Claire Lynch, SMALL: On Motherhoods
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[0:41]Claire Lynch is the author of Small on Motherhoods.
[0:44]Claire works as a university lecturer and is the author of two academic books and numerous
[0:48]scholarly articles and chapters.
[0:50]Claire's four-thought-talk-the-other-mother was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2020,
[0:57]and her first piece of narrative nonfiction took second place in the spread-the-word life
[1:01]writing prize in 2017.
[1:03]She was a short-listed writer for the Penguin Random House right now scheme in 2018, and
[1:08]a long-listed writer for the Hintrelland Nonfiction Prize in 2019.
[1:12]Small is her first book for a general audience.
[1:14]Welcome, Claire.
[1:15]Thank you so much for coming on Moms.
[1:17]Don't have time to read books to discuss small on motherhoods.
[1:20]Well, thank you so much for having me.
[1:22]It's a real pleasure.
[1:23]Claire, this is one of the most beautiful books about motherhood and fertility, miscarriage,
[1:30]having kids, new birth, fear, love, all of it wrapped into one.
[1:35]It's like poetic and beautiful, and I loved it.
[1:38]Thank you so much.
[1:39]I was really kind to be to say it's very strange in a way to be talking about it, because
[1:45]it was written and locked down.
[1:46]This kind of idea that it's out in the world still seems a bit strange to me, so it's
[1:51]really exciting to kind of realize, like, real people are holding it in their hands.
[1:54]That's great.
[1:55]I am a real person.
[1:56]Here it is.
[1:57]It's your whole story, oh my gosh.
[2:00]I know you said that in the acknowledgements that you had written a lot of it in found time
[2:05]in the NICU, in little bits and spurts.
[2:08]Tell me a little bit about your writing process of this and also how the form, how you
[2:14]chose this form to tell it, because it is on the psych poetry.
[2:17]Yeah.
[2:18]Thanks.
[2:19]Really, I thought I was a genius when I came up with the idea of it being called small,
[2:22]because then let me get away with all sorts of tiny fragments.
[2:27]I think it couldn't be a more appropriate place to talk about it than your podcast really.
[2:32]This idea that when the babies were in NICU jotting things down in those small hours of
[2:39]the night, or I'm sure all parents know those kinds of sitting on the landing, waiting
[2:45]for people to go to sleep, kind of moments.
[2:48]And maybe a good sentence comes into your head and you can't run off to sit down at
[2:52]the computer, but maybe you can tap out that one sentence on your phone and then come
[2:57]back to it later.
[2:59]So I think some of that stuff is poetry by necessity, that it comes out in those fragments.
[3:06]But also, I guess what I wanted to do with that is that's kind of my sense of it that
[3:11]the parent who is poetry and prose is kind of these beautiful moments and then a lot
[3:16]of putting chicken nuggets in the oven, you know, so that kind of getting, trying to catch
[3:21]both of those things through the language, I guess, was what I was trying to get to.
[3:26]Sometimes it's these kind of profound moments and letting that be on the page as well
[3:31]as what I wanted to try and do.
[3:33]Well, the way you lead us into childbirth and even the struggle to have children and
[3:40]how the ease at which other couples by being a man and a woman can have a child even
[3:46]is something that, you know, can't be taken for granted and that you have to sort of
[3:49]work through and you have to defend yourself to random genetics counselors and it's like
[3:54]very, I mean, humiliating the wrong word, but, you know, I mean, it's like disrespectful
[4:00]that you have to go through all this to have a child that are great.
[4:03]It's like, yeah, I'm going to guess the wrong word wrong word, I don't know, you fill
[4:06]in the word.
[4:07]Well, no, I think I've probably mellowed in my kind of sense of it over the time and I
[4:12]guess, you know, I think there are kind of, there are different expectations as opposed
[4:16]and I guess the medical intervention is necessarily going to be different, but that's different
[4:20]for a lot of couples, whatever the, you know, or people having kids in their own.
[4:25]So I think, yeah, I'm certainly one of the things that I hope that the book does is kind
[4:29]of remind us of, you know, for a lot of people, there's a lot of work to be done before
[4:34]the parenthood even begins.
[4:36]And I think maybe in my case, at least that, that, that did affect my kind of perspective
[4:41]and it may be some of those small moments that are easy to take for granted.
[4:45]Maybe I do that a little bit less so because of that feeling, I don't know.
