August 15, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode of the Christian Book Club podcast, host Matt McChlery speaks with author Chine McDonald about her book 'Unmaking Mary', which explores the complexities of motherhood through the lens of Mary, the mother of Jesus. They discuss the cultural myths surrounding motherhood, personal experiences, and the unrealistic ideals often portrayed in society. Chinny shares insights on how these narratives affect mothers today and offers advice on embracing imperfection and grace in the journey of motherhood.
Links
Buy a copy of Chine McDonald's book 'Unmaking Mary' from St Andrews Bookshop
Help keep this podcast on the web by simply buying me a coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattmcchlery
Sponsor an episode of this podcast Click for Advertising info
Visit Matt McChlery's website mattmcchlery.com
Visit Chine McDonald's website chinemcdonald.com
With thanks to this episode's sponsors 'Gods Eye View' by Trevor Lurman PhD
Takeaways
- Motherhood transformed my understanding of God.
- Cultural narratives often misrepresent motherhood.
- Mary's representation in art is one-dimensional.
- The myths surrounding Mary add layers to her story.
- Personal experiences of motherhood can be challenging.
- Social media creates unrealistic motherhood ideals.
- The portrayal of pregnancy in media is often absurd.
- Embodiment is a crucial aspect of motherhood.
- Grace is essential in the journey of motherhood.
- We must strive to understand and listen to each other.
Sound Bites
- "Motherhood changed me as a person."
- "We put extra layers on a person."
- "We're not just souls, we're embodied."
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest 00:56 Exploring the Book 'Unmaking Mary' 04:24 The Myths Surrounding Mary 08:54 Personal Experiences of Motherhood 11:24 Cultural Reflections of Motherhood 17:41 Challenging the Ideal of Perfect Motherhood 19:56 Advice for Mothers and Conclusion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Christian Book Blurb brought to you by author and songwriter Matt McChlery Get abehind the scenes glimpse into the lives of some of your favourite Christian authors, hear
about their books and faith.
Also, why not check out my website, mattmccleary.com.
This episode is sponsored by the book God's Eye View by Trevor Lohman PhD and is availablenow from hemisphericpress.com as well as other online.
(00:28):
retailers.
Hello and welcome to this edition of the Christian Book Club podcast where we like toencourage you in your discipleship one book at a time as we meet some amazing Christian
authors and learn about their books, their lives and their faith.
Well, I'm your host Matt McChlery.
Thanks for clicking over here and joining us today.
Now on today's show, I'm going to be speaking with Chine McDonald all about shattering themyth of perfect motherhood.
(00:54):
So Chine, welcome.
to the show.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to have you with us.
You have recently released a new book called Unmaking Mary.
Can you tell us briefly what it's all about?
Yes, so I wrote Unmaking Mary after having my second child.
(01:15):
And for me, motherhood really kind of completely changed me as a person, also changed myrelationship to the world and helped me to see God differently.
And what I realized was that in my motherhood journey, I had felt like the expectationsthat I had of motherhood didn't really
match up to the reality or the other way around.
(01:36):
The reality was so much harder, so much more textured, so much more love than I could haveimagined.
And I realized that the ideas and the images and the narratives put out about motherhoodin culture and art and guess our church theology over many centuries has painted quite a
one-dimensional picture of motherhood.
(01:57):
And I thought that one of the ways in which, one of the things that best demonstrates howmotherhood is put out there in our culture is through how Mary, mother of Jesus, is
represented through art in particular and through culture.
So she is often presented as this very perfect, beautiful, young, white, serene, dotingmother.
(02:19):
If you think about European art galleries or
or even how she's spoken about in church.
But actually her story is far more interesting than that, just like motherhood is.
It's more textured.
She was a mother.
I think she was chosen as a mother.
And that tells us something also about who God is.
So the book really explores motherhood through the lens of Mary and where she appears inthe Bible, how she appears and shows up in the world as well.
(02:45):
Mm-hmm, really fascinating.
I've enjoyed reading your book.
Now you focus your book on Mary the mother of Jesus.
Where does this sort of interest or fascination come from?
Is it just sort of cultural references and the fact that she's Mary's mother, or is itsomething a bit more than that?
you Catholic, for example?
(03:06):
Where has this sort of interest in Mary come from?
Yeah, so I'm not Catholic.
I grew up in a kind of evangelical Protestantism and really I didn't pay much attention toMary for most of my life.
And Mary was only really ever mentioned at Christmas and she was all only really evertalked about as someone who did as she was told.
(03:27):
That's kind of like messages that I was taking from the church references to her.
What I found though that
was over the past few years, as I was devouring secular books about motherhood, as I wasbecoming a mother myself, most secular writers on motherhood at some point talk about
Mary.
They talk about Mary as this perfect ideal.
(03:50):
And for me, as someone who's interested in how Christianity, how religion shows up in theworld and in the mainstream, I think that's really interesting.
So Mary is a touch point for both.
Christians and non-Christians, this idea of motherhood.
So I found that fascinating.
And as I started to think more about her and what's the expectations about motherhood,where they come from, I thought she was a really interesting person to look at because
(04:16):
there are thousands of images of Mary.
There are many, stories and myths and ideas that surround her, theologies around her.
So she is a fascinating character.
There aren't many women spoken of in the Bible in general, but she relatively has quite afew instances in which she shows up in the New Testament.
So there's of material to keep me fascinated in lots of books written about.
(04:42):
Really good.
You mentioned myth around Mary just now, and I know in the book you use the term mythquite a bit, but you don't really use it to describe something that's like a made-up
story, like you know we might say myths and legends.
