Why Moms Need Moms

Yesterday we returned from an epic nine day holiday to two of our favourite spots in South Africa. We started off at our beach cottage at Bazley Brach and then continued down to Manteku in the Transkei. We have never been to Manteku before but having been to a couple of spots down the Wild Coast I would say that it is the closest we’ve come to Transkei heaven. 

That said, as we laboriously unpacked vomit soaked clothing - poor Gray was car sick on the way down and caught a tummy bug on the way back, and safety swimming vests, and arm bands, and laundry detergent, and several changes of linen, and three different forms of insect repellent, and the extra large bottle of Allergex, and all the food I packed (just in case), and three almost empty sunblock tubes, and bags and bags of dirty clothes which I will have to wash today, and the unread book I was so looking forward to reading - I didn’t exactly feel recharged. 

To be honest our first two days of our time down at the Transkei were spent anxiously scanning the various bodies of water that surround the camp site. Having a five year old and a two year old in a place like this - where all the other children were older - was extremely stressful. Gray’s new swimming skills were put to the test and so was Eva’s bolshy assumption that she is immortal in water. 

I am the first to admit that I am generally almost always one step away from a pretty impressive fight or flight response which I am usually able to keep stable but in a place like this I become a special forces first responder screaming, ‘Black Hawk Down’ every five minutes. Every night I could go to sleep facing a cocktail of kak dreams - black mambas, exploding gas geysers, tsunamis - you name it, I dreamt it. By the third day I had to get a grip, talk my anxiety through with Stephen, and trust that I was doing enough to keep my children safe. 

Once I had done that the rest of our holiday was absolutely incredible and I was able to be present with my children without checking the water for sharks every two minutes. 

On our return home yesterday our favourite neighbours and lockdown family members Kym and Mike ambled over to catch up. Within a minute of our conversation Kym and I had already commiserated with the each other and fully acknowledged the stress of taking children anywhere that is wild. They had just returned from Mkuzi where Kym had to mindfully give her youngest permission to climb snake infested trees and allow for other equally stressful moments to occur without stepping in to say ‘no’.  When I told her that our camp site was surrounded by a river, lagoon and beach I literally didn’t need to say anymore to her because I know that she is as paranoid about water as I am. 

Feeling better about playing sergeant major on our ‘relaxing’ beach holiday I set off to replenish dwindling rations. In the fruit isle I met up with Lucy - my neighbour when we were footloose and childless in Durban - she now has two boys who are four and two and the youngest is at school with Eva. They had just returned from Cape Vidal. She spent her holiday watching moms with older children reading their books while she kept watch for the hyena that had been spotted around camp. 

We both agreed that these holidays are not designed for moms. They are designed for our children in order to create the truly magical memories that they will cherish forever while their mothers skulk around mainlining Biral and gazing anxiously at suspect tufts of grass. 

I felt abundantly better after my two brief chats with other moms in similar boats. We haven’t had much opportunity for these kinds of chats in the past year. The chats that crop up while you’re trying to make small talk at a kid’s birthday party and you suddenly realise that you’ve met your soul mates because you are all fighting the same battles with children who are all the exact age and making the same age appropriate demands for freedom. 

The chats that happen while you’re buttering a million hotdog rolls and your close friend secretly confides in you that she feels like she’s a shit mom because she is always grumpy and always shouting at her kids while her husband remains a calm pool of patient acceptance. 

I miss these conversations. The ones that include me in the most ancient club. The ones that legitimise my anxiety and perhaps explain why such soft fleshed breakable animals managed to make it to the top of the food chain. 

I am wired for crisis management, for catching vomit in my hand before it hits the dashboard, for ensuring that stray dogs don’t get too close to my children’s faces, for scanning water for crocodiles. I cannot let it paralyse me because then I will be raising my children with a spirit of fear which will set up invisible barriers that they may never be able to overcome. What I can do is own my anxiety with an understanding that, for me, it is a way that I experience love. The dogged, obsessive, all-forgiving, all-encompassing, all-worrying love that I have for my children. There is no cure for motherhood and I suspect that as the bodies of water get bigger so too does the concern. 

But we can talk about it, and own it, and normalise it. And that’s why moms need moms. To carry the worry together, to stand on the banks together scanning for crocodiles, and when the crocodiles come (which they will do) we run into the water together.