[4:49]I mean, it's hard to, it's hard to know, but I guess all of that is part of it, right?
[4:53]The kind of before, you're not perhaps just a parent from the moment of birth, but maybe
[4:58]that kind of from that moment you make the decision, that that's what you're going to, you
[5:02]know, what you're trying to be or where you're trying to go, it begins then.
[5:06]And if that's a long journey, then I guess that's a long time where you're sort of thinking
[5:10]about motherhood or parenthood before any of the action starts, I guess.
[5:15]So, you know, I think some of that, the book kind of deals with that, that sort of life
[5:18]on hold experience as well.
[5:22]Maybe we should call them parents and waiting because it's really what you want.
[5:26]Right.
[5:27]It should have, it should be like a whole category.
[5:29]Like, yeah, like a, like a lady.
[5:31]Yeah, exactly.
[5:32]Yeah.
[5:33]Yeah.
[5:34]Yeah.
[5:35]The moment when, let me see if I can find it because I don't know if I'd dug it, but the moment
[5:39]where you're sitting in your car and your wife is pregnant and then she calls you and
[5:44]is like, you have to come home right away and you feel like it's over and you're sitting
[5:49]in your car and screaming at the steering wheel, that raw emotion.
[5:54]And I mean, it was just so like it brought tears to my eyes because like, I mean, I've
[6:00]been there.
[6:01]Other people have been there.
[6:02]Like, you, when you want it so badly and then it's just like taken away and you're so hopeful
[6:07]and then you're not.
[6:08]And oh my gosh.
[6:09]Anyway, that moment, of course, I can't find it, but that moment was just so totally beautiful.
[6:14]Anyway, I just wanted to flag that, but I can't find it.
[6:17]Well, yeah, I'm sorry about the tears, but yeah, I mean, that's the thing isn't that
[6:22]kind of, that kind of proximity between the hope and the grief, I think is a really difficult
[6:28]thing to, you know, to deal with, isn't it, that you kind of can move from kind of thinking
[6:31]everything's going perfectly to it, not in such a short space of time and luckily, you
[6:36]know, in that case, it sort of can flip just as quickly.
[6:39]Yes.
[6:40]You know, well, I didn't find that passage, but I did digur this passage, which is also
[6:43]beautiful.
[6:44]So I'll just read this.
[6:45]If that's okay, I'll read this paragraph or what?
[6:47]Whether or not the treatment has worked, it has already changed us.
[6:50]This possible baby already staking its claim on our lives, displacing at last the imaginary
[6:55]one who has grown quietly in the shadows over all these years of waiting.
[7:00]I would know him anywhere, the small boy with dark curly hair, a dream child, a work of
[7:05]my imagination, a comfort and a cancer.
[7:07]The shadow baby has sat behind us on each drive to the clinic.
[7:11]He's waited at the airport every time we've tried to go away to forget about him.
[7:15]He's always at family parties or crawling at the feet of friends when they announce the
[7:18]news of another pregnancy.
[7:20]I know other people have them too.
[7:22]I've seen a shadow baby on a woman's lap when her friends smirk knowingly as she orders
[7:26]an orange juice instead of a glass of wine when conversations are swiftly changed about
[7:30]spare bedrooms going to waste or biological clocks ticking.
[7:34]You can see them snuggled in the crook of an elbow resting on a hip.
[7:39]Thank you.
[7:40]I mean, that's just, I think that was a part of it that I wrote very early on actually
[7:45]because I think that sort of, you know, spoiler alert, we did end up having children.
[7:50]We have three children.
[7:51]So, you know, there's a kind of afterlife in the story too, but I think that that weight
[7:56]that people experience, the weight of waiting, I guess, sort of use that, I think is extremely
[8:02]hard.
[8:03]And I think I hope that part of the book is a call to, you know, sensitivity around that
[8:08]or kind of understanding that, you know, lots of the time, I mean, it seems strange to
[8:12]say, but lots of the things I've written about here are things I didn't say to people
[8:17]at the time.
[8:18]You know, I wouldn't have spoken to even very close friends about the things that apparently
[8:23]completely, you know, bizarrely, I'm very happy to write them in a book apparently, but
[8:26]not speak to people in real life.
[8:28]So I don't know what troubling thing that's just about my personality, but whatever it
[8:32]is, I share that.
[8:33]Okay.
[8:34]I mean, because that's totally fine, right?
[8:36]That's kind of not telling people face to face or whatever.
