Fay­ola K J Fras­er

The rapid growth of so­cial me­dia has been a dou­ble-edged sword. While some find so­lace and con­nec­tion in so­cial me­dia par­al­lels, oth­ers feel un­mo­ti­vat­ed and dis­heart­ened by the un­at­tain­able cu­rat­ed re­al­i­ty.

In the world of “mom­flu­encers”, these so­cial me­dia pages ex­ist on both ends of the spec­trum. A “mom­flu­encer” or a “mom in­flu­encer” is a moth­er who shares snip­pets and mo­ments from her moth­er­hood jour­ney, along with prac­ti­cal tips and tricks to sup­port oth­er women.

In this era of an abun­dance of mom­flu­encers, one Trinida­di­an woman pre­sent­ing the “re­al­ness” of moth­er­hood stands out. Nik­isha Wat­son, bet­ter known as “thi­sis­real­ma­ma” on In­sta­gram, has grown a loy­al fol­low­ing of par­ents who have, des­per­ate for an out­let, in­haled her “raw, un­cen­sored moth­er­hood” con­tent, where she aims to pro­vide a less­er-than-per­fect pic­ture of her­self, jour­ney­ing through moth­er­hood. 

Wat­son grew up in Ch­agua­nas and mi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed King­dom to pur­sue her post-sec­ondary stud­ies, re­sid­ing there for over 22 years. An ac­tu­ary by pro­fes­sion, Wat­son is mar­ried with three chil­dren, her el­dest son be­ing a child from her pre­vi­ous mar­riage, and has played the bal­anc­ing act with her ca­reer and moth­er­hood for a great ma­jor­i­ty of her adult life. 

Wat­son’s old­est son is 18 years old, and her sec­ond son is ten, while her daugh­ter is five. When asked what it was like to nav­i­gate the large age gaps be­tween chil­dren, she felt that “al­though it had its chal­lenges, and I felt like I was start­ing from scratch with my sec­ond one, I liked that since it was my hus­band’s first child, we were learn­ing it all to­geth­er.” 

Al­though many peo­ple wor­ry about their chil­dren with larg­er age gaps be­ing able to get along, she be­lieves her chil­dren’s per­son­al­i­ties mesh well and lend to close­ness among all three. 

When she de­cid­ed to start her blog in Sep­tem­ber 2018, she was preg­nant with her last child, daugh­ter, Ye­le­na, and on ma­ter­ni­ty leave, “and frankly, I was very bored.” 

She re­called her third preg­nan­cy was more dif­fi­cult than the oth­ers as she couldn’t move around, suf­fer­ing from hip and pelvis prob­lems. “I felt aw­ful,” she re­calls, “I hat­ed be­ing preg­nant … but on so­cial me­dia, I was in­un­dat­ed with im­ages of easy preg­nan­cies and women lov­ing moth­er­hood.” 

Wat­son felt that if it were her first child, bear­ing wit­ness to the seem­ing ease of preg­nan­cy on so­cial me­dia would have made her feel that some­thing was in­her­ent­ly wrong with her. Thus, she birthed her so­cial me­dia page, thi­sis­real­ma­ma, an out­let for shar­ing her truth and the less glam­orous mo­ments of her life. 

The first pho­to Wat­son post­ed on her blog was of her heav­i­ly preg­nant and asleep in the bath. When her hus­band couldn’t find her in the house, he even­tu­al­ly looked in the bath­room for her, and there she was, deeply ex­haust­ed, and asleep. Post­ing this im­age was her re­sis­tance against the flood of “per­fect preg­nant women,” who were still dressed to the nines in pro­fes­sion­al at­tire, or do­ing work­outs at the gym. “Preg­nan­cy wasn’t pret­ty or easy for me,” she says. 

She start­ed the blog not ex­pect­ing to gain pop­u­lar­i­ty but to present an al­ter­nate nar­ra­tive and has found an out­let for her shar­ing. Wat­son now has over 14,000 fol­low­ers on In­sta­gram, who can’t get enough of her con­tent. 

“My blog has giv­en me my own con­fi­dence in be­ing a mom,” Wat­son ru­mi­nates. “I get count­less mes­sages dai­ly, from women and men, telling me how my posts have helped them find com­mu­ni­ty, and de­mol­ish the im­age of per­fect par­ent­ing.”

