When I saw the unmistakable thin blue lines appear on a pregnancy test in a caravan in Norfolk in the height of summer of 2020, I felt giddy. I hadn’t really thought I was pregnant; the test (I told myself) was just a cursory precaution so we could go get drunk on the beach without guilt.
Deep down though, I knew.
I let out a giggle in the cramped caravan toilet, telling my boyfriend the shocking but not totally surprising news.
Although in our early 30s, we joked we felt more like two teenagers in love. We had the energy and carelessness – tipping into recklessness – of people at least 5-10 years younger than our actual age.
Having had difficult childhoods, we’d resisted growing up in many ways, but our commitment to each other was real and true. As I sat on the cliff edge, looking at the sea meeting the horizon, sun beaming down on legs exposed by denim cutoffs, I felt a contentment that was new. After years of taking flight, I was finally figuring out my landing.
Fast forward just three and a half years, and I’d just given birth to our third baby boy. Third baby in under three years – years of birth trauma, multiple dark nights of the soul and sleep deprivation. The painful desperation of trying to parent when you weren’t really parented yourself, and realising you have no clue. Exhaustion, bone deep. The unanswered WhatsApp messages and unattended social events. I felt any semblance of my previous self had been completely dismantled.
I love my children more than anything, but I didn’t recognise what I had become.
I expected to bond easily with other parents over the shared experience. I thought being a new parent would naturally be a time of raw vulnerability and honesty, the kind that binds you together like college friends throwing up over a balcony as freshmen.
I was taken aback by how practical, timid and anxiety-driven the conversations actually were with other new parents. They mostly revolved around wake windows and the latest gadgets to outsource parenting to. Admitting how much I was struggling would have been met with awkward silence. It felt lonely, and not at all what I imagined.
Photo Courtesy Of Susannah McIntyre
Carrying, birthing and breastfeeding three babies in just over 2.5 years has taken its toll, physically, emotionally and psychologically. Financial pressures, family fallout and the sheer dissonance of loving my children so intensely while still finding so much of motherhood so excruciating. I’ve cried every day for years now. Then, when I went back to work last autumn, life became an almost unbearable pressure cooker of work, babies, babies, work.
Yet when I saw an indoor skatepark had opened in our home city – the first of its kind – I felt strangely drawn to it. Some skaters had gotten together to build the thing themselves, and it ran out of an unused warehouse, kept going by volunteers.
My partner is a skateboarder, and as a teenager, I worked at a skate shop after school because the music was good and it signalled I was one of the “cool kids.” I had bladed as a kid, I was always sporty, skating felt natural and I loved the feeling of freedom. When I then saw the new skate park was looking for “supervisors,” I got the little buzz of an answer to a question I didn’t know I’d asked.
I’d barely stepped away from childcare duties in years, especially since the birth of our third child. If I ever did find myself with any spare time, I didn’t know how to fill it in a way that felt productive or pleasurable.
The idea of being somewhere completely removed from the seemingly never-ending demands of work and family life felt like a welcome reprieve. Being able to offer something to the community was a bonus. And the skatepark was open after bedtime, so weirdly, logistically, it worked.
When I arrived at my first shift to “open up” the warehouse, I quickly felt at home in the cool, DIY, foundry-esque style space. I enjoyed having simple tasks to do: check people in, show them where the toilets are, and play some role in ensuring they don’t die. Compared to the sometimes elusive and changeable demands of parenting, it felt like a breath of fresh air to be able to offer value in such a simple exchange.
I also loved having conversations that didn’t start with, “So how old is your little one?” Nobody there even knew I had kids. It was strange to walk around somewhere with no buggy to push or baby to carry. I felt weirdly small again, with an anonymity I hadn’t experienced in years.
Being at the skatepark and seeing people of all ages doing cool things and buzzing about it was energising. The energy of the younger skaters reminded me of my carefree younger self, when all options were on the table and everything felt possible. I also loved how much everyone cheers each other on. When someone lands a difficult trick, people tap and stomp their boards in recognition of their effort.
When skateboarders miss a trick or fall down instead, their limitations are there for everyone to see. Unlike our limitations as parents, which are often deeply buried, perhaps even to ourselves. Having everyone’s successes and failures, progress and frustration laid bare loosens everyone up: there’s nowhere to hide, so people don’t.
Back behind the desk, I quickly bonded with the other volunteers over shared ideas and trading skills on how to keep the place alive and improve it. I felt reconnected to my younger self who was always getting fired up over projects, talking my way into interesting work and life opportunities.
Released from being seen solely as somebody’s mum, of course I find myself talking about my kids – the funny things they do, and the hopes and dreams I have for them. These are the kind of conversations I expected to have with other parents but have found to be rare.
Unlike at baby groups, where the conversations are often focused completely on child development milestones, at the skatepark I feel free to talk about ideas and passions that include but are not limited to my amazing children. I now take my children to the skatepark’s under-10 sessions, where the skaters hand the boys free skate magazines and sweetly hold the baby upright on a skateboard. The skateboarding community has welcomed me both as a mother and a person.
Photo Courtesy Of Susannah McIntyre
And volunteering at the skatepark, giving out information, ice packs and administering basic first aid as needed, has given me the sense of purpose and community I expected to find in motherhood but didn’t.
That I would feel more at home amongst the skateboarding community, despite barely having set foot on a skateboard, than I do with people at the exact same life stage as me, made me drastically reconsider what it is we need as parents in order to thrive.
The contrast has made me rethink what we really need as parents. What if, instead of baby-centred spaces, we had person-centred ones? Where people were encouraged to engage in their interests, hobbies and skills and connect with other adults in the process? With places for children to play alongside, perhaps. Places where we can connect as whole individuals as well as parents. Wouldn’t that make us more interesting, fun and energised parents, able to pour from cups that weren’t entirely empty?
What if we took a skater’s approach to parenting and laid it all bare? Open, unfiltered and without shame. Maybe that would be the key to building a real sense of meaningful community?
I find taking a breather from parenting and time-travelling back to a younger, more adaptable version of myself for a couple of hours helps me to return as a lighter and more playful parent. It reminds me that I won’t be stuck on this sofa forever. Life moves on, the world is still happening outside and I can and will get back to it. And that helps me appreciate that for now I get to hold these tiny feet in my palms and kiss my children’s perfect faces for just a bit longer.
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