[8:40]Literally, I was standing next to like the line of moms that pick up the other day from
[8:44]my little guy.
[8:45]I have four kids.
[8:46]And I was typing like a very heartfelt thing on to Instagram or Medium or somewhere.
[8:52]And I was like pouring out my feelings and then posting.
[8:55]And then I looked at the woman next to me, I'm like, why is it okay that I would like
[8:58]upload this and she could consume it through this intermediate intermediary, like space?
[9:05]But I wouldn't like turn to her and just be like, here's how I'm feeling today.
[9:08]Yeah, it's like bizarre.
[9:09]Yeah.
[9:10]I mean, you know, if it's in writing somehow, that's okay.
[9:13]I don't know what the thing is.
[9:14]But that's a rule, right?
[9:15]That's fine to spill your guts on page or Instagram, but not, you know, so yeah, exactly
[9:21]that.
[9:22]So I mean, I guess, yeah, I think that moment is testament to that, isn't it, really, that
[9:25]all of these people are kind of holding their own stories in because it's such a difficult
[9:29]thing to talk about.
[9:30]So maybe reading about them or kind of, then we can talk about the books where those
[9:35]things happen is a little safety valve, maybe.
[9:38]Yeah.
[9:39]I also love the image of you being relegated to the Le Mans classroom, whatever it's
[9:46]called with all the debts, right?
[9:48]And you're like, it's like over there, you know, doing her breathing and all the stuff.
[9:52]And then there you are and you're like, what, what are you doing, like sitting over there
[9:58]and so funny.
[10:00]The poor dads me and the poor dads. Yeah. I mean, we had a very traditional and tornado class teacher. I guess we would just say here
[10:05]But I mean, yeah, and it was funny. I mean, it was it was one of those things
[10:09]It was it was funny
[10:12]In retrospect kind of hard at the time
[10:14]But funny for everyone really because I mean, you know, nobody really arranges their family life
[10:19]I don't think you know nowadays around those kinds of lines anyhow
[10:23]So but yeah, she definitely had moms to one end of the room and a dad's to another
[10:28]Kind of mentality and so um, yeah, I was messing with the system
[10:35]And then of course you write about having the girls and then the NICU and
[10:40]You know post NICU and just having to deal with
[10:44]Twins and how that I mean, I have twins. It is like a quite a club to be a part of
[10:49]You know, it's it's a lot and the way you even wrote about that
[10:52]So tell me tell me more about
[10:55]Getting through the challenging time and then how you felt arriving home and all of that
[11:00]Yeah, well, I guess I guess you know all of this. I mean, I don't know when did you have your twins first or twins
[11:05]Yeah, so I feel like we're the lucky ones in a sense because if you don't know any better
[11:10]Yep, then it's kind of in at the z-pend and that's fine. I mean
[11:14]You know, I I think one of the major major things we did there is make friends with people have triplets because then you feel like your life is easy
[11:21]So you know, that's top tip for anyone expecting twins
[11:24]Yeah, I mean, I think it was it's what the I guess the book captures that kind of long
[11:29]My process of getting there. And then when you're there suddenly it's kind of all action, isn't it?
[11:33]So yeah, I mean, I think mostly that sort of sense of
[11:37]Suddenly being this kind of force them kind of getting through the world together and you know watching though watching them
[11:45]Grote and discover language together and discover each other and you know being that sort of unit forcing you to kind of see the world differently
[11:52]I think that's just you know, I don't think anything prepares you really quite for what that's like that kind of shift in perspective
[11:58]That comes from you know small people navigating the world and new therefore having to navigate the world
[12:05]Through them and I think we could talk about it more really
[12:08]I think you know those kind of ways of
[12:11]Being forced to look yourself differently because of constantly happen to explain everything
[12:17]You know, that's a great
[12:19]Great test of how little you know
[12:25]Questions that you can never answer. So I think it's you know, it's all of that from the you know
[12:30]From the very beginning up until kind of now all of that is you know, great food for thought
[12:34]I think last night we were watching TV and somebody on TV said something about like
[12:39]Eliminating single-use plastic and my daughter's like for what do they mean?
[12:42]I'm like well, they they don't want you to just use plastic one time and
[12:46]My daughter's like well, what should we do and I was like use it twice
[12:51]I mean that's awful to feel like I don't know just I don't want to go let it to you
[12:55]I mean, I feel like you've got off quite easy though
[12:57]I had on the way to school this morning
[12:59]How many bike rides have you been on in your entire life?