You're kind of hinting at something sort of mysterious and magical but didn't reallyhappen.
(05:03):
But you use the term myth a bit differently.
Could you just explain what you mean when you speak about the myth of Mary in the
Yeah, so I talk about the myth of perfect motherhood and in some ways I talk about themyths that surround Mary.
So yes, I'm not questioning whether or not Mary existed.
Mary did exist, she was a person.
(05:24):
But I kind of think a helpful way for me to explain this is if you think about WinstonChurchill, right?
Winston Churchill was a man who existed, but there has been so much more that has beenadded to this person of Churchill.
that he has come to symbolise brave leadership, courage, Britishness, all of thesurrounding myths around him and quotes around him that aren't actually his quotes.
(05:53):
So when I'm talking about Mary, I'm talking about all of the things that have been addedto this person.
So if you look at art that depicted Mary from the Middle Ages,
She was depicted as this kind regal queen of heaven with a royal crown and gold.
At other points, she's depicted as a of a lowly housewife.
So these are almost kind of just extra things that a society or a culture has added toMary's person and used her as a lens through which to communicate other things about what
(06:23):
that society wants to put forward.
Very interesting.
These extra layers that we've kind of put on a person to become something more orsomething other than the person that they really are, so you know, that really
interesting.
Now, yes, your book does focus quite a lot on Mary and sort of looking at all this extrastuff around her and then also kind of trying to find out a bit more sort of behind the
(06:49):
scenes type stuff, which is great.
But your book is also partly autobiographical as well.
I've really enjoyed reading some of your personal story in there.
So can you just share with our audience some of your experiences of motherhood and evensome of the ideas of perfect motherhood that you've personally wrestled with?
(07:12):
Can you just share some of that with us?
Yeah, I start the book at this moment for any mother.
Any mother will be familiar with this, you're the early hours of the night and morningwhere young babies, they're not very good at sleeping yet.
And there was this one particular night where I think my second child had been up forabout three hours from midnight to 3am.
(07:36):
This is torture.
This is tortuous.
And I remember kind of picking him up and shouting, go to sleep.
And then I took him downstairs, got into the car without any shoes on, strapped him in hiscar seat and just did the only thing that I could think of doing, which was driving around
(07:58):
and around.
That was the only thing that I knew would get him to sleep.
So I remember in that moment just feeling mad.
feeling kind of out of control, feeling like a bad mother, feeling guilty and feelingabsolutely exhausted.
And I remember thinking, I did not feel like I measured up to this perfect ideal ofmotherhood that I had in my head.
(08:23):
That I was failing, maybe everyone else wasn't.
So this kind of comparison and this kind of constant sense of failing.
is part of many mother's stories.
Now, there are many more stories in the book.
So I also talk about the mental load of motherhood.
So all of the things that mothers often have to do, especially working mothers who go towork also still have to do all of that kind of thinking about the kids, making dinner,
(08:50):
cleaning, all of these things.
And feeling that I wasn't
perfect in either work or at home.
So those are some of the real stories that I probably overshare in the book.
But it's basically, I felt like I didn't measure up.
However, it's not all negative.
(09:11):
So in the book,
There are things I talk about, about my journey of becoming a mother and being a motherthat I think are really beautiful.
The love that I have for my child, the fact that even after very, very little sleep, maybeclosing my eyes for three minutes and then hearing my baby cry, that immediate jumping up
(09:31):
and going to soothe my baby despite the exhaustion, despite the anger.
and tells us kind of something of the nature of God's love for us, like that God loves usregardless of any thing that we do.
There's also the kind of the very bodily act of if you carry in both your own children offeeling and knowing that I'm an embodied person that God that we are not.
(10:01):
just souls, we're not just kind of ghosts in a machine, we are embodied.
And that's also something from Mary's story that I found really interesting.
Mary, someone who gave birth and kind of carried and nurtured a child physically issomething that I think that I saw, I used to see Mary in a completely different way as
(10:28):
someone whose body matters too.
Well, this whole embodiment of the human experience is really important because as yousay, we're not just sort of a spirit.
Spirit is part of it, but we're also an embodied spirit, especially right now.
And even in the resurrection to come, we're going to be given new bodies.
(10:49):
So yet again, there's this embodiment going on.
And Jesus
Jesus himself is an embodiment of the Godhead.
So yeah, it's very interesting and very important to acknowledge the embodiment.
So that's great.
So you mentioned as well where some of these ideas of perfect motherhood come from.
(11:15):
And you've mentioned sort of Renaissance art and things, especially around the person ofMary.
But then you also had an interesting section in the book where you then
kind of related that to how those sort of ideas and ideals of the past are now beingreflected in a modern day expression or using modern culture or society's language.
(11:42):
So what might this look like?
Rather than just going to an art gallery and looking at an old painting from hundreds ofyears ago,
How do these ideas of perfect motherhood filter through in today's culture?
Yes, I think the modern day equivalent of the Madonna and child imagery is found onInstagram.
(12:06):
So if you go onto social media, you will find that many women are also, I guess, fallinginto the trap of presenting a very perfect ideal of their motherhood.
And I know that I do this myself.
You'll never find an image of my children where they are shouting when they're not eatingtheir food, when they are being slow at getting ready for school and nursery.
(12:31):
You'll find pictures of them smiling.
You'll find them smiling in front of how parts of my house that look tidy.
So we're all kind of perpetuating this idea that we have got it all together.
And I think for women today,
that it therefore reinforces this idea that we're the only ones failing really, becauseeveryone else, even the people like me, it doesn't have to even be the mother of God or a
(12:55):
celebrity.