Wat­son al­so us­es her blog as a plat­form not on­ly to share her per­son­al mo­ments but al­so to present her stances in pop­u­lar de­bates. For ex­am­ple, on her blog, she de­tails her rea­sons for be­ing “an­ti-lix”, or why she doesn’t hit her chil­dren as pun­ish­ment. She con­sid­ers beat­ing chil­dren a “gen­er­a­tional curse”, so when moth­ers mes­sage her to say they stopped em­ploy­ing “lix” as a dis­ci­pli­nary tool be­cause of Wat­son’s in­flu­ence, and in­stead, find gen­tler ways to guide and lead their chil­dren, she feels as­sured in her pur­pose. 

She doesn’t just post about moth­er­hood, but al­so about her jour­ney of re­cov­ery af­ter a di­vorce. Through her posts, she aims to in­spire hope in peo­ple that it’s pos­si­ble to find love again and lead a hap­py and ful­fill­ing life. Many women feel judged for their “fail­ures” in re­la­tion­ships or mar­riages, but Wat­son be­lieves that there is no right way or guide­book to hap­pi­ness. She en­cour­ages her fol­low­ers to be­lieve in them­selves and their abil­i­ty to cre­ate their own path to hap­pi­ness.

Wat­son has faced chal­lenges, suf­fer­ing through heart­break af­ter her first mar­riage end­ed. “Be­cause of the di­vorce and trau­ma af­ter my first mar­riage, I found it dif­fi­cult to open my heart again, and I need­ed time to heal.” She couldn’t take time off of moth­er­hood, how­ev­er, and was par­ent­ing a young child while still cop­ing with the grief of a failed mar­riage. The pa­tience and love of her hus­band helped her, and he has al­ways em­braced her first son, treat­ing him like his own child.

On the flip side, she does have to con­tend with un­want­ed male at­ten­tion, and “hate” from peo­ple who may dis­agree with her meth­ods of par­ent­ing or her opin­ions on top­i­cal mat­ters. 

Most im­por­tant­ly, Wat­son shared the tough lessons she has learned in her 18 years of moth­er­hood. “I’ve learned to em­brace moth­er­hood in a way that makes it less stress­ful for me,” she says, ex­plain­ing that she choos­es what bat­tles to fight with her chil­dren, such as al­low­ing her daugh­ter to draw on the walls as they can eas­i­ly be re­paint­ed. She does not take all the cred­it, though, and does not at­tempt to face the jour­ney of par­ent­hood alone. 

She is grate­ful for her very in­volved hus­band, who she calls a “do­mes­tic god”, as he is a hands-on fa­ther, and does all the cook­ing and clean­ing for the fam­i­ly unit. Wat­son al­so stress­es the im­por­tance of pri­ori­tis­ing her­self, and her men­tal and phys­i­cal health, to be a strong cor­ner­stone of her fam­i­ly. 

Her ad­vice to new and ex­pec­tant moth­ers is sim­ple. First­ly, “don’t let oth­er peo­ple tell you how to be a par­ent. Fol­low your in­stincts, and do what is best for you and your child.” She ac­knowl­edges that be­ing bom­bard­ed with un­so­licit­ed ad­vice at the out­set of the jour­ney of moth­er­hood can make moth­ers feel over­whelmed and in­ad­e­quate. 

She al­so stressed that new moth­ers should not ne­glect their self-care, even if the ba­by is brand new, and not feel guilty about do­ing some­thing spe­cial for them­selves. 

Last­ly, she urged women to ask for help if they need it, say­ing that “it’s not your job to do every sin­gle thing. Lean on your com­mu­ni­ty, your vil­lage and your fam­i­ly. It doesn’t make you a bad mom.” 

In a sea of em­bell­ished and beau­ti­fied im­agery of moth­er­hood, Nik­isha Wat­son stands out, as a woman in­spir­ing oth­er women through her au­then­tic­i­ty and gen­uine­ness. 

Shar­ing these along with oth­er tips, Wat­son’s re­cent­ly re­leased book “Ma­ma’s Filthy Mouth”, draws on some fic­tion and some mem­o­ries, de­tail­ing a year in the life of a moth­er. 

Wat­son is an in­tro­vert­ed per­son who doesn’t en­joy be­ing the fo­cal point of at­ten­tion. De­spite hav­ing a well-known blog in the Caribbean, she is rel­a­tive­ly un­known in the UK. There­fore, when­ev­er she re­turns home to T&T, she is of­ten sur­prised by peo­ple who want to take pic­tures with her or call out to her. She ad­mit­ted that this can feel “over­whelm­ing and even a lit­tle strange” at times.