Rhian Elizabeth, a 36-year-old author from Cardiff, is grappling with a profound sense of guilt and regret as her only child prepares to leave for university. Reflecting on her journey as a teenage mother, she candidly admits to struggling with the responsibilities of parenting after becoming pregnant at 16. “I love my daughter more than anything in the world, but I never enjoyed being a mother when I was younger,” she confesses. “Everyone is going to hate me for saying this, and I hate myself, but I perhaps even resented having a kid at times.”
Elizabeth’s latest book, a collection of poems titled “girls etc,” serves as an “attempt at an apology” to both her daughter and herself. In one poignant poem, ‘If we could just go back I’d push you higher,’ she recalls half-heartedly pushing her young daughter on a swing, likening her efforts to “playing at being a mother the way you played with your dolls.” She writes, “You deserved so much better, so much better.”
Despite her literary success, which includes three published books and roles as a Hay Festival writer at work and writer in residence at the Coracle International Literary Festival in Tranas, Sweden, Elizabeth finds herself haunted by the early days of juggling motherhood and university life in Tonypandy, Rhondda Cynon Taf. “Guilt / is a roundabout / that won’t ever let you get off,” she writes, encapsulating her enduring struggle with feelings of inadequacy as a parent.
Elizabeth admits that at 16, she simply wasn’t very good at parenting. “You see all these happy photos on Facebook of mothers enjoying spending time with their kids like it’s the most treasured thing in the world to them, but I’d have to fake it, have to force myself to do it and pretend to engage,” she says. “I wasn’t engaged in parenting, and I know my daughter would’ve picked up on it.”
Nights were particularly challenging for Elizabeth. She would watch her daughter sleep and feel overwhelmed with love and gratitude, only to feel out of her depth again the next day. “That hurts now. I mean seriously, can you imagine being a child and picking up on the fact that the one person in the world who you rely on for all your happiness and self-esteem would rather not be spending time with you?” she reflects.
As her daughter prepares to leave home, Elizabeth is filled with regret. “I now just simply wish I could go back and be better and do all those things properly and right. But you can’t. This book is an attempt at an apology. To her, to myself,” she says. Despite her self-criticism, Elizabeth has single-handedly raised a child who is about to embark on a university education, all while achieving success as an author. Yet, she remains hard on herself. “It’s hard to be forgiven for that, and it’s hard to forgive yourself,” she admits.
Parenting author and broadcaster Sue Atkins characterizes “mum guilt” as “feelings of self-doubt and anxiety about not being a perfect parent,” noting that it is incredibly common. She insists there is “no such thing” as a perfect parent and that societal pressures, relatives, and a mother’s own expectations, often exacerbated by social media, can fuel feelings of guilt and inadequacy. “It’s not just mums that suffer with parent guilt; dads suffer from this too,” Atkins adds.
Elizabeth’s journey into motherhood was marked by the death of her father when she was 12, a loss she describes as the catalyst for her “going off the rails.” She refers to this period as the “messy years” of her life, during which she engaged in behaviors that set her life on a different trajectory. Once her daughter was born, Elizabeth felt as though she was living two lives: one as a mother and another as a college student who still wanted to party and have fun.
Throughout it all, Elizabeth’s determination to become a writer never waned. “It was the only plan I ever had in my life,” she says. She pursued a degree in creative writing at the University of Glamorgan and wrote her first novel, “Six Pounds Eight Ounces,” when her daughter was just three or four years old. The novel, which tells the story of a schoolgirl growing up in the Welsh valleys, was published in 2014 and is currently being adapted into a TV series.
Her second work, a series of poems titled “The Last Polar Bear on Earth,” was published in 2018. Elizabeth’s latest book, “girls etc,” is her most personal work to date. It delves into her reflections on being a teen mum, the drama of living with a teenager, and issues such as abuse in same-sex relationships. The book emerged from her process of working through difficult experiences in her life, particularly those involving the girls in her life, including her daughter and ex-girlfriends.
Elizabeth admits to feeling apprehensive about family and friends reading her latest work. When asked about her daughter’s reaction, she laughs and says, “She doesn’t talk about it. She doesn’t talk about much besides Taylor Swift. Everything I do is embarrassing to her; she thinks I should get a proper job.” Despite this, Elizabeth hopes that one day her daughter will read the poems. “This book was in a way me speaking to her,” she says. “In spite of me, she’s turned out brilliantly. She’s really smart and kind and conscientious, despite a Taylor Swift addiction.”
Source: BBC