It's kind of people like me who are doing much better than I am.
There are also kind of very particular, so that's kind of normal, women sharing photos andthings on social media.
But there are also a very particular trend of things like trad wives.
So the Chadwife movement is a social media phenomenon where women who often have lots ofchildren will do lots of kind of photos and videos of them looking beautiful, but also
(13:29):
matching outfits.
But they also milk their own cows, they bake their own bread, they make their own jam.
They kind of hark back to a nostalgic ideal.
of past and they make a lot of money from it.
So these are kind of the exacerbated versions of these kind of very perfect ideals thatanyone can just see if they kind of go onto social media.
(13:54):
also got celebrity.
Carl, do you have a story about Beyonce as well?
You mentioned in your book, could you just tell us a bit about that?
Yeah, well, I'm a Beyonce fan, would say Beyonce, there are ways, there are often, youlook at kind of cultural icons and imagery, there are many replic, many people replicating
(14:16):
historic artistic imagery of Mary.
So Beyonce has done this where she kind of.
think it was a photo shoot where she looked like Mary was dressed up in the blue, had allthis of lots of symbolism that is included in Marian imagery, as it's called.
So you see again these cultural influences continuing today, including in celebrityculture as well.
(14:42):
And my wife was watching, it was a police series with me the other day, and one of thefemale characters was pregnant.
And we've had watched a previous sort of episode, you know, several seasons ago whenanother character was pregnant in the storyline.
And we kind of looked at each other and we're like, no, here we go.
Here we go again.
And it was basically, you know, such unrealistic representation of
(15:05):
of pregnancy and sort of, you still fight the bad guys whilst you're giving birth and, youknow, once the process is finished, you kind of give your baby a peck of the cheek, but
then you jump out the window and you carry on fighting the bad guys.
And it's just like, this just isn't real, but this is what's kind of presented as normal.
(15:27):
And this is what the media is kind of showing us.
And yes, okay, we look at it and think, well, that's a bit ridiculous because we've beenthere, but it sort of feeds into that.
It's taken it to like an absurd level, I guess, but it still feeds into that notion of,what you were talking about of, I don't know.
You've just given birth, but then, you know, the next month you expect every, you know,your belly to be this complete sort of washboard, swimsuit ready, everything else going
(15:56):
on.
But.
That's just not how it is in real life.
Yeah, and that adds to just women feeling bad about themselves.
I think this kind of obsession with snapping back to your pre-birth body or genes whenactually something profoundly different and life changing has happened.
There was a study that was done in the US, I think, which looked at how mothers aren'tportrayed in TV and film.
(16:22):
And it's often that they are often
very beautiful aesthetically.
They always have makeup and they're always slim.
So there aren't any many depictions of the variety of different types of mother that mightbe your types of body.
I think also with pregnancy and childbirth, I kind of get why this happens because thehuman race has to continue.
(16:43):
So people have to not be absolutely terrified of having children.
But the...
the portrayals of pregnancy and childbirth in culture are so not the reality, they're notrealistic.
Even though I watched every episode of One Born Every Minute from the TV, I still, it wasstill very, very different to what I had expected.
(17:05):
But maybe we just have to all pretend that it's okay.
So people still choose to have children.
So we've got this sort of idealized perfect kind of image being pushed out to us in alldifferent ways of what perfect motherhood should look like.
So your book's called Unmaking Mary and unmaking this notion of perfect motherhood.
(17:30):
So what are some things that we can do to try and speak truth rather than hold thisunrealistic ideal up?
Yeah, I think even though the dominant picture that might come to someone's mind when theyimagine Mary is one of the kind of nativity scene, young and beautiful and serene,
(17:53):
actually there are stories within scripture itself that tell us where we might find somesolidarity or some might find some reality in Mary's story.
And I'll just mention two.
The first is in the passage of scripture where
Jesus goes missing for three days and they, Mary and Joseph, you know, traveling, they'veleft Jerusalem and they kind of think, where is Jesus?
(18:20):
And every mother and every parent will know that feeling when you think you lost yourchild.
And obviously they hurried back and then they found him in the temple and he says, didn'tyou know I'd be in my father's house?
But she before that says, didn't you know that we'd be worried about you?
That to me is a very human and a very normal experience for a mother is to worry and toworry about your children.
(18:44):
But actually, there's been some parts of theological tradition that have tried to writethat away because of this idea that Mary is sinless and that worry is sinful.
So I would hold on to that kind of maternal worry that Mary has.
But also, this is a woman who watches her son die on the cross.
(19:06):
And the reality of the maternal experience is that it's not all beautiful.
It is painful and life itself is hard.
Terrible things happen to our children.
And Mary bearing witness to that, strong tradition of Mary as someone who
understands suffering, I think is really valuable.
And just one more, which is the Magnificat in Luke's passage where, you know, it's beforeMary has Jesus, but she is singing this prophetic song of justice, talking about the
(19:36):
mighty being cast down from their thrones, the rich being sent away empty.
She is a prophetic woman, and many of the women I know who are mothers,
many other women I know full stop, are absolutely committed to making things right, makingthings better in the world for our children but also all other children too, for the
future.
And you're a mother yourself as you said of two children.
(20:00):
What advice would you give to any mothers who might be listening today?
My advice would be to rest in the fact that none of us are perfect.
is the part of the beauty of the Christian story is this recognition that we can't live upto a perfect standard by ourselves, that Jesus is perfect, that there is grace for us in
(20:23):
the things that we get wrong, in the pain and the exhaustion and the trying to do
Well, there is grace for us.
So my advice is to exhale in the grace that God has for us rather than striving forperfection ourselves.
