I agree with Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett that many of the “momfluencer” accounts on social media seem to be designed to make us normal mums (the ones with toys all over the floor and a pile of dirty laundry) feel like we are failing (For modern mothers, the toxic pull of the ‘momfluencer’ feels inescapable, 25 July).
However, what I have found more difficult to cope with is the photographs that women I actually know post of their perfectly clean houses, picture-perfect kids and the social lives they have somehow managed to keep. I think that mothers in general would really benefit from being able to just admit that it’s hard to be a mum.
My son has just started crawling, so my days are now spent chasing him around the house, the housework is not done and I am exhausted. We need to stop fetishising the “perfect mother”, start celebrating every mother, and make it known that it is always OK to ask for help.
Rosie Weir
Carrickfergus, County Antrim
• I am the mother of two children, aged two and a half and 15 months, and I’m in my early 40s. Between lockdowns, after my first was born and I had just gone back to work, I asked my doctor, who also had a young child, how she had felt and managed when she went back to work. “I didn’t kill anyone, so I figured I was doing OK,” she semi-joked.
For me, sleep is like a distant memory. The house is a mess, with children’s stuff everywhere. There are food stains all over the dining room wall, red pen scribbles on the door and walls around the airing cupboard, and crayon lines crisscrossing the TV, which appear to be etched into the glass.
I often pity these people who put such a high value on making themselves and their lives look perfect. Life isn’t perfect, and that’s what makes it amazing. Perhaps the best thing to do when browsing Instagram and seeing a perfect picture of a mother and child is to put your phone down and go and play with your child, or look at them sleeping, and think how perfect they are to you.
Name and address supplied
• While I agree with Rhiannon’s article that social media can often represent an idealised and heavily filtered version of motherhood that bears little resemblance to reality, I do think this is starting to change. Sophie McCartney’s Instagram posts – under the name tiredandtested – were a beacon of light and humour for me in those dark days of lockdown when I was at breaking point. Her “I can’t teach this” parody of the MC Hammer classic had me crying. It was heartening to see that she was right there in the midst of this hell with her own kids, and so were all the other mums who were commenting. Parenting is a joy and a privilege, and none of us would change it for the world, but sometimes it is bloody hard work.
Laura Cartwright
Horsforth, West Yorkshire
• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s article reminded me of the incalculable debt of gratitude that I and many other mothers owe to Erna Wright. Her wonderfully commonsense books The New Childbirth (1964) and The New Childhood (1972) dispelled ignorance, myths and fear, enabling women to understand what was happening to their bodies and to their small children, and how to cope with those baffling phenomena. They were beacons of enlightenment and liberation, far from being the “secondhand books, at least one of which would end up thrown across the room” that Rhiannon’s mother recalls. I hope they are still being read and bringing the same relief to women today.
Dr Brigid Purcell
Norwich
• I’m 72 and still seethe at the memory of the Bounty magazine that we new mums were presented with after giving birth. Along with a few free samples, it contained the immortal lines: “Do try to stay up after the six o’clock feed [six o’clock!] so that you can get a flying start to the day’s housework.” That one went straight in the bin.
Margaret Keeley
Fleet, Hampshire
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