New Mummy: Battling the 'Bad Mummy' culture and feeling like a failure

I might be very new to motherhood but already I’m aware just how life changing it is. Helping to shape, guide and grow a little person into the best possible big person they can be is an enormous privilege; astonishing and fulfilling but at times (lots of times) challenging and frustrating.

I don’t know what I’m doing; but then, who does? In all the mummy circles in which I mix, we are mostly the same – asking for advice and moral support from each other, and then it’s head down, charge forward and hope for the best.

This doesn’t come easy for me though. I’ve always been a bit of a swot. At school I would get my homework done on a Friday night so I could enjoy the rest of the weekend without it hanging over me - I was that sort of kid. And even now I’m the same – in an exercise class, I’m the one right at the front, as close to the instructor as I can get. I don’t like doing things halfheartedly.

So when it comes to raising a child, my try-hard tendencies are at an all time high. And I find myself feeling uneasy with the ‘bad mummy’ culture that seems to be popular at the moment. Some days it feels like social media has been created purely as a vehicle for mums to compete with each other about how useless they are.

When I had a baby I thought I might encounter the nastiness of competitive parenting in terms of how gifted we all think our children are. Not the opposite: how rubbish our parenting skills are.

I’m just as unsure of what I’m doing as any new parent and as reliant on advice and reassurance from others too. I’m well aware of how tough it can be and how easily mistakes are made. I am sure to suffer many spectacular fails in the next 18 years.

[New Mummy Blog: Step away from the smartphone]

[New Mummy Blog: You don't need to buy everything]

I have turned my back for a second to find Honor has grabbed a handful of cake from the plate I naively left on the floor just out of her reach, or not as it turned out. I have pulled the pillow over my head to try and eke out another five minutes of sleep before getting out of bed to go to her. I have fed her when she hasn’t needed to be fed, just as a means to keep her quiet in quiet-required situations.

But I don’t want to boast about it, nor do I want to enter into a competition about who’s doing the worst job. I’m all for camaraderie and mummy solidarity but it’s more than a little depressing when it fills your newsfeed all the time.

My brain used to selectively filter these sorts of posts out, pre-baby – and I’m grateful. Because if I had paid attention to them, I’m not sure I would have thought having a baby would be a very good idea. Reading them, it often seems fairly certain that motherhood leads to a constant feeling of failure, and a desperate countdown to the children’s bedtime and wine o’clock.

But actually, what’s wrong with feeling proud of doing your best – and I have no doubt that their best is exactly what these self-effacing women are doing at all times. They dote on their children, would do anything and everything for them. I know it’s not terribly British to boast, but do we really have to go the other way and proclaim our uselessness constantly in order to be a fully paid up member of the mummy club? Rather than commiserating, wouldn’t it be far nicer to congratulate each other instead?