Outfit dump

I want to be a mother

I want to be a mother. I first acknowledged this at a friend’s birthday party last year. A group of us were sitting on her front porch talking about our hopes for the future. As I began to speak, surrounded by Prosecco in plastic cups and cigarette smoke, my friend interjected and said “George wants to be a mum”. Until that moment it hadn’t occurred to me how much the word ‘mum’ was connected to the way I would like to parent.

 

I have known from a young age that I wanted to have a family. I was always toddling around with a baby doll glued to my side. I’ve always wanted children and confusion soon crept into my mind when I was about seven because I wanted to hold Harry’s hand instead of Maisy’s. I only saw babies sandwiched between the love of a man and a woman, but I knew that was never going to be the case for me. I remember thinking, how is this going to work? I had no knowledge of what being gay meant. I had never seen queer families in the media. So I began to wonder how my future would pan out. As I grew into my teens I began to understand not only the biological limitations but also the social and economic pressures queer parents face in raising a child. Now I look back there was definitely an air of simplicity in what my mother used to recite, “When two people love each other very much, they have a baby.” She neglected to mention the catch, it’s not always that simple. Especially if you’re gay. 

Societally we have been conditioned to allow our gender to influence how we approach parenthood. I have always longed to raise children with the person I love but knowing my children would be raised by two men did at first concern me. This is primarily due to the lack of exposure I’ve had to non mother-centric homes. There aren’t many positive portraits of fathers being empathetic or nurturing. I suppose there’s Yentl’s father in Streisand’s 1983 film Yentl, but he was her only caregiver and he dies so... Apologies for the niche Barbra Streisand anecdote, she is always my first point of reference. In terms of the representation of motherhood, if I look back to my Catholic childhood; I was taught to glorify Mary as the mother of Jesus, or if I look to literature I grew up reading and the likes of Marmee in Little Women: a woman who wholly encapsulates warmth and selflessness. Even in one of the first books my mum read to me ‘I’ll love you forever’ by Robert Munsch. The everlasting quote being “I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” I cannot think of a time I have seen this level of everlasting love and tenderness through a male-centric narrative. This is why I have yet to find a parental narrative I feel happy placing myself in. 

There is this insecurity within me that worries whether I will be good enough for my future children, solely because they won’t have a mother. I don’t have a womb where they can grow. I fear the process my spouse and I will undertake, I feel that whatever option we decide to choose will be judged. If it is surrogacy, I worry about the lack of involvement we’ll have in the prenatal process. The money that it will cost. What country to choose based on what one has the best legal system to support surrogacy? Then there are the situations we’ll find ourselves in, for instance I can predict that we’ll be constantly asked “the baby will have lots of female role models, right?” Of course the baby will, I’m gay, all my friends are women. I then think about it logistically and worry about how I’m going to make the two weeks of paternity leave stretch. Will I get any longer than that? Will I have to quit my job in order to take care of the baby? These are just a number of questions that bustle around my brain when I think about potential parenthood.

My relationship with my mother does reflect what’s presented in popular culture and I think that has always given me great comfort as there weren't many narratives I could recognise myself in. There is much to admire when it comes to my mother but her eclectic knowledge never fails to amuse me, her areas of expertise, alternative medicine and Ayurveda or when she told me over the phone to “buy B12 capsules it’ll keep your energy up”. She’ll always be there to give her two cents, I can always count on her opinion and rely on her advice, especially with something like a break up. It’s the kind of advice I’ll then subsequently reuse when giving friends pep talks. I have found that now we no longer live under the same roof. We also look very similar. There is not a family gathering that goes by when someone doesn’t say “don’t you look just like your mum.” Our dark features and almond eyes are prominent like an ink stain amongst the rest of our relatives. Signifying how much I am a part of her. I also cannot deny the influence she’s had on me, particularly my interest in fashion which is a result of systematically sitting every Saturday with the bribe of a Pret baguette. As I watched her try on reams of satin skirts in Jigsaw or rummaging for Replay jeans in TK Maxx. 

I do have this underlying disassociation with what it means to be a father because I was mainly raised by my mother. The home I grew up in had its tumultuous times but my mother was the constant. I have a complex relationship with my two fathers, yes two. My parents divorced when I was eighteen months old and from then my stepfather was in the picture. So I have two father figures, Dad and Baba, who both hold substantial resonance in my everyday life. Be it the visual signifiers from my Dad, the lines that flow from my eyes as I laugh or how my brow furrows like his. If it’s not that, it’s my constant search for Baba’s approval and the expectations I place on myself.

