Hilary Rose: 'Having your first child is such a baptism of fire'

Sun, 15 Nov, 2020 - 08:01

Ciara McDonnell

I had a really happy childhood. I just remember having a lot of freedom in the countryside. Between the age of four and nine I was out all day every day, on my own in the fields, finding fairy forts and broken down houses and petting cows and kidnapping horses.

I spent a lot of time on my own as a child, and that was a really positive thing for me. I am five years younger than my next sibling (there's four of us altogether). It's a weird thing when you're a child and you can see things quite clearly before they get muddled by society and education and everything else. I had a very clear picture of who I was as a kid.

Having your first child is such a baptism of fire. With my first child, I was so nervous if he did anything. My second child — she's not even two yet and she would have the car keys in her hand and be out the door before I could blink.

Hilary Rose: this package of 'let's have it all', which we know is a load of bollox. Picture: Miki Barlok

My mother-in-law says that we should all apologise to our first children because we are all just learning to be mothers on those ones.

I read something recently that really resonated with me. It said that when you become a parent and when you watch your kids grow up, you actually relive that time of your life as a child. My son is five, and I think I am gently reliving all of those emotions and experiences that I had when I was his age.

I lost the run of myself a bit in my 20s and my early 30s and that I think is the way it tends to happen. Particularly in this society that we find ourselves in, where we are chasing a lot, and that tends to be very ego-driven and materialistic. I did all of that, but I feel like I am really coming back to the sense of myself that I was when I was a child. I'm 41 and maybe it's the age that I'm at.

Women today have to be the psychologist, the nurse, the carer, the feeder, the cleaner — it's a massive work overload that we're suffering from. It comes with this package of 'let's have it all', which we know is a load of bollox.

Hilary Rose as Mairead MacSweeney in The Young Offenders. Picture: PA Photo/ BBC/Vico Films/Miki Barlok

You can have a lot of everything and you can do what you want to do. I'm very much a working mum and a career-driven person and I always have been and I always will be, but it is about finding that balance.

It goes back to redistributing the workload, just like any company would. If I'm up in the night, juggling the emotional workload, then my husband will take the pressure off elsewhere. It's a negotiation, I think.

My greatest quality is my ability to love. My Mum is a very loving, giving person, and I learned that from her.

At the end of last year, a really good friend told me to start going with the flow. He said 'you're fighting with your life, why are you doing that. Go with the flow.' And he was right.

I believe that there are definitely different paths that you can take in life, but I feel like you always end up at the same point, regardless of the path you choose. I do think there's a bit of predestination or fate about it.

I am best at being free. During lockdown, I started a blog called Live Wild where I document all the things I do, like barefoot walking in the woods or wild swimming. Doing these things make me feel like me. I'm doing it for me, not to impress anybody or any of those things.