[13:02]Mm-hmm
[13:03]I'm like, I don't I don't have a number for that and they're just outraged by my ignorance to be honest
[13:08]I like how have you not been keeping
[13:10]Yeah, counts, you know, I'm just I'm so sorry. I just haven't got the data to
[13:15]To back up any of my opinions. So yeah single-use plastics
[13:20]Failure to account for everything you've ever done in your life. Yes, you know, well
[13:24]It's just a constant failure really. I feel like I'm very grateful to Siri because every time we get to ask me
[13:29]I'm just like
[13:33]I'm just stepping out
[13:35]Second so you consult with the oracle exactly
[13:38]Order your kids now
[13:40]26 on the little one's three
[13:43]Wow
[13:44]Yeah, so you know, I get pitched a lot of books about motherhood
[13:48]And I read a lot of books about motherhood because obviously I'm in it and I'm interested and I love it and you know
[13:53]All of that
[13:54]But I feel like this book really stood out in the way it was written and sort of the beauty of the prose and
[14:00]The introspection mixed with you know, just beautiful language
[14:04]So tell me a little about your approach to language your training
[14:09]Your rating like all of that side of you. Oh, okay. So thank you. That's really kind to say
[14:16]So my day job is I'm an academic I'm a professor of literature and
[14:20]Really, I think I because of that
[14:22]I've only used to writing in a very rigid very I'm doing a very frowny space into the camera now
[14:28]Like a sensible serious academic style of writing and so in a sense a good thing about that is I probably
[14:35]Felt that the only way I could write differently was to write completely differently and so kind of
[14:41]You know try and forget all of the rules that I
[14:44]Am normally kind of supposed to adhere to you and write something
[14:47]You know that that was was free from that a bit and I do think that the kind of constrained time
[14:54]In which I was able to write also kind of helped that sort of stylistically that you know, I
[15:00]Had to
[15:01]Use the time I had which meant that you know, I had to make every word counts
[15:05]And I think you know the other thing about the kind of process is that I had no idea until
[15:11]I wrote this at the editorial process is such an incredible thing
[15:16]You know another person is going to really help you and work and
[15:20]You know
[15:21]Ask you those questions that you didn't know you need asking and I think that really
[15:25]So this book is part of a new imprint called brazen and wrongly more than my publisher there
[15:31]And she just kind of let me do you know what I felt was right
[15:34]But also kind of just maybe raise my game and I think
[15:38]You know that is just such a gift really you know to be able to have someone
[15:43]Just give you that little nudge of confidence, you know that you can
[15:47]Do something with writing that you haven't done before so, you know, I hope everyone gets that from somewhere
[15:52]You know that a kind of person who will just say to you
[15:54]You know, why not give it a little bit of a go. What books do you like to read? Oh, I was hoping you weren't going to ask me that questions
[16:01]Are you just I'm just I'm only because that you know as I said
[16:06]I'm about to now launch into a long lecture of all the books. I like to it now
[16:09]I won't do that
[16:10]I mean, I obviously I do like reading memoir and nonfiction
[16:13]I'm trying to trade myself out of doing that for a little while at the moment and news to enjoy some novels
[16:18]But nonfiction wise. I love sineglie since constellations
[16:21]I don't know if you've come across that and then it's a brilliant brilliant kind of I love collections of kind of connected essays
[16:27]Where you know, you don't quite notice, you know, where you're going and
[16:31]Magiopharals essays and that respect to just those ones that you just kind of think that kind of sense of it's
[16:37]Unbelievable that something is kind of pulled together so well
[16:39]And it feels kind of effortless and yet you know, right?
[16:43]That real effort has gone into that all the same. That's something so amazing to me that you know that kind of does not let the
[16:49]Not let the pencil marks show somehow. I just love that kind of writing beautiful
[16:53]Yeah, I haven't heard of constellations for now. I'm going to go look. Well, let me let me add that to you
[16:58]I'm sure you've got such a small list of books that you need to read. I don't even today discuss
[17:04]Like I can't even look over there. Like I'm assuming that whole shelf behind you is just this weeks
[17:11]That I haven't touched since a year ago. I made that shelf and
[17:14]Yeah, I mean it looks beautiful. This one. I keep this one's almost untouchable
[17:18]And then I have the ones ahead of me that yeah that I are like my working shelves
[17:22]Yeah, I'm assuming this one of those like blue nets and the ceiling above you usually some
[17:27]When it's time to read something else
[17:29]That would be really cool
[17:31]I would love to have balloons in here like all the same colors of the books. I mean, I'll drop that would be so fun
[17:36]Friday night release. Yeah, or maybe I could do some sort of filter where I see what that looks like without having to actually do it
[17:43]That would be fun. Thanks. All right
[17:45]Fun times. I'm sure the kids could help me with that
[17:48]Anyway, okay, so what are you working on now? Are you gonna do? Are you gonna write another memoir? What are you working on?