That's really good advice.
Thank you Chinni.
Now we're going to be back talking to Chinni about her life and her faith just after theseso do stay tuned.
(20:47):
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(22:04):
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, you can help keep it on the web.
All you've got to do is buy me a coffee.
Head over to buymeacoffee.com
There is a link in this episode's show notes.
So go on, buy me a coffee today and help this podcast to keep supporting Christian booksand authors.
Hello, welcome back to the Christian Book Club podcast.
(22:24):
I've been chatting with author Chinni McDonald about her book, Unmaking Mary, shatteringthe myth of perfect motherhood.
If you've enjoyed what you've heard so far, do go and check out her book, Unmaking Mary.
Now at this point in the podcast, Chinni, we like to speak about you as a person.
So what do you like to do for fun?
(22:46):
Well, my ideal day would be to go for brunch.
That's my favorite meal.
With a book.
I love books.
I love reading.
I do read a lot for work, non-fiction, but I think for fun I would read fiction.
So reading and then going to the cinema.
by myself, is one of my guilty pleasures is just sitting in a cinema watching a film bymyself, the lights down.
(23:11):
And yeah, that's what I do.
what's
What's the non-fiction book you're reading at the moment called?
gosh, so I've just read a book called What Are Children For?
which is all about the decline in fertility rates and the increase in choice and then kindof changing reasons why young people in particular are choosing not to have children.
(23:31):
So yeah, it's a fascinating book.
Mmm.
That sounds good.
All right.
you like, do you like eating by yourself or do you like to, sort of go out to restaurantsand things with, with friends or family?
Do you get much chance with children?
I do if I go by myself and my husband's at home.
(23:54):
I go, yeah, I do like meeting friends for dinner.
But I also love having friends over.
My favorite, one of my favorite things to do is cook.
So some kind of feasting menu where I love a menu where you can just create bowls ofthings and everyone dives in in the middle.
So often it's kind of Middle Eastern, Middle Eastern food is my kind of favorite.
(24:17):
Oh, was going to say, do you have a particular type of food?
Middle Eastern.
Okay.
Oh, interesting.
Now I went to a Turkish restaurant recently, so that was really nice.
Really good.
Ah, wonderful.
do you, do you do anything else?
I know you're an author.
You're an author.
Yes.
You write and you do lots of reading for your job.
So do you have a job that also involves other things or is it just sort of reading andwriting and writing and reading?
(24:44):
How does it.
No, I've got a day job, which is I'm director of Theos, which is the religion and societythink tank in Westminster.
So we do, we're all about trying to articulate a compelling vision for human flourishingin society based on Christianity and Christian ideas.
So we do research, events, media, public engagement.
(25:05):
podcast.
um
Pretty busy, yeah.
Good.
So I presume you're based in London then with that kind of job.
So tea or coffee?
Coffee.
I'm a coffee person.
I might have tea if I'm being lazy.
the do-it-yourself kind at home or the posh sort that you get in an expensive shopsomewhere.
(25:28):
All of the above, do have a coffee machine.
that's what I've here.
Yeah, coffee machine, cafeteria and instant if it's really...
Really desperate.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
And when you have your coffee, is it just coffee or do you get something else on the sidelike a little bit of cake or a sticky bun or a biscuit or nothing really?
(25:51):
Well, okay, so after Noonzy, so I might have a biscuit or a twirl.
twirls.
That's this flake with extra chocolate on.
That's good.
Yeah.
No, that's great.
So you have, love your brunch and you like your afternoon Z's as well.
(26:11):
That's great.
that's wonderful.
We're getting to know you, Chilli.
This is good.
This is good.
So what is the Holy Spirit doing in your life or what is he showing you personally at themoment?
Yeah, I think that because of my life and work and the kind of things I'm engaged in, Ifeel like part of what we're called to be and do in this time is build bridges across
(26:38):
divides.
So I'm feeling like, this time, this is a really scary time for people with a lot of kindof
turbulence and instability and polarization.
And I think as the people of God, we have to do better at holding difference together.
And so I'm feeling that in kind of daily in my work and also the people that I'm beingbrought into contact with that actually we're all people made in God's image and we need
(27:07):
to try and live together well, which means understanding and listening to each other.
Hmm, great.
And my next question is about what are you currently working on, or what you've got comingup next?
So it could be writing related, or it could be something to do with your your think tankwork, or anything like that.
Have we got something in the pipeline that you might be able to give us a sort of a littletaster of, or a sort of a preview before it enters the world?
(27:37):
Yeah, it's probably relevant to both things.
So at Theos, we're doing a big kind of two year research project on motherhood.
It's called Motherhood Inside Out.
So it looks like a kind of socio-political spiritual change that happens when one becomesa mother.
So it's kind of series of interviews, focus groups, analysis, but also some kind ofcreative things that we're doing alongside it.
(28:01):
So that'll be launched in May next year.
But before that, we also did a
four part documentary podcast called Motherhood vs.
the Machine, which looked at the changing nature of motherhood in light of technologicaladvancement.
So artificial wombs, these machines that can rock your baby to sleep, what does that do tothe maternal experience?
(28:22):
What happens when a mother is sidelined for technology and the implications of that?
Fascinating stuff.
Now where can we find you on social media or on a website maybe?
Where can we buy your book on Making Merry?
Yeah, you can find everything on chinnemcdonald.com that's C-H-I-N-N-N-N-
(28:46):
Wonderful, I'll put a link to your website in this episode's show notes.
So if you're listening and you want to find out more about Chinni and her book and thethings she's involved with, do just click on there and you'll find everything you need.
