Bridie Jabour, a mother of two, always considered herself an ambivalent parent, often joking about her "benign neglect" approach. But when her son Cormac developed a severe stutter, her perception of herself completely changed. Through 18 months of daily therapy, she realized her feelings were not ambivalence but ordinary motherhood, and her dedication proved her deep care.
From Chatty Toddler to Severe Stutter
Jabour recalls that her son, at age three, seemed to lose the ability to communicate overnight. He went from being chatty to struggling with every sentence, often giving up in frustration. She first noticed something was wrong about six months before the severe onset, when he would occasionally struggle with the beginning of sentences at night.
Concerned, she inquired through NSW Health, the public health system, about getting him assessed. The waitlist was about six months long. She thought the worst outcome was that it would be a false alarm, which would only dent her self-image as a "cool and chill mum."
The Turning Point and Diagnosis
Five and a half months later, in the space of a week, Cormac went from almost zero stuttering to stuttering in every sentence. The childcare educators, her mother, and her husband all noticed. Jabour panicked but allotted herself 90 minutes to do so before calling NSW Health again. He had an appointment within a week and was classified as having a "severe" stutter by a speech pathologist.
He was introduced to the Lidcombe Program, an evidence-based treatment that involves daily therapy done by a parent. Only one parent could do it, as the feedback needed to be consistent. Since her husband had just started a new job, Jabour took on the role.
Daily Therapy and Perseverance
The daily therapy was challenging. Jabour had to turn up every day, not missing a session, because even a few days off led to profound regression. She admits to feeling guilty when she dropped a few days in a row. Despite tiredness and crankiness on both sides, they persisted.
After 18 months of treatment, the daily exercises wound down, and Cormac no longer stuttered. He speaks fluently now, a result of perseverance, hard work, and evidence-backed methods.
A Shift in Self-Perception
During this period, a professor casually identified Jabour as an "educated, anxious mother" in an interview. She was initially defensive, thinking she was ambivalent, not anxious. But she realized she had carefully watched her child, felt physical pain when he struggled, and did something about it—an extremely time-consuming and emotionally draining something.
Jabour admits she snapped at her children, hated taking them to swimming lessons, resented daily pickup, and didn't enjoy meals out with them. She looked forward to nights away and preferred doing anything else to playing with them. But over those 18 months, her secret self-perception collapsed. She was there when he needed her, and she was overbearing when required. She had mistaken common, ordinary feelings about motherhood for ambivalence.
This realization opened a new seam in her writing. She was writing a novel centered on growing up with an ambivalent mother, and the story became more complicated as she understood that mothers can be wrong about themselves. The ambivalent mother in her book became more than a mum—she became a real human being.
Jabour's novel, Ordinary Funny Tragic, is out now (HarperCollins; $34.99). She concludes, "We do not need to be perfect to be good," a lesson she learned while her son was learning to speak fluently.
