you can, you feel all the more invigorated for it.’
Here’s to writing-gym-time! And enjoy Kate’s brilliantly rousing poem here.
***
I Don't Want Your Advice
Kate Saunders-White
I don't want your advice.
You see me bleary eyed, hugging coffee,
trying to summon energy from some corner of my body.
You ask how she's sleeping, and I don't feel like lying.
Who would I be kidding? I'd give it away by crying.
She's up every two hours. Has been for weeks.
I'm broken. From spending my nights being constantly woken.
You then ponder aloud on why she won't sleep:
maybe I should be waiting, giving her a chance to sort herself out,
and not running to her the moment she shouts.
But the thought of ignoring her cries,
the sound of her panic when no one arrives.
I just can't.
And you smile a smile that says I'm a soft touch.
That I've only myself to blame.
That I've forfeited any right to complain.
I don't want your advice.
You see me struggling to breastfeed, baby thrashing in a craze,
and her face red and angry, my cheeks set ablaze.
I try to laugh it off, but inside I'm weeping,
that she's clearly hungry but just won't stop screeching,
I will it not to happen but you question nonetheless:
Have you ever thought it would be easier to express?
Or you could try formula, your husband could use that through the night.
And she's nearly six months anyway, so you'll be stopping soon, right?
Well, feeding was a battle from that first day on the ward.
And I'm not trying to say I deserve some sort of award
for getting where we are. But I've really tried my best,
even if the effort sometimes made me possessed.
It's taken literal blood. Real tears. Real sweat.
So I tell you, yeah, it wouldn't hurt, but we won't be stopping yet.
I don't want your advice.
Because really, what do I want? All I want is to moan.
And for some kind of kinship as I travel the unknown.
I want an anchor. A life raft. Someone who tells me that it's hard.
That they get it. They know that I'm doing the best that I can.
Life feels relentless but that won't always be the way.
I promise not to even mind if they throw in the old cliché:
'This too shall pass.'
And the truth is, really, no solution is required:
all I want is to say that I'm SO bloody tired!
I don't need your advice.
And you don't need mine.
What I need is support and time.
***
I Don’t Want Your Advice by Kate Saunders-White appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.