So thank you Chinni, it's great, it just leaves me to say thank you so much for thepleasure of your company and for this very interesting discussion all about Mary and
(29:08):
motherhood.
So thank you for joining us here on Christian Bookmode.
Thank you, Matt.
A big thank you to this episode's sponsor, the book God's Eye View by Trevor Lohman, PhD.
Grab yourself a copy now from hemisphericpress.com.
And thank you as well for listening to this episode of the Christian Book Blur podcast.
(29:30):
Don't forget it comes out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so it'll only be a fewshort weeks before I'm back again with another Christian author speaking all about their
books, their life and their faith to help you and your discipleship.
one book at a time.
Go ahead, like the episode, like the podcast, share it with your friends and I can't waitto have the pleasure of your company again really soon.
(29:54):
Thank you, goodbye.
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about their books and faith.
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This episode is sponsored by the book God's Eye View by Trevor Lohman PhD and is availablenow from hemisphericpress.com as well as other online.
(00:28):
retailers.
Hello and welcome to this edition of the Christian Book Club podcast where we like toencourage you in your discipleship one book at a time as we meet some amazing Christian
authors and learn about their books, their lives and their faith.
Well, I'm your host Matt McChlery.
Thanks for clicking over here and joining us today.
Now on today's show, I'm going to be speaking with Chine McDonald all about shattering themyth of perfect motherhood.
(00:54):
So Chine, welcome.
to the show.
Thanks for having me.
It's great to have you with us.
You have recently released a new book called Unmaking Mary.
Can you tell us briefly what it's all about?
Yes, so I wrote Unmaking Mary after having my second child.
(01:15):
And for me, motherhood really kind of completely changed me as a person, also changed myrelationship to the world and helped me to see God differently.
And what I realized was that in my motherhood journey, I had felt like the expectationsthat I had of motherhood didn't really
match up to the reality or the other way around.
(01:36):
The reality was so much harder, so much more textured, so much more love than I could haveimagined.
And I realized that the ideas and the images and the narratives put out about motherhoodin culture and art and guess our church theology over many centuries has painted quite a
one-dimensional picture of motherhood.
(01:57):
And I thought that one of the ways in which, one of the things that best demonstrates howmotherhood is put out there in our culture is through how Mary, mother of Jesus, is
represented through art in particular and through culture.
So she is often presented as this very perfect, beautiful, young, white, serene, dotingmother.
(02:19):
If you think about European art galleries or
or even how she's spoken about in church.
But actually her story is far more interesting than that, just like motherhood is.
It's more textured.
She was a mother.
I think she was chosen as a mother.
And that tells us something also about who God is.
So the book really explores motherhood through the lens of Mary and where she appears inthe Bible, how she appears and shows up in the world as well.
(02:45):
Mm-hmm, really fascinating.
I've enjoyed reading your book.
Now you focus your book on Mary the mother of Jesus.
Where does this sort of interest or fascination come from?
Is it just sort of cultural references and the fact that she's Mary's mother, or is itsomething a bit more than that?
you Catholic, for example?
(03:06):
Where has this sort of interest in Mary come from?
Yeah, so I'm not Catholic.
I grew up in a kind of evangelical Protestantism and really I didn't pay much attention toMary for most of my life.
And Mary was only really ever mentioned at Christmas and she was all only really evertalked about as someone who did as she was told.
(03:27):
That's kind of like messages that I was taking from the church references to her.
What I found though that
was over the past few years, as I was devouring secular books about motherhood, as I wasbecoming a mother myself, most secular writers on motherhood at some point talk about
Mary.
They talk about Mary as this perfect ideal.
(03:50):
And for me, as someone who's interested in how Christianity, how religion shows up in theworld and in the mainstream, I think that's really interesting.
So Mary is a touch point for both.
Christians and non-Christians, this idea of motherhood.
So I found that fascinating.
And as I started to think more about her and what's the expectations about motherhood,where they come from, I thought she was a really interesting person to look at because
(04:16):
there are thousands of images of Mary.
There are many, stories and myths and ideas that surround her, theologies around her.
So she is a fascinating character.
There aren't many women spoken of in the Bible in general, but she relatively has quite afew instances in which she shows up in the New Testament.
So there's of material to keep me fascinated in lots of books written about.
(04:42):
Really good.
You mentioned myth around Mary just now, and I know in the book you use the term mythquite a bit, but you don't really use it to describe something that's like a made-up
story, like you know we might say myths and legends.
You're kind of hinting at something sort of mysterious and magical but didn't reallyhappen.
(05:03):
But you use the term myth a bit differently.
Could you just explain what you mean when you speak about the myth of Mary in the
Yeah, so I talk about the myth of perfect motherhood and in some ways I talk about themyths that surround Mary.
So yes, I'm not questioning whether or not Mary existed.
Mary did exist, she was a person.
(05:24):
But I kind of think a helpful way for me to explain this is if you think about WinstonChurchill, right?
Winston Churchill was a man who existed, but there has been so much more that has beenadded to this person of Churchill.
that he has come to symbolise brave leadership, courage, Britishness, all of thesurrounding myths around him and quotes around him that aren't actually his quotes.
(05:53):
So when I'm talking about Mary, I'm talking about all of the things that have been addedto this person.
So if you look at art that depicted Mary from the Middle Ages,
She was depicted as this kind regal queen of heaven with a royal crown and gold.
At other points, she's depicted as a of a lowly housewife.
So these are almost kind of just extra things that a society or a culture has added toMary's person and used her as a lens through which to communicate other things about what
(06:23):
that society wants to put forward.
Very interesting.