[17:55]I'm I'm I mean, I say this with the real hesitation. I'm gonna try and write some fiction
[18:00]I think I'm gonna see you know
[18:02]I feel like it's kind of that what's what is it to lose to try and see how it turns out
[18:06]So I've got a little idea for a novel. I'm gonna give that a go
[18:09]I really enjoyed the kind of the sort of process of this book
[18:13]You know kind of going back into the not too distant past but having enough time away to
[18:19]To you know, see it differently. So maybe you know, maybe I'm hoping that there might be another
[18:24]Something like that in the future
[18:26]But I haven't really lived any other life yet
[18:28]So I need a little bit of time to pass because this one goes up to pretty much, you know
[18:33]Now, so um, you know, I need a little bit. It would have to go even further back
[18:38]Exactly, you know, my memoirs from you know 18 months old onwards. I don't really think that's of interest
[18:45]Yeah, and you know, I have a kind of
[18:48]Sort of in the back of my mind one day
[18:50]There could be a version where the girls are kind of writing it with me. You know that would be a great book
[18:54]You know that if you could collaborate and
[18:57]You know for chapter two that would be brilliant
[18:59]I wonder if you could do like if you could do a memoir from the point of view of a baby
[19:03]You know, like that would be a good challenge. That sounds like a yeah creative right to workshop. Yeah, you know beginning
[19:10]Yeah, well, you go ahead and try that
[19:14]I'm happy to read
[19:18]Okay, what advice would you have for aspiring others? I think don't be afraid of those little snippets of time really because I think it's very easy to
[19:26]You know got sorry to be so on brand for your podcast, but you know
[19:29]I think that idea that you have to kind of have
[19:32]The the sort of writers retreat or the kind of long stretches of time and the exact right-head space
[19:38]Maybe that happens for some people, but I think the most part everyone's just squeezing it in here and there
[19:44]And I don't think you have to assume that means poor quality
[19:47]You know, I think you can get those kind of tiny gems that they're an expert into the good stuff when you have got a bit more time
[19:53]So I'd say just you know the notes app on your phone is your friend
[20:00]taking my laptop to like different doctors appointments and waiting rooms and like there'd
[20:04]be like screaming kids and there I'd be like trying to be like, you know, you never know what's
[20:10]going to come out, right? But imagine, maybe it would be a billion times better if you could
[20:15]actually sit down at a tent. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's not going to be that would be lovely.
[20:20]I'm not against that. If anyone is here offering me a cabin in the woods with, you know,
[20:26]about that. I'm fine with it. But you know, if you haven't got that available,
[20:30]yeah, I'm knocking on your door. So yeah, I'm in there. Yeah. Okay.
[20:35]I won't say I want to sorry. I'd rather actually be, you know, in a supermarket car park for this
[20:41]frantically jotting out some of my phone. Yeah.
[20:45]Anyway, okay. Well, Claire, thank you so much. Again, this book is beautiful. And yeah, I'm just really
[20:52]glad I read it and glad to have met you. Me too. Thank you so much for having me. I just want to
[20:56]quickly say, I just love the beginning part of your podcast. Every time I listen to it and you say
[21:00]it's like, hello from some of my kids. I like to think that there's kind of 25 of them
[21:05]and you have like a rotor. Like I'm just letting one or two of them say hello today and then next time
[21:09]it's numbers three to 13. I just, you know, I have this kind of
[21:15]some of my kids is misleading. I should have said most of my kids, I don't know. Don't take that
[21:20]image away from me. I really enjoy coming together. I wonder who's saying hello today.
[21:26]It's really that my older son refuses to participate. That's okay. He's like, no thanks.
[21:31]Oh, first. Yeah, 19 a jerry is like, no, I'm done. But yeah, anyway, all right, thank you so much.
[21:37]I have a good idea. Take care. Bye.
[21:41]Hi, I'm City Owens and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
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