Guest Blog: Emily Beecher On THE GOOD ENOUGH MUMS CLUB

It's 10:30am on a Monday morning in lockdown. I, along with most of the world, am on yet another Zoom call, but this isn't your average video meeting. This digital delight is filling my heart with the most amazing joy, because in each and every one of the little squares on my screen sits a phenomenal woman with their child. Welcome to a rehearsal of The Good Enough Mums Club!

I wrote the musical The Good Enough Mums Club in response to the isolation and devastation I felt while I struggled with postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis after the birth of my daughter. Due to being diagnosed so late, I spent over a year believing I was a terrible mum who was ruining her daughter's life just by being alive. I know intimately how mums who look like they're fine are often very much not.

When lockdown kicked in and all of a sudden I found myself single parenting 24/7, facing the decimation of the industry I loved, the financial insecurity of all of my work being cancelled, falling through the cracks of all the Government self-employment schemes, and being asked to homeschool whilst trying to find some work, I instinctively knew two things. One, that regardless of situation, mums were going to take the brunt of the unpaid labour of COVID. And, two, that they were going to feel isolated and lonely as the days of lockdown turned to weeks and months.

Squeezed between fronted adverbials, the bus stop method and arguing about the permissible hours of screen time, I spent as much time as I could applying for funding programmes. Although three bids were unsuccessful, thankfully our ACE emergency Fund bid came through. This gave us the financial security we needed to continue to develop the show, but also to connect with as many mums as we could to let them know that they were doing a great job, even on those days where they found themselves crying in the kitchen over yet another dirty dish or neverending pile of laundry.

In 'normal' times, the cast, director, arranger, composer and I would have been in a room together for five days and then hosted a 'sharing' of the work. Clearly, we needed to rethink how we were going to work, especially as our entire team is made of mothers. We were going to have to work smarter and more flexibly. We calculated the hours we would have worked normally and then spread that time across a six-week period. We all come together at a regular Monday rehearsal, but the rest of the time the team works flexibly, as and when and with whoever is needed.

Kids have always been welcome in our rehearsals and spaces and we have kept that approach on Zoom, leading to the glorious rehearsal I mentioned at the beginning. As welcome as they are, there are still times when our own children piss us off and we want them to go away, to get to work in peace. I know of mums locking themselves in the bathroom for an extra 10 minutes to finish an email or learn a song, and that is totally OK, because we all get it - we all know how hard it can be.

For far too long, women in the arts have felt that they have to choose between being a mother (or admitting to being a mother) and the work they love. There are many incredibly talented women whose careers should be much bigger than they are because they can't juggle a year-long contract or there's no way they could make going on tour a reality with a child.

The industry is missing out by not being flexible enough to make it work. We're an organisation led by three single mums who are working-class, benefits-class, mixed-race and disabled, and while I'd love to claim that our flexible way of working is because we are fantastic leaders and creatives, the reality is that basic access and inclusivity is essential so people like us can create and develop the arts. It should already be the norm for all organisations, especially those who go on about diversity.

Diverse voices have always been important to us; whenever we work on the show, we also go out into the community and host workshops for mums to talk about how they're feeling as a mum. These workshops are, hands down, one of the best parts of doing the show. We've had conversations with mums from all backgrounds, with working class mums down the pub, with multi-generations of women at a mosque in Birmingham, with middle-class mums in North London, with women whose families live in the shadow of Grenfell, those whose children have additional needs, with mums who are struggling to conceive.

We've laughed and cried together, and I always leave wishing I could have shared those conversations with a much wider audience. Launching our Good Enough Mums Club podcast has allowed us to do that. Every week, we interview a different mum and learn about their mum-life, what they wrestle with, what makes them feel like them. What I learned after receiving my postnatal depression diagnosis was that I felt far less lonely and judged if I was honest about my situation, and I 100% believe that to be true. Getting to hear about other mums' lives is a constant reminder that so many of us are struggling silently. When we hear the similarities in our situations we can be more kind to ourselves, and recognise that, actually, sometimes being just good enough is best.

Find out more at:
www.goodenoughmumsclub.com
anchor.fm/goodenoughmumsclub

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