Looking back on the process of becoming a mother, women come to understand the visions they had - of motherhood as a bed of roses, of birth as agony or ecstasy, of pregnancy as a flowering or a burden. After the event these images are brought sharply into focus by the contrast medium of reality, which exposes the outline of what was, too often, a romantic dream.

More than a third of the women said they found becoming a mother a difficult experience. Eight out of ten said it had been different from what they had expected. The same proportion thought the pictures of pregnancy, birth and motherhood conveyed in antenatal literature, women's magazines and the media in general were too romantic, painting an over-optimistic portrait of happy mothers and fathers, quiet contented babies and neat and shining homes that bore little resemblance to the chaos, disruption and confusion of first-time motherhood.

Fairy Stories

NINA BRADY, ex-shop assistant:

What's romantic about changing that nappy down there? What's romantic about it? I think people should be told about the hard life it is to be a mother. It's not easy to be a mother. I don't think it is, I think it's very difficult. It takes all your energy out of you. The responsibility and the work: because you are kept going. If that child cries at three o’clock you have got to get up and feed it if it continues to cry, haven't you? Isn't that a responsibility? Well you can't dial nine nine nine and tell them to come, the baby's crying: you’ve got to do it. I think they should be warned more: because when you go to those classes, they tell you about your baby and they make it sound so nice, like the adverts on television, they make everything sound so nice.