Separating the idea of distance with fatherhood is something I’ve struggled to grapple with. As a child I would spend every other weekend with my dad, those four days a month precious to me. However with the break in my routine and feeling like I lived out of a bag, it did feel alien at times and I didn’t always feel like I fitted in. I can remember being three years old and scrambling my sparrow-like body under his shirt and clinging onto him. I felt a distance between us which I tried to physically combat, finding comfort in a state of darkness with the cotton of his shirt brushing against my cheek. Looking back it appears that my opportunistic mind was trying to fuse us together as father and son, in the rationed time we shared. As I got older it began to frustrate me that I did not know much about him, members of my family would share anecdotes or compare us yet I couldn’t see the parallel. And there was nothing to blame really but time constraints. It was not until I was an adult when I felt I got to know him as a person.

My perception of my parents and how either one made me feel was present even in the small acts of our daily routine. I fondly recall falling asleep to the steady melody of my mother’s voice reading Stuart Little, it was as if E.B White’s words created embers, adding that extra warmth as we clambered together, huddled up in a ball. Our closeness unparalleled through our fondness for this little mouse. All enclosed with a warm embrace, was a kiss and an “I love you”. Just in case I forgot. Bedtime with Baba went a little differently. He would first tell me “go up the wooden hill to bedfordshire”. And when it was his turn to read, he would sit on the floor by my bed, his back tall and leaning against the bed’s hard shell. His eyes fixated on the book. I wondered what was better about the floor? Whilst he read I would sit there listening and look intently at the curvature of his ear and his sprouting stubble. Longing for the comfort I usually felt during the daily procession of storytelling. I longed for the cool space between us with my tiny toes unable to articulate my want for him to, could he not just, I just wanted him to sit with me. 

To me growing up my Baba was the shining example of a man. He was a handsome, well spoken man who looked after us and exuded safety. He would arrive home every night immaculately dressed in either a navy or black Armani suit with a coordinated shirt. You would hear his Church’s brogues clap against the tiles before he entered. He’d circle the room, kissing us all individually on the cheek, infusing the space with his musk and the faint smell of the tube. My Baba is a creative and hard working man who doesn’t care for football. He was the kind of man I could see myself grow into which is why I have always wanted to impress him. This, combined within his innate perfectionism and particular nature means that this endeavour has had its challenges. His expectations have always been high and arguably unrealistic. Table manners were important to him and from a young age he expected my sister and I to act accordingly at the dinner table. I remember my frustrated tears because I couldn’t balance the knife and fork as he liked, “fingers on top”. The image of him sitting across from me and micromanaging my movements occurs every time I make a big decision. 

However, my parents have always allowed me to be myself and that really is the most important thing. I do have the best parts of them and I have come to realise that through starting and navigating my own life. Even though I have this worry that I won’t be enough for my future children. I do need to be confident in my own awareness of how I would like to parent. And that the two of us, me and the man I choose to raise them with, will give them an upbringing filled with love; one where on a Sunday morning they’ll wake up to the sound of a Desert Island Disc with eggs and soldiers on the table. A home filled with books, newspaper cuttings and an extensive DVD collection, even though we’re in the era of Netflix. A home where they’ll be able to express themselves how they wish and be fully supported. I cannot deny that I will continue to worry that I will subconsciously fall into the role of a father I was presented growing up. But with silencing that inner voice I hope and I know that one day I will be proud to be called someone’s dad.

90s mom with 90s phone quality

Comme Des Garçons (Like the Boys)

Reboot

I have decided to revamp this blog I had in my teens to curate a space for the odd article, outfits and just a general portfolio for future endeavours. It just seems right to have a place where everything can be stored. 

I consciously chose to keep the old posts up, much to my current mind's dismay. They are quite entertaining to look back on and I think its important to see where it all started. And like Barbra would say, I would hate to have my memories all misty and water coloured. If you want to laugh at my 15/16 year old mind, then have a whirl. It is hilarious to realise myself, how I have changed but also have I have not changed. Some of my references will just not shake. I would love it though if you wanted to keep up to date with my endeavours post uni and beyond. This will hopefully be a place where I can experiment with my writing and styling, and be a slightly "professional". 

George Clark