In her shoes
Author and editor Alison Walsh speaks to Bernice Mulligan about her new book, her own experience of motherhood and the bond that unites her to previous generations
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AS I speak to author and editor Alison Walsh about her book In My Mother's Shoes she admits she's in great form now that her three children are back in school after the Easter holidays. " The silence is blissful," laughs Walsh, clearly happy to have a few hours to herself for the first time in a fortnight.
Such honesty and humour is exactly what I expected from Walsh, whose book describes, in realistic, no-holds-barred detail, her own complex experience of motherhood, while simultaneously comparing it to the experiences of both her mother and maternal grandmother ("Nana") in a very different Ireland.
Ironically, despite both the decades and the social change separating the generations, throughout the book Walsh begins to see not just the chasms dividing them (her grandmother's great talent for curing leather being one, for example), but also the close similarities binding them together.
Having said that, Walsh, who is married to Colm and is mum to Eoin (12), Niamh (9) and Cian (6), does see some stark differences in modern-day motherhood.
"Probably what has changed most for my generation is that, nowadays, everything we do must be perfect," she explains. "In a way it has become a stick for women to beat themselves with. I don't think it was like that for my mother and grandmother. They didn't expect perfection, they just wanted to raise their children well."
Walsh's second pregnancy (her first ended in miscarriage) took place in London where she worked as a full-time editor. There her antenatal care was provided by "a group of lovely midwives" whose classes were made up of a diverse mix of similarly excited/ terrified expectant mothers. However, the birth itself wasn't quite so idyllic.
"My waters broke early but I wasn't technically in labour, so it meant I was in hospital a full 24 hours before I needed to be." Driven mad with tiredness and pain she took it upon herself to have a bath unaided. "I think I passed out for about half an hour, but I didn't mind. It meant I lost 30 minutes of consciousness, which was great!"
The medicalisation of childbirth is something Walsh is uneasy about, and was the reason she went back to midwives when she was pregnant with her second and third child. At this stage she and her husband were living in Ireland and availed of the then new and untested Community Midwives Scheme.
Walsh had both children under this scheme at Holles Street, describing the care as "fantastic".
She feels strongly that pregnancy and childbirth shouldn't been seen as an illness. "Sometimes it's mistaken for one, but it's not – it's a natural process."
Walsh is quick to add, however, that while childbirth may be natural, it is certainly not easy. (" There's a reason why other women don't tell first-time mothers what the birth process is like," she muses.)
But, on that question of 'ease', does she feel that women nowadays, with all their material comforts and educational opportunities, have it better than their predecessors?
"Both my mother and my grandmother were middle class, so in a way my grandmother's life was arguably more comfortable than some modern women's today. For example, even though she was a stay-at-home mother with just one child, it was perfectly acceptable for her to have a housekeeper. These days, I think women feel the need to apologise if they have a cleaning lady in to help them."
Things were more complicated for Walsh's mother because her son – Walsh's brother Ian – was born with autism. " There was no diagnosis at that time, and my mother got no formal support. The awful thing was that because Ian's behaviour was so extreme, some people thought she was a bad mother."
Now, such ignorance would generally not prevail, but 21st-century motherhood is still complex, Walsh admits. "Feminism taught us that we could go to college, work, and have our children. It gave us huge self-confidence. And I feel the great thing about nowadays is that women can work if they want to, something that wasn't really an option for my grandmother or even for my mother once they got married."
However, she says there is now a questioning of the whole concept of ' having it all'. Firstly, is it possible? And secondly, even if it is, do we really want it?
" You may find yourself wondering, as I did at a certain point, is this the life I want to lead?"
Walsh admits that combining work and motherhood became so unsatisfactory that she decided "to focus on life in another way". This involved giving up her hectic full-time position to work as a freelance editor from home.
Yet she doesn't necessarily feel the work versus stay-at-home-mum debate has to be a battle.
"I think as women we go through phases in our life that are more suited to working or staying at home. Currently I am at home with the children and freelancing, but this may change in the future."
This is a reasonable possibility seeing as how Walsh's husband – who is a writer – minded the children for six years when they were first born.
Walsh says she loves the emphasis on family we have in Ireland, saying family life was much more disconnected in London.
Such family loyalty comes through very strongly in the book, especially towards the end in the depiction of the relationship between her mother and grandmother. " They did have an awkward relationship at times, but when my grandmother could no longer live on her own, Mum had a granny flat built for her and spent the next 10 years looking after her."
So the maternal bond, that love between mother and child, is worth all the associated pain, stress and heartache? "Absolutely, and I think my mother realised that. I mean, at the end of the day, family is it, really, isn't it?" Quite.
This article originally appeared in Mothers and Babies
