For as long as I can remember, I thought I would be a stay-at-home mum. I’ve always loved spending time with children, as well as being at home, and thought that there would be nothing better than spending my days making potato stamps and baking cupcakes. And despite pursuing a career in journalism, another part of me believed that I’d have enjoyed being a nursery nurse or a nanny just as much.
But a new film, featuring the always-brilliant Amy Adams, has reminded me in the most visceral way that the reality does not always match our dream. When I found myself alone with my newborn daughter all day during maternity leave in 2023, I discovered that it is in fact quite different, and that perhaps I was not cut out for being a full-time mum after all.
It goes without saying, in 2024, it’s an incredibly complex and nuanced decision whether or not you can afford – or not afford – to be a SAHM at all. As it happened, I became a single mother when my daughter was two months old, so there was never actually any question for me of not returning to work. But I know in my heart that I’d have felt frustrated if I had pursued that pipe dream of staying at home watching my baby grow up.
My experiences of the stay-at-home motherdom tightrope walk are perfectly encapsulated in the upcoming film Nightbitch, starring six-time Academy Award nominee Adams (who is more than likely to earn her seventh nod for her performance, which is unapologetically raw). An adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s magical realism novel, it brilliantly depicts the feelings of tedium, rage and loss of identity that motherhood can cause, in a way that I’ve not seen on the big screen before.
While other women react enviously to Adams’ situation as a full-time mother, we see the realities: the endless tidying, the tantrums, the mess. When asked about her career as an artist, she wistfully reflects that she was an artist, past tense. You can see her entire identity has been eroded by her new role. She’s unkempt, unfit, invisible to her husband. It’s no wonder she soon finds herself quite literally going feral, turning into a canine at night, killing neighbours’ pets and burying them in the garden.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who will feel ‘seen’ watching it, either. Produced by an entirely female team, it may play for laughs, but it’s also incredibly relatable. One gets the feeling there may be a little of the crew’s own personal experiences bound up in the script and the storytelling.
Of course, my own experiences didn’t stretch as far as howling at the moon, but I can certainly relate to everything else. I so clearly remember, about four months in, being asked if I wanted to go back to work, and very quickly snapping back ‘YES’. While I knew the relentless schedule of feed-sleep-nappy-change-repeat would vastly improve month by month, it dawned on me that as a full-time mum, my life would never be my own again, with every waking hour dedicated to somebody else. A very important, very cute, very wanted someone else, but still.
And it wasn’t just that I couldn't make peace with what felt so monotonous to me. During night feeds, I’d endlessly scroll on Instagram, envious of those who were enjoying the spoils of the life I’d formerly led as a journalist at a glossy magazine: attending glamorous parties, eating at the hottest restaurants and travelling to exotic locations. I was bitter that my own social life didn’t extend past Costa Coffee and Baby Sensory.
All these feelings of boredom and resentment inevitably led to moments of anger that just grew. I’d be lying if I said that I don’t ever find myself with a short fuse today, but I know for a fact that being able to spend my days writing and doing a job that I love, while my daughter is cared for at nursery, makes me a better and more patient mother.
Watching Adams on screen going through those old emotions and frustrations – albeit in rather more dramatic fashion – was all the catharsis I needed to reconcile myself with what I’d already realised to be true: that even if my situation were different and staying at home had been an option, it isn’t for me. I subscribe to the theory that in order for me to be a good mother, I need to be a happy and fulfilled person, too.
See Nightbitch in cinemas from 6 December
