At a La Leche League conference, someone – I think it might even have been the famous Diane Wiessinger herself – was talking about the words mama and papa. She said papa, or dada, with its hard consonants, may have been latin baby speak for “play” or “fun”: pa! pa! pa! da!, like a kind of clapping and excitement. Whereas mama, with its softer sound, she thought was similar baby speak for milk, comfort, nurture, a mixture of a plea and a cry: maaaa! mamamama!, and so on.
Now, I love that La Leche League helps mothers to breastfeed and supports gentle parenting practices. I’m not quite so thrilled that they also seem to reinforce gender role stereotypes and heteronormativity. (Although, in fairness, they do at least put a lot of emphasis on the father supporting the mother and playing his part, which is better than nothing at all. Grateful for small mercies and so on.)
And in that vein, I raised an eyebrow at the mama/papa thing (and my internal bullshitometer lit up too), but I could also see what she meant; it is a common stereotype that the mother is there for nurture and milk and cuddles and comfort; Dad, if there is a present father, is there to throw the baby up into the air, tickle the baby, kick the football around outside with the toddler and so on.
But the thing is, when I lived with my child’s father, I did find our roles going down this route, and to be honest, it did suit my personality. I found that I was much better at the cuddling, the endless rocking and soothing, the humming Scarborough Fair two hundred times before sleep, the nursing, and so on. I enjoyed that. My ex husband was much better at the games and the fun, from peekaboo to silly dancing.
(Please understand: I’m not saying, by the way, “I found myself better at the traditionally female stuff therefore it is true that all women everywhere are better at this and the feminists are wrong!” I’m just talking about where my skills, personally, lay.)
I was happy for this arrangement to continue and for me to take the “mama” role, the nurturing and comforting. I wasn’t, obviously, so happy that “the nurturing role” had to include all the nappy changes, all the getting up in the middle of the night and yet also, somehow include “going out to paid work full time so we can have Lots of Nice Things”. The Second Shift, and the third, and fourth, and the night shift, and the morning shift – taking all these shifts I wasn’t so happy with. But the mama=nurture; papa=play was fine in my house and suited our abilities down to the ground.
And then we split up.
My ex husband still sees our child and has him for regular overnight stays. Despite some misgivings, and missing the little one terribly when he’s not with me, I still believe this is – at least for now – the best option available.
But it has meant I’ve had to learn new skills. I’ve had to learn to be “papa”. And that’s been hard. Acting silly, getting down on the floor and being a climbing frame, running around and shouting with my hands in the air, pretending to be a character from a television show, pulling silly faces, kicking a football around the garden – well, it’s not come easily to me. Maybe it’s because we’re led to believe that playing and silliness is “unladylike” somehow. Maybe it’s just because it doesn’t suit my personality. Maybe it’s a bit of both.
But I’ve had to do it. And the thing is, I think it’s been good for me. I’ve got back in touch with that silly side that disappeared as I grew older and only ever reappeared when I’d had a fair number of real ales! I’ve got down on my hands and knees and crawled around the house pretending to be a French cow called Madame. I’ve run around the supermarket pushing the trolly far too quickly and causing a commotion. I’ve asked random people driving heavy machinery what it is called, and what it does, and I’ve learned that not every lorry that has a barrel on it is an oil tanker by any stretch. And much more.
And I’ve even passed on that nurturing skill via play. My child now puts his teddy bears to bed and carries a doll in a sling.
As my child has grown older, the amount of nurturing time he needs has lessened, and the amount of playtime he’s needed has grown. If me and my ex husband were still together, and we’d kept to our roles, I can imagine I would have found myself spending less time with my child as he grew, and spending time instead tidying and cleaning the house while my child and his father played games outside.
And maybe this is the way that La Leche League thinks it should be, with fathers taking a greater and greater part in their children’s lives as they grow older, and mothers taking a back seat similarly. And I’m sure that works just fine for some families, and might even have worked for ours in different circumstances.
But now, I’m glad the split forced me to learn to be “papa”, too. I look back and I realise I could have lost out on an awful lot if that had carried on. And I still get to nurture and cuddle and sing to and nurse my child, although less often these days.
And, even if only a little bit these days, my ex husband has had to get in touch with his inner “mama”.
