After exploring the joys, drunken evenings and anxieties of thirty, Jessica Fauveau looks at other festivities and sleepless nights: those of motherhood. Followed by more than 340,000 subscribers on Instagram (with her @latrentainetmtc and @ladaronietmtc accounts), the illustrator presents Welcome to Daronnie (Albin Michel), “a guide to play down and laugh about the little worries and major upheavals of parenthood”.
She recounts with humor her daily life as a young mother, her hours of sacrificed sleep, her triple doses of coffee and her t-shirts speckled with baby regurgitation. She also reveals her advice and punchlines to respond to the unsolicited advice that young parents around them receive. But always with malice and self-deprecation. She answered questions from 20 Minutes.
Has the arrival of a baby radically shifted you into a new world?
The dark side of the Force, a world I didn’t know at all. I had friends who had become mothers so I had a vague idea of what it was like, but until you step foot in it, you can’t really appreciate the tsunami that it is. It’s also a whole new world for making jokes. My daughter and parenthood are an inexhaustible source of inspiration, every day. I don’t know too much about single party situations these days, but I have plenty of others.
In your drawings, you often compare your current life to the one before. Are you nostalgic for the carefree days of yesteryear?
To be honest, not at all. I really enjoyed my previous life, I took advantage of being single, I traveled, I partied a lot and I loved it. But I really love my life just as much now, it’s just very different. Sometimes I’m happy when the grandparents take the baby for a weekend and I can have a little carefree again, but I don’t miss it at all.
The lack of sleep, the trial and error, the upheavals within the couple… What seemed the most difficult to you about becoming a parent?
Lack of sleep, definitely. It’s super hard to deal with because it has an impact on all other aspects, especially your life as a couple. You’re on edge, you tend to worry more about stupid things and everything is a little harder on a daily basis. From the moment the baby starts to sleep well, suddenly you see the exit from the tunnel. What I also found very difficult at the beginning was to live this label of mother with everything else, not to lose sight of the woman that you are, your work… It’s the difficulty of keeping a balance in adding this role which takes up a lot of space.
Is it harder to laugh about these topics?
The cool thing about Instagram is realizing that most people go through it. Laughing with them about not sleeping, being at the end of their rope… It becomes funny because in fact, 500 people had the same shitty night as you. We make fun of having dark circles, of being zombies, and it becomes something more united. You feel less alone.
Your account also contrasts with those of “influencer moms” on social networks who can dampen morale a little…
Hot moms, back at work two days after giving birth while you struggle to go shower and eat breakfast before 3 p.m.! The ones who make Christmas elves every day and three hours of home-cooked meals every night, while you struggle. I stopped following them very quickly because if it just makes you feel bad, it’s not helpful. It’s not their will but it’s a bit of the negative aspect of networks and it can be unpleasant to see.
Have the subscribers who knew you with your columns on your thirties followed you in this new adventure of parenthood?
There are a few holdouts who only stay in their thirties and don’t want to move, but otherwise, yes. And in particular people who didn’t have children, not planning to have them right away, or at all, but who like my humor and follow me on my adventures. It also allows those who don’t want children to understand their friends who have them and what they’re going through.
Is your “Welcome to Daronnie” guide only aimed at young parents?
It may interest other people, for example, I find it interesting to pass it on to grandparents so that they can see a little of what you are going through and how things are going today. It creates a small intergenerational bridge. But concretely, it’s really the guide that I would have liked to read when I was pregnant to feel less alone and understand what was going to happen to me.
A guide that contrasts quite well with all the very educational traditional books on the subject.
There are hundreds of books and you don’t know where to start. I opened one and I already felt like a bad mother even though I wasn’t yet a mother. I wanted something lighter, illustrated, to help me navigate my way, without feeling bad. The goal was to make the future parents feel relieved and laugh. There are still explanatory and educational sides to the mommy brainhormones… And if you really want to dig into a subject, you buy another, more specific book.
You joke about the lot of unsolicited advice new parents receive. How did you experience them?
Very bad. When you’re pregnant, you’re a bit in the public domain, everyone gives their opinion on what you’re going to do, on your appearance, on your baby… I didn’t expect that. And when you give birth, you grope around, you try to figure out what to do. Everyone throws criticism at you and you don’t know what to say. The goal is to have punchlines to respond to Auntie Monique when she sends you a little quibble about breastfeeding or co-sleeping.
There are also a lot of funny anecdotes. Is living with a baby also full of joyful or improbable moments?
My daughter is one year old but we already have fun with her every day, she’s a real little clown. When you see her evolve and learn super funny words, little blunders or even just laughter on a daily basis, it brings immense joy.
This book also tells the story of his life. Would you like her to read it later?
I still haven’t done her 1 year book in photos, I procrastinate and I have a very bad conscience… But at least if I never do it, she will have a book as a souvenir. She can read it too if she wants to become a daronne. And then, there will be the “terrible two”, the arrival of a 2nd, the “threenager”… I have 4-5 years of content, easy! Then afterward, the teenage crisis… There is plenty to do.