These extra layers that we've kind of put on a person to become something more orsomething other than the person that they really are, so you know, that really
interesting.
Now, yes, your book does focus quite a lot on Mary and sort of looking at all this extrastuff around her and then also kind of trying to find out a bit more sort of behind the
(06:49):
scenes type stuff, which is great.
But your book is also partly autobiographical as well.
I've really enjoyed reading some of your personal story in there.
So can you just share with our audience some of your experiences of motherhood and evensome of the ideas of perfect motherhood that you've personally wrestled with?
(07:12):
Can you just share some of that with us?
Yeah, I start the book at this moment for any mother.
Any mother will be familiar with this, you're the early hours of the night and morningwhere young babies, they're not very good at sleeping yet.
And there was this one particular night where I think my second child had been up forabout three hours from midnight to 3am.
(07:36):
This is torture.
This is tortuous.
And I remember kind of picking him up and shouting, go to sleep.
And then I took him downstairs, got into the car without any shoes on, strapped him in hiscar seat and just did the only thing that I could think of doing, which was driving around
(07:58):
and around.
That was the only thing that I knew would get him to sleep.
So I remember in that moment just feeling mad.
feeling kind of out of control, feeling like a bad mother, feeling guilty and feelingabsolutely exhausted.
And I remember thinking, I did not feel like I measured up to this perfect ideal ofmotherhood that I had in my head.
(08:23):
That I was failing, maybe everyone else wasn't.
So this kind of comparison and this kind of constant sense of failing.
is part of many mother's stories.
Now, there are many more stories in the book.
So I also talk about the mental load of motherhood.
So all of the things that mothers often have to do, especially working mothers who go towork also still have to do all of that kind of thinking about the kids, making dinner,
(08:50):
cleaning, all of these things.
And feeling that I wasn't
perfect in either work or at home.
So those are some of the real stories that I probably overshare in the book.
But it's basically, I felt like I didn't measure up.
However, it's not all negative.
(09:11):
So in the book,
There are things I talk about, about my journey of becoming a mother and being a motherthat I think are really beautiful.
The love that I have for my child, the fact that even after very, very little sleep, maybeclosing my eyes for three minutes and then hearing my baby cry, that immediate jumping up
(09:31):
and going to soothe my baby despite the exhaustion, despite the anger.
and tells us kind of something of the nature of God's love for us, like that God loves usregardless of any thing that we do.
There's also the kind of the very bodily act of if you carry in both your own children offeeling and knowing that I'm an embodied person that God that we are not.
(10:01):
just souls, we're not just kind of ghosts in a machine, we are embodied.
And that's also something from Mary's story that I found really interesting.
Mary, someone who gave birth and kind of carried and nurtured a child physically issomething that I think that I saw, I used to see Mary in a completely different way as
(10:28):
someone whose body matters too.
Well, this whole embodiment of the human experience is really important because as yousay, we're not just sort of a spirit.
Spirit is part of it, but we're also an embodied spirit, especially right now.
And even in the resurrection to come, we're going to be given new bodies.
(10:49):
So yet again, there's this embodiment going on.
And Jesus
Jesus himself is an embodiment of the Godhead.
So yeah, it's very interesting and very important to acknowledge the embodiment.
So that's great.
So you mentioned as well where some of these ideas of perfect motherhood come from.
(11:15):
And you've mentioned sort of Renaissance art and things, especially around the person ofMary.
But then you also had an interesting section in the book where you then
kind of related that to how those sort of ideas and ideals of the past are now beingreflected in a modern day expression or using modern culture or society's language.
(11:42):
So what might this look like?
Rather than just going to an art gallery and looking at an old painting from hundreds ofyears ago,
How do these ideas of perfect motherhood filter through in today's culture?
Yes, I think the modern day equivalent of the Madonna and child imagery is found onInstagram.
(12:06):
So if you go onto social media, you will find that many women are also, I guess, fallinginto the trap of presenting a very perfect ideal of their motherhood.
And I know that I do this myself.
You'll never find an image of my children where they are shouting when they're not eatingtheir food, when they are being slow at getting ready for school and nursery.
(12:31):
You'll find pictures of them smiling.
You'll find them smiling in front of how parts of my house that look tidy.
So we're all kind of perpetuating this idea that we have got it all together.
And I think for women today,
that it therefore reinforces this idea that we're the only ones failing really, becauseeveryone else, even the people like me, it doesn't have to even be the mother of God or a
(12:55):
celebrity.
It's kind of people like me who are doing much better than I am.
There are also kind of very particular, so that's kind of normal, women sharing photos andthings on social media.
But there are also a very particular trend of things like trad wives.
So the Chadwife movement is a social media phenomenon where women who often have lots ofchildren will do lots of kind of photos and videos of them looking beautiful, but also
(13:29):
matching outfits.
But they also milk their own cows, they bake their own bread, they make their own jam.
They kind of hark back to a nostalgic ideal.
of past and they make a lot of money from it.
So these are kind of the exacerbated versions of these kind of very perfect ideals thatanyone can just see if they kind of go onto social media.
(13:54):
also got celebrity.
Carl, do you have a story about Beyonce as well?
You mentioned in your book, could you just tell us a bit about that?
Yeah, well, I'm a Beyonce fan, would say Beyonce, there are ways, there are often, youlook at kind of cultural icons and imagery, there are many replic, many people replicating
(14:16):
historic artistic imagery of Mary.
So Beyonce has done this where she kind of.
think it was a photo shoot where she looked like Mary was dressed up in the blue, had allthis of lots of symbolism that is included in Marian imagery, as it's called.
So you see again these cultural influences continuing today, including in celebrityculture as well.
