The Conscious Mother

While Ben's off galivanting around sunnier climes, he's asked a very capable friend to blog in his place. Georgina lives in London with her husband and two phenomenal children, Lucia and Francesco. This week she's been wondering what 'consciousness' means as a mother...

What is conscious and unconscious?

Perhaps it's all the press surrounding the newly-found term fostered by the Paltrow-Martin 'conscious uncoupling', or maybe it's just my psychological training coming to the fore, but I find myself increasingly fascinated by conscious and unconscious thought.

It's said that we use only 7% of our brain in conscious thought or action, leaving the remaining 93% 'idling' in an unconscious state.

In the midst of a middle-of-the-night-shouldn't-he-have-outgrown-this-by-now feed with my 7 month old son I started thinking about myself as a mother: what's conscious and unconscious in the way I roll with my kids.

It occurred to me that my own 7% of consciousness was currently aligned with seven distinct modes of thought and action: something Gwyneth might term 'Conscious Mothering'. I suspect I am not alone in these modes and the frequency with which I move between them.

The seven modes of thought and action for mums

1. Mummy the Engineer

No piece of flat pack furniture has become too difficult to assemble - no Allen key unconquered. I have become the queen of putting together the most ridiculously overcomplicated cot-beds, Fisher-Price-baby-gym-bouncing things (or 'the circle of neglect' as my friend refers to them) and the like that I now fear no assembly job.

I have even managed to procure a battery operated screwdriver to assist me in my DIY pursuits. Post-children, we parents seem to find ourselves fluent in translating and applying obscure foreign instructions and building / repairing / gluing the impossible and un-fixable.

2. Mummy the Teenager

I would not change a single molecule of my beautiful babies, but they were both unlucky enough to face severe reflux and milk allergies in their first years. Cue lots of screaming, lots of throwing-up, lots of wedge pillows in cots and Dr. Brown bottle washing. And lots of shattered nerves. My poor husband bore the brunt of this: irrational snapping and nit-picking to simply let off steam. To his credit he managed and diffused all beautifully, but for me it was like over-tired and adolescent angst all over again.

This teenage behaviour has extended to include the following list of non-exhaustive behaviours:

• Attempting to fake-smoke cigarettes on the terrace late at night when I thought no one knew (I do not smoke, have never smoked and quite actively dislike smoking but felt like I needed the time out)
• Getting cross with my mother for offering me unsolicited (and always correct) advice, and
• Looking at Topshop online as a means of staying in touch while I wore my gym kit around the house for three months.

3. Mummy the Control Freak with Good Intentions

My two year old loves to cook. I love her to cook. I confess, however, while the outcome of cupcake baking fills my heart with glee, the process is inevitably accompanied by a slight sense of panic as I find raw egg everywhere.

Ditto on the subject of finger painting. Notice how the paints never come off little hands as well on the wet sponge during hand washing as they do on the sofa five minutes after washing?

Luckily I have a few friends who have simultaneous heart palpitations with these at-home activities and one has convinced me that "that is what nursery school is for. To do it at home simply makes nursery more boring for them".

4. Corporate Mummy

The return to work post-children is a much debated topic and for that reason I will say little, except how on earth are you really supposed to feel as a working mother?

My career remains extremely important to me and pre-children I was lucky to find myself at a senior level in my chosen field. With this inevitably came international travel, long hours, intense deadlines, complex stakeholder relationships to manage and outcomes to deliver. I loved this. I didn't aim to find myself still in the office late at night, but it was part of the territory: you did what you needed to do.

I patiently listened to the advice of friends who warned me that this would not be possible after children; your priorities change, you need and want to be home etc. Post-children I found my once ideal, fly-by-the-seat of your pants role in a terrific organisation levelled out and I found myself maintaining and scaling large projects or pieces of work, rather than creating, building and improving them.

If the textbooks were right, surely this still large and some may say 'cushier' role should have been better and more compatible with the simultaneous role of mother to two small children? Yes I made it home for bedtime but it didn't feel comfortable for completely surprising, un-textbook reasons that had nothing to do with being a mother. It was due to the fact that I discovered I did not like the way a role that allowed me to fit in my personal life properly for the first time in my life made me feel.

Can't career and children co-exist as equal firsts? Despite the lack of logic and originality in this question, I will only say that having your cake and eating it in the career and home was a complex thing for me to process.

5. Mummy the UN Peacekeeper

Clichéd but true: parenthood brings with it an innate ability to sniff out potential sources of conflict between your children from 20 paces (diffusing it is a different matter) and the negotiation skills and patience required of all of us in managing toddler temper tantrums is so vast I have no words. No words.

6. Mummy the Circus Performer

If you had asked me two years ago if I could send an email, blend a puree and read Cinderella to an audience at the same time, I think I may have asked you to expand on what a puree was. Now this is my near-permanent state, usually with a two year old clinging to my leg asking me 'why' I am making the puree. Repeatedly.

7. Undercover Mummy

I have not said enough about this mode - the one that is always present, but feels more that it sits in the unconscious mind and underpins every conscious mode described above.

The pride and amusement that you feel when your toddler says something beyond their years, hearing their off key singing and constant chatter, the way your baby looks at you when feeding, the sounds they make when they sleep, when you cuddle them and you feel every part of them take comfort in your presence, listening to them shriek with laughter as they play together...

The total pure and unadulterated maternal love that is so well articulated by many, but yet so breathtaking to feel with your own children.

A need for labeling actions?

Maybe there is something in Gwyneth's need to label actions as 'conscious' or otherwise, and maybe using 7% of our brain is enough; we should be thankful that the enormous unconscious mind lies beneath, 'sleeping' steadily.

Or maybe I just need to get a full night's sleep and stop writing lists in my head at 2am.

Georgina Cavaliere
Leadership, Talent, and Organisational Change Specialist