When I was pregnant with my second daughter, my midwife came by for a home visit. I was 38, maybe 39 weeks along, and my two-year-old was fascinated. She was a little skittish, but her curiosity got the better of her. The foetal doppler was too cool, and her eyes widened with awe as her baby sister’s heartbeat thumped happily over the static.
I was already contracting by then – not real contractions, but strong waves of that made me want to curl up and whimper until they subsided. The handheld pain relief device I ordered, known as TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation machine) came with a lanyard, so I could wear it around my neck. After the midwife left, my daughter found it and toddled over to the couch.
“Mummy, lift your shirt.”
I almost laughed. “Pardon me?”
She thought for a moment, and then tried again. “Mummy, lift your shirt please?”
I actually did laugh, because I was more bewildered than I was concerned about her forgetting her manners. (She was two, and the fact that she remembered to correct herself at all was a win.) “Okay?” I said, and did as she asked, trying not to grimace at my stretch marks, both old and new.
My daughter put the end of the TENS machine on my belly and grinned. “Do you hear the baby?”
She was pretending to be a midwife. The TENS machine was her doppler. She even went to the trouble of wiping imaginary gel off my belly.
She learned all that from a single home visit. From watching and listening to a midwife she’d never met before.
She watches and listens to me all the time.
She was pretending to be a midwife. She even went to the trouble of wiping imaginary gel off my belly
What is she learning from me?
Two years old is an interesting age. Kids that age are sponges for knowledge. But they pick up on a lot of stuff they shouldn’t, too. We know the stories of toddlers who hear a swear word once, and suddenly it’s the only word in their vocabulary. We know kids who only do things because they watched someone else do them first.
My two-year-old wears my glasses and puts on my shoes. She uses a spare makeup sponge to put imaginary foundation on her face. She wears my name badge and my work ID so she can be just like me.
That’s all she wants. To be like mum.
Don’t do that, I think. I’m a ball of anxiety. I’m a tangled-up mess of a person with so much baggage I don’t know where to put it all down. I over-apologise and I people-please and I need constant external validation to feel worthy of love. You don’t want to be like me.
It’s hard to know what my inner monologue looks like on the outside. But I know she’s watching that.
What is she learning?
Most mornings, I sift through the clothes in my wardrobe, cycling through the handful of shirts that aren’t too tight and the two pairs of jeans that fit. I’m bigger than I used to be. I see it in the tags of my clothing: the 14s that used to be 10s; the Ls that used to be Ss. I see the pouch that hangs over my two C-section scars, afraid that it will never go away. I hide all of this with a loose shirt.
The author with one of her daughters. Source: Supplied
Sometimes, I catch myself grimacing at the mirror.
Then I see my daughter studying her own reflection.
What would I say to her, if she thought the same things I did? What can I do to make sure she never believes she’s anything less than she is?
It is Sunday, we are lying in bed because my two-year-old has climbed in and made herself at home in the sheets. She is watching Bluey on my phone while I force myself to wake up. My newborn is having a milk feed when my two-year-old turns and pats my stomach.
“Is this your tummy?” she asks.
“Sure is. I grew your sister in there. You were in there once, too.” She sighs. “Wow,” she whispers
I think about the way I can answer. I think about what she might learn, may still learn – about me. About the way I perceive myself. About how you’re supposed to feel about your body. I choose my words carefully.
“Sure is,” I say. “I grew your sister in there. You were in there once, too.”
She cocks her head at me. “Sissy was in there?”
“Yep.”
“And me too?”
“Mmhmm.”
Her eyes widen. She lays her head against my stomach. She sighs. “Wow,” she whispers.
I smile. I laugh. I look at my body, and I look at my girls. For the first time, I am comfortable. I am proud.
“Yeah,” I mirror her. “Wow.”
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