(14:42):
And my wife was watching, it was a police series with me the other day, and one of thefemale characters was pregnant.
And we've had watched a previous sort of episode, you know, several seasons ago whenanother character was pregnant in the storyline.
And we kind of looked at each other and we're like, no, here we go.
Here we go again.
And it was basically, you know, such unrealistic representation of
(15:05):
of pregnancy and sort of, you still fight the bad guys whilst you're giving birth and, youknow, once the process is finished, you kind of give your baby a peck of the cheek, but
then you jump out the window and you carry on fighting the bad guys.
And it's just like, this just isn't real, but this is what's kind of presented as normal.
(15:27):
And this is what the media is kind of showing us.
And yes, okay, we look at it and think, well, that's a bit ridiculous because we've beenthere, but it sort of feeds into that.
It's taken it to like an absurd level, I guess, but it still feeds into that notion of,what you were talking about of, I don't know.
You've just given birth, but then, you know, the next month you expect every, you know,your belly to be this complete sort of washboard, swimsuit ready, everything else going
(15:56):
on.
But.
That's just not how it is in real life.
Yeah, and that adds to just women feeling bad about themselves.
I think this kind of obsession with snapping back to your pre-birth body or genes whenactually something profoundly different and life changing has happened.
There was a study that was done in the US, I think, which looked at how mothers aren'tportrayed in TV and film.
(16:22):
And it's often that they are often
very beautiful aesthetically.
They always have makeup and they're always slim.
So there aren't any many depictions of the variety of different types of mother that mightbe your types of body.
I think also with pregnancy and childbirth, I kind of get why this happens because thehuman race has to continue.
(16:43):
So people have to not be absolutely terrified of having children.
But the...
the portrayals of pregnancy and childbirth in culture are so not the reality, they're notrealistic.
Even though I watched every episode of One Born Every Minute from the TV, I still, it wasstill very, very different to what I had expected.
(17:05):
But maybe we just have to all pretend that it's okay.
So people still choose to have children.
So we've got this sort of idealized perfect kind of image being pushed out to us in alldifferent ways of what perfect motherhood should look like.
So your book's called Unmaking Mary and unmaking this notion of perfect motherhood.
(17:30):
So what are some things that we can do to try and speak truth rather than hold thisunrealistic ideal up?
Yeah, I think even though the dominant picture that might come to someone's mind when theyimagine Mary is one of the kind of nativity scene, young and beautiful and serene,
(17:53):
actually there are stories within scripture itself that tell us where we might find somesolidarity or some might find some reality in Mary's story.
And I'll just mention two.
The first is in the passage of scripture where
Jesus goes missing for three days and they, Mary and Joseph, you know, traveling, they'veleft Jerusalem and they kind of think, where is Jesus?
(18:20):
And every mother and every parent will know that feeling when you think you lost yourchild.
And obviously they hurried back and then they found him in the temple and he says, didn'tyou know I'd be in my father's house?
But she before that says, didn't you know that we'd be worried about you?
That to me is a very human and a very normal experience for a mother is to worry and toworry about your children.
(18:44):
But actually, there's been some parts of theological tradition that have tried to writethat away because of this idea that Mary is sinless and that worry is sinful.
So I would hold on to that kind of maternal worry that Mary has.
But also, this is a woman who watches her son die on the cross.
(19:06):
And the reality of the maternal experience is that it's not all beautiful.
It is painful and life itself is hard.
Terrible things happen to our children.
And Mary bearing witness to that, strong tradition of Mary as someone who
understands suffering, I think is really valuable.
And just one more, which is the Magnificat in Luke's passage where, you know, it's beforeMary has Jesus, but she is singing this prophetic song of justice, talking about the
(19:36):
mighty being cast down from their thrones, the rich being sent away empty.
She is a prophetic woman, and many of the women I know who are mothers,
many other women I know full stop, are absolutely committed to making things right, makingthings better in the world for our children but also all other children too, for the
future.
And you're a mother yourself as you said of two children.
(20:00):
What advice would you give to any mothers who might be listening today?
My advice would be to rest in the fact that none of us are perfect.
is the part of the beauty of the Christian story is this recognition that we can't live upto a perfect standard by ourselves, that Jesus is perfect, that there is grace for us in
(20:23):
the things that we get wrong, in the pain and the exhaustion and the trying to do
Well, there is grace for us.
So my advice is to exhale in the grace that God has for us rather than striving forperfection ourselves.
That's really good advice.
Thank you Chinni.
Now we're going to be back talking to Chinni about her life and her faith just after theseso do stay tuned.
(20:47):
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Why are we here?
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God's eye view reveals that a great lie has been told to us about science.
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Grab yourself a copy of God's Eye View by Trevor Lohman PhD from hemisphericpress.com aswell as other online retailers.
(22:04):
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, you can help keep it on the web.
All you've got to do is buy me a coffee.
Head over to buymeacoffee.com
There is a link in this episode's show notes.
So go on, buy me a coffee today and help this podcast to keep supporting Christian booksand authors.
Hello, welcome back to the Christian Book Club podcast.
(22:24):
I've been chatting with author Chinni McDonald about her book, Unmaking Mary, shatteringthe myth of perfect motherhood.
If you've enjoyed what you've heard so far, do go and check out her book, Unmaking Mary.
Now at this point in the podcast, Chinni, we like to speak about you as a person.
So what do you like to do for fun?
(22:46):
Well, my ideal day would be to go for brunch.
That's my favorite meal.
With a book.
I love books.
I love reading.
I do read a lot for work, non-fiction, but I think for fun I would read fiction.
