This Mom's Poem Is So Damn Relatable You'll Think You Wrote It Yourself
"What's my name again?" starts Hollie McNish, an award-winning poet and mother, as she reads a poem about a mom's identity from her book, Nobody Told Me. The whole book is a memoir full of poems about parenthood, but this one in particular is so completely relatable, you'll think you wrote it yourself.
"I lost my name at toddler group," she continues. "From Hollie, or Hols, or Hollie McNish. I'm now known as so-and-so's mom." However, the mom isn't complaining about this loss of her name, as she does the same to others when she says she "got a drink with Izzy's dad" or "ran into Molly's gran." Once a person becomes a parent, they are forever labeled as "mom" or "dad," that's just how it goes.
But Hollie's poem seeks to shed light on that bit of herself that does want to just be "Hollie" every now and then, though she usually can't be.
It's only when the stars are out and everything's dark that my own name creeps out from under the table and I'm able to remember the person I am, with a hot cup of tea and a book in my hand and a two hour slot to remember my own plans before I turn off the light.
Cinderella's clock strikes at midnight each time, my clock strikes loudly at nine, until she cries out for me, or needs her next wee, or shouts in her dreams, or pleads for a fiftieth cuddle from me, or I sneak into her room just to look at her sleep. And the label shifts quickly to mom again. From Hollie to Mom, Hollie to Mom.
But one word cannot sum up the things we've all done, the ways that we love, the stories we tell. No bouquet of roses are thrown on our stages. Under-paid. Over-worked. Us feeders, us nappy-change divas, us breeders, us milk-makers, milk strainers, cracked-nipple, swell-painful, bottle-fed, guilt ridden.
The poem continues, touching on the way a mom spends her days and nights post-kids worrying about their care and needs, forgoing her own individuality. "Someone said that moms are the rocks that never crumble," she reads. "I don't think that's true, 'cause I do. . . . We are parents, but we are people. . . . We are rocks crumbling sometimes in love that's so heavy. We are storytelling experts and our stories are many."