Katie’s Story
Katie experienced a difficult upbringing. Her relationship with her own mother impacted her confidence at the critical entry point of motherhood. She bravely shares her experience as part of COPE’s campaign, The Truth.
Becoming a parent is a time when many people find themselves reflecting on their childhood and on the type of parent they hope to be.
For mother of two, Katie, this began during pregnancy, which she found “emotionally very difficult”. “It’s scary what it does to the thoughts in your head,” she says.
And it’s scary trying to say it out loud.
“There were a lot of demons I had to come to terms with about my own upbringing," Katie continues, explaining that her mother was emotionally and psychologically abusive.
“Growing up I had Leukaemia,” Katie says, describing that her mother took her and her siblings away from their father. “When she found out I had Leukaemia she moved us as far away from the Royal Children’s Hospital as possible to Warrnambool and made it really hard for him to see me.
“When I got home, she’d never give me medication because she preferred it when I was sicker, because she got more attention. There was never a loving relationship with my mum so I never sought that.”
During her pregnancy, Katie says she didn’t know what she was emotionally going to be able to give her baby. “[I thought] I’ll look after it. I’m not going to do what my mum did but I’m not going to love it.”
Working in early childhood, Katie said other parents would often say to her, “You’re going to be such a good mother.” For Katie though, there was a lot of uncertainty about the kind of mother she would be. “[I’d think] there’s just no chance. I see the spark in your eyes when you see your kid and I’ll care about my kid. But I just didn’t think I had that capacity in me.”
But while it took a week or two to recover from a traumatic birth, Katie said she was surprised when she found herself thinking of her firstborn, “Oh, she’s mine! And I’m not my mother. So, I do love her. It was a lot of full on emotions after. And the hormones on top of that.”
While the pain of the past, “never goes away” Katie says it’s easier now as there’s been so much distance.
We ended up with my dad from the time I was about eight or nine, so it got better after that. But you don’t have that reference, that parenting reference and even from my dad. Getting emotional support was like getting blood from a stone. I loved him dearly, we were best mates, but it was a different relationship.
Katie is proud of the loving relationship she and her husband have with their children. “We are so open and sensitive, talking about feelings. It’s been different getting used to that – in a good way. Because I didn’t know we had it in us.”