So reading and then going to the cinema.
by myself, is one of my guilty pleasures is just sitting in a cinema watching a film bymyself, the lights down.
(23:11):
And yeah, that's what I do.
what's
What's the non-fiction book you're reading at the moment called?
gosh, so I've just read a book called What Are Children For?
which is all about the decline in fertility rates and the increase in choice and then kindof changing reasons why young people in particular are choosing not to have children.
(23:31):
So yeah, it's a fascinating book.
Mmm.
That sounds good.
All right.
you like, do you like eating by yourself or do you like to, sort of go out to restaurantsand things with, with friends or family?
Do you get much chance with children?
I do if I go by myself and my husband's at home.
(23:54):
I go, yeah, I do like meeting friends for dinner.
But I also love having friends over.
My favorite, one of my favorite things to do is cook.
So some kind of feasting menu where I love a menu where you can just create bowls ofthings and everyone dives in in the middle.
So often it's kind of Middle Eastern, Middle Eastern food is my kind of favorite.
(24:17):
Oh, was going to say, do you have a particular type of food?
Middle Eastern.
Okay.
Oh, interesting.
Now I went to a Turkish restaurant recently, so that was really nice.
Really good.
Ah, wonderful.
do you, do you do anything else?
I know you're an author.
You're an author.
Yes.
You write and you do lots of reading for your job.
So do you have a job that also involves other things or is it just sort of reading andwriting and writing and reading?
(24:44):
How does it.
No, I've got a day job, which is I'm director of Theos, which is the religion and societythink tank in Westminster.
So we do, we're all about trying to articulate a compelling vision for human flourishingin society based on Christianity and Christian ideas.
So we do research, events, media, public engagement.
(25:05):
podcast.
um
Pretty busy, yeah.
Good.
So I presume you're based in London then with that kind of job.
So tea or coffee?
Coffee.
I'm a coffee person.
I might have tea if I'm being lazy.
the do-it-yourself kind at home or the posh sort that you get in an expensive shopsomewhere.
(25:28):
All of the above, do have a coffee machine.
that's what I've here.
Yeah, coffee machine, cafeteria and instant if it's really...
Really desperate.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
And when you have your coffee, is it just coffee or do you get something else on the sidelike a little bit of cake or a sticky bun or a biscuit or nothing really?
(25:51):
Well, okay, so after Noonzy, so I might have a biscuit or a twirl.
twirls.
That's this flake with extra chocolate on.
That's good.
Yeah.
No, that's great.
So you have, love your brunch and you like your afternoon Z's as well.
(26:11):
That's great.
that's wonderful.
We're getting to know you, Chilli.
This is good.
This is good.
So what is the Holy Spirit doing in your life or what is he showing you personally at themoment?
Yeah, I think that because of my life and work and the kind of things I'm engaged in, Ifeel like part of what we're called to be and do in this time is build bridges across
(26:38):
divides.
So I'm feeling like, this time, this is a really scary time for people with a lot of kindof
turbulence and instability and polarization.
And I think as the people of God, we have to do better at holding difference together.
And so I'm feeling that in kind of daily in my work and also the people that I'm beingbrought into contact with that actually we're all people made in God's image and we need
(27:07):
to try and live together well, which means understanding and listening to each other.
Hmm, great.
And my next question is about what are you currently working on, or what you've got comingup next?
So it could be writing related, or it could be something to do with your your think tankwork, or anything like that.
Have we got something in the pipeline that you might be able to give us a sort of a littletaster of, or a sort of a preview before it enters the world?
(27:37):
Yeah, it's probably relevant to both things.
So at Theos, we're doing a big kind of two year research project on motherhood.
It's called Motherhood Inside Out.
So it looks like a kind of socio-political spiritual change that happens when one becomesa mother.
So it's kind of series of interviews, focus groups, analysis, but also some kind ofcreative things that we're doing alongside it.
(28:01):
So that'll be launched in May next year.
But before that, we also did a
four part documentary podcast called Motherhood vs.
the Machine, which looked at the changing nature of motherhood in light of technologicaladvancement.
So artificial wombs, these machines that can rock your baby to sleep, what does that do tothe maternal experience?
(28:22):
What happens when a mother is sidelined for technology and the implications of that?
Fascinating stuff.
Now where can we find you on social media or on a website maybe?
Where can we buy your book on Making Merry?
Yeah, you can find everything on chinnemcdonald.com that's C-H-I-N-N-N-N-
(28:46):
Wonderful, I'll put a link to your website in this episode's show notes.
So if you're listening and you want to find out more about Chinni and her book and thethings she's involved with, do just click on there and you'll find everything you need.
So thank you Chinni, it's great, it just leaves me to say thank you so much for thepleasure of your company and for this very interesting discussion all about Mary and
(29:08):
motherhood.
So thank you for joining us here on Christian Bookmode.
Thank you, Matt.
A big thank you to this episode's sponsor, the book God's Eye View by Trevor Lohman, PhD.
Grab yourself a copy now from hemisphericpress.com.
And thank you as well for listening to this episode of the Christian Book Blur podcast.
(29:30):
Don't forget it comes out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so it'll only be a fewshort weeks before I'm back again with another Christian author speaking all about their
books, their life and their faith to help you and your discipleship.
one book at a time.
Go ahead, like the episode, like the podcast, share it with your friends and I can't waitto have the pleasure of your company again really soon.
(29:54):
Thank you, goodbye.
Thanks for listening to Christian Book Blurb with your host, Matt McChlery.
Do give it a like, give it a share and let your friends know all about it.
We do hope to see you again soon on another Christian Book Blurb.
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