[Day 0] Introducing a New Midwifery Writing Series: Grandwifing the Midwife

Grandwifing is a word me and my brother coined, meaning ‘midwifing the midwife’. 

There’s a theory that social workers should be a bit like grandparents. Grandparents are outside the immediate family, and have some authority, but hopefully, they don’t get overinvolved and the power remains with the parents. This setup avoids co-dependency and facilitates growth. Grandparents get to show up in healthy ways.

This got me thinking about midwifery and what we need. 

I went through a self-help book stage when I was a third-year student midwife. This was on the recommendation of a midwifery mentor of mine. She read ‘chick-lit and self-help books, in that order’ and was unapologetic about it. She thought I could use the help she found in these places. I did read a few things. Tony Robbins annoyed the hell out of me but I followed some of his stuff. Paul McKenna was quite big at the time so I got his CDs. And I went back to the beginning of the industry and bought a secondhand paperback copy of ‘How To Stop Worrying and Start Living’ by Dale Carnegie. 

Around the same period of time my Grandad had a fall, broke his hip, ended up getting pneumonia in the hospital and then had a heart attack. He nearly died a few times. He was in frail condition for months, but was finally ready to go home. Me, my parents and my brother took turns to go and stay with my Grandparents to ease the transition. I was writing my dissertation at the time, so it felt achievable, at least in theory. At least I wasn’t going to be missing placement. I took my laptop. And I was reading the ‘How To Stop Worrying and Start Living’ self-help book over and over again. There was a lot of good stuff in it. ‘No matter what happens, be yourself’ is good advice. But for some reason, instead of feeling better, it was anxiety-inducing. It felt like I was failing.

I remember walking with my grandmother and talking about lots of things. She was incredibly robust, at least on the surface. She just kept going; gardening, working from home as a receptionist for my Grandad’s business, looking after the dogs. 

At one point she came into the guest room and noticed the ‘Stop Worrying and Start Living’ book on the bed. She pointed at it laughed, and said ‘yes we could all do with more of that’. There was a lot going on in that laugh. Some of it was derision. I’d bought a self-help book into her house that had been written by a man. In fact, pretty much all the self-help stuff I found at that time was written by white cis men. No wonder it didn’t land. Perhaps I should have read the chick-lit instead.

I’m bored of writing it out, but those socialised as women shoulder more than their fair share of their family’s troubles. They do more emotional and physical labour. Midwives are an extension of that. As Mavis Kirkham points out we are ‘eager beavers’. Our role keeps expanding, and staff members keep dropping. And black and brown people in this category both suffer from this more and are expected to do it with stoicism because they are ‘so strong’. 

But things are changing. More voices are being heard by the mainstream. My grandmother would have killed for the writing opportunities I have. She would have loved to use her creativity in this way. I wish she was still alive, and compos mentis, because she would have mind-blowing ideas for what I should be writing about. I’m sure of that.

So that ironic laugh and everything behind it had a lot of meaning. 

It’s no secret that I’m a fairly anxious person. I think a lot of us who work in healthcare are, actually. Part of what draws us into the profession is a need to care for people, and for that we need to be concerned about their wellbeing. Unless we’re paying attention, and actively working on it, we worry about people. Empathy comes with a side order of tension.

Also, for those who don’t know, I have a chronic condition that causes vertigo. It has co-morbidity with anxiety. Doctors are unclear on whether the vertigo causes the anxiety, or the anxiety causes the vertigo. For me it feels like the former. But after reading ‘When The Body Says No’ by Gabor Maté, I’m not sure it matters much either way.

In this new writing series, I will be thinking about anxiety and what to do about it. ‘Grandwifing’ is the term that came to mind, like ‘midwifing the midwife’, but more so; given our current circumstances we are going to need powerful help. Subconsciously I’m sure ‘Grand Midwife’ came into this word too - ‘Grand Midwives’ were Black midwives who kept midwifery skills alive in the USA during slavery and then the medicalisation of birth, and are well worth a Google. *

When I look back at my early interactions with the self-help industry, I can see I was looking for advice from people who had not walked the walk I was attempting. That was what was wrong.

This series is about trying to capturing information and advice. Not just people older than me, or those who have gone before me. This is not about age, though age helps. All I’m looking for is the healthy energy of being Grandwifed. And then maybe one day I can take the reins entirely.

Look out for a piece of writing every weekday, starting today, 6th Feb, running to 7th March. This series is being beautifully illustrated by an artist friend of mine, Anna Agutu, who may well have been breastfeeding while drawing. I hope so anyway, I said I’d pay her extra for that lol.

This will be live and raw and probably messy.

I’m writing this series for 3 reasons.

1. I really need to.

2. To help launch my new book, ‘Becoming a Midwife: A Student’s Guide’. To be honest, the whole of this series sums up what I’m trying to achieve so much better than the sales page ever could, but you can find it and buy it by clicking here - it's out 23/2/23

3. I want to talk to you about all this. So it's a good excuse to put on some live sessions around the theme. You can ride along with me as I bash this series out and get another layer of my midwifery life straight. If you pre-order/buy the book you get some of this free. Stay tuned for more info. 

Early access to this writing series for those who get my emails, you can sign up above.

To your needs,

Ellie.
 

A note on further influences:

Other inspirations for this word include Mars Lord, who is known as ‘AbuelaDoula’ over on Instagram and elsewhere, ‘Abuela’ means ‘grandmother’ in Spanish, and apparently, it implies someone with a prestigious position in Arabic. When I think ‘Grandwifing’ I think Joy Horner, Katie Byron and Nathan Welch. They are people who give me the same feeling. They make me calm, and calm is a superpower. I think I’m looking for older and wiser midwifery energy that relieves my anxiety and maybe even laughs at it, because it’s not that consequential.