Brain-based parenting

If you have been on TikTok or Instagram long enough (go on and give us a follow…🙏), you will have no doubt come across the Flamingo used as an analogy for parenting. It turns out that when flamingoes (both male and female) feed their young chicks, their pink plumage loses colour and they turn a washed-out greyish hue. As the chicks become more independent, the parents gradually regain this colour. The analogy seems obvious. Parenthood is self-sacrifice, you lose your colour as you care for your young children, but you will get it back again.

Are you completely drained?

Is this a helpful analogy? Or do we perpetuate an image of the self-sacrificial mother who gives everything to her children at the expense of herself? Or at least is expected to… A little fact that gets left out - other flamingos can also feed the young, acting as “foster-feeders”. Isn’t that what we should encourage- help from the community?

Enter naked mole rats….

Naked mole rats are one of only two mammal species that are eusocial - that is they live in highly organised social groups. These multi-generational groups have mole-rats covering tasks that meet the whole communities needs - from digging tunnels, to finding and sharing food, to looking after the baby mole-rats - even taking turns feeding the little ones. Doesn’t that sounds blissful? And these animals are notoriously resistant to disease, they don’t get cancer or heart disease, and they live 10 times longer than similar species - staying in good health well into old age. Definitely an animal I would like to emulate- even if they have been described as an “elongated cocktail sausage” (I am more of a Cumberland sausage, post-babies- but no less wrinkly!).

Does it matter what your parenting spirit animal is?

This all came to mind because I was asked in a female founders network, what my spirit animal would be (feel free to reply and tell me yours!) and I immediately thought of the naked mole rat. Wrinkly sausage shape aside, I do admire a disease-resist and long-living animal that works as a group. Ok, the Queen naked mole rat has 27 pups a year and has to fight to keep her royal status (maybe she is more of a trad wife!), but I still admire their community spirit! Here is why I think it matters:

The portrayal of motherhood as a stage in which you devote everything to your children and then “get your colour back” once they become independent, feeds into the narrative that motherhood is sacrificial. The same narrative has impeded women’s participation (and now equitable return) to the workforce.

Mothers leave the workforce in their 1000s because their is insufficient affordable childcare, no ongoing support, a lack of flexibility, and a motherhood penalty that widens the gender pay gap.

Maternal healthcare and postpartum care is woefully under-resourced, to the detriment of mothers mental and physical health. This is even worse in minoritised groups. For example a crisis in Black maternal mortality, sees Black women three times more likely to die from preventable causes in pregnancy.

What does this mean for my parenting?

Echoing last weeks post on the importance of connecting to other parents to avoid loneliness, try to build your own naked mole rat community. That doesn’t mean you have to sit as queen breeder, but it does mean you can delegate some tasks to other community members!

Choose your spirit animal wisely! The more we buy into outdated views of motherhood as sacrificial, the more we sacrifice our needs and accept ridiculous expectations and terrible resources. And the more we feel guilty for wanting even the smallest amount of rest, freedom, independence, health and energy for ourselves.

***Back to brain’s next week. Here is a fun fact, those big teeth on naked mole rats take up lots of brain space (usually used for vision) - up to a third of their brain devoted to senses (somatosensory cortex) is actually dedicated to their teeth!

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