Feeling lost as a first-time mum is a common experience. For Amy Deans, having her first baby just before her 18th birthday meant she truly felt like a fish out of water in those early days.
Amy, 25, is looking forward to spending a chilled Mother’s Day at home with her partner James Yancouskie and sons Mason, 8, and Parker, 4, at home in Blairgowrie.
She faces the challenges that all working parents do, juggling school runs, childcare and after-school activities, but now she feels empowered to be able to do that along with taking the lead on several projects in her role as a development worker with Front Lounge, the charity that first helped her to find her feet after her sons were born.
Amy always dreamed of being a mum
When Amy was expecting her first baby aged just 17 she was excited to be fulfilling a long-held dream: becoming a mum. “Nobody quite believes me when I tell them that Mason was planned,” she laughs. “I have wanted children since I was about three years old; I had left school and was working full-time in a call centre and had my own flat.”
She was in a steady relationship with Mason’s dad. “All I ever wanted was to have kids and I felt so lucky when Mason was born.
“I’m not for one second saying it was a picnic because it 100% wasn’t,” says Amy, “it was hard,” she admits: “I don’t have a lot of family support.
“I think the hardest thing for me was the breastfeeding. I didn’t know anyone who had breastfed before me and I felt that I was doing everything wrong.”
She also experienced the isolation that so many new parents feel, but thinks it was harder for her to find support. “When Mason was first born I went to playgroups,” she recalls, “Because I was so young, I just felt like I didn’t really fit in at all.”
Amy felt that the groups just weren’t the right situation for her and her new baby. Then, by chance, she read about a playgroup being run by Dundee social inclusion charity Front Lounge.
“I was like, right, we’re going to go to that. And we did and obviously never looked back.”
When Amy first went along to Front Lounge, Mason was around six months old, and she instantly knew that she had found the right place. “I think it was just being in a room with people who were in similar situations as me,” she reflects.
“More than anything, just walking into room and not feeling like everybody’s instantly looking at you because they’re all 10 or15 years older than you.
“At other playgroups I kind of felt like I was being watched, like somebody was just waiting for me to make a mistake.
“When I was at Front Lounge it wasn’t like that, and if anything ever did happen, people were looking to offer you advice and help you. Nobody ever spoke down to you. You could just speak and not feel like you’re being judged for what you’re saying.”
Nobody ever spoke down to you. You could just speak and not feel like you’re being judged for what you’re saying.
She and Mason went along to the playgroup every week for around a year. Front Lounge founder Chika Inatimi was keen for Amy to stay involved with the charity and suggested that she take on a role as a volunteer play worker. So she supported parents who had signed up to Front Lounge’s Kindred Clothing project by leading play and activities for children while their parents were learning new skills.
Amy says that she benefitted in different ways from her involvement with Front Lounge, “from the young people here I was getting the friendships I needed and obviously the advice when it comes to having children and being a mum and all that kind of thing.
Giving back to Front Lounge
“And then behind the scenes I had quite a lot going on. Me and Mason’s dad were going through a break-up at that time. And I’d met up with Chika a couple of times just to talk about things that were on my mind or things that were worrying me.”
She says that she was still getting a lot of support from Front Lounge but her volunteering meant that: “I was able to give back a little bit at that time.”
Front Lounge support through COVID
When lockdown hit in 2020, Amy found herself trying to cope with life in a pandemic with a new baby in a new town. She had moved to Blairgowrie with her partner James and the couple had recently welcomed baby Parker (born in February 2020) into their family.
“So here I am with all these plans of what I was going to do with my newborn baby when we went into lockdown. I was in a place where I didn’t really know anyone, because I hadn’t had the chance to really settle in; it was me and my partner running a cleaning business, so it was kind of just us and the customers. I didn’t have friends at work. I didn’t really have a way to connect to anyone.”
Isolated in a new place
Through her move away from Dundee and the first months of lockdown Chika from Front Lounge made the effort to stay connected with Amy and her family through gestures such as delivering boxes of art supplies. She didn’t realise at the time how important that would be for her. “I honestly thought ‘you’re delivering me arts and craft supplies, like I appreciate it. And thank you and all that, but I don’t really understand why you’re doing that!'” she says.
“But what it really meant was that when I was struggling and I tried all my other options, I could still come back to Front Lounge because I still felt involved with them. So, I understand the strategy behind it now.
“And Parker literally did not sleep, like at all,” she recalls. “I was severely sleep deprived. I felt like I was losing my mind, to be honest. I 100 per cent thought I was beginning to lose it, so I thought I need some kind of routine, some kind of normality, so whatever it is that you can offer to me, I’ll take it!”
Front Lounge launch Kindred Clothing online
In summer 2020 Front Lounge encouraged Amy to give the Kindred Clothing project a go for herself. She learned to sew via the newly-launched online version of the course, often cutting fabric and patterns or using the supplied sewing machine with baby Parker perched on her knee.
“I went into the course with no expectations really, I just went into it thinking it’s something to do, and a couple of months later I finished the course and I managed to gain a qualification (the course is accredited by the SQA) from it,” she says proudly.
Since then, her relationship with Front Lounge has gone from strength to strength. She is now employed as a development worker with the charity, a job which she clearly loves. “Now I am in the best place I have ever been,” she enthuses, “I am in a job where I can see myself doing this for the rest of my life. This is what makes me happy. We have a saying in Front Lounge: ‘Find the things that make you happy’ it’s so different from anywhere I have ever worked.
“I feel like I am walking into my community every single day.”
For Amy, Front Lounge is a place where she feels supported in her working and her personal life. “My negative self-beliefs are constantly challenged. Chika has helped me to challenge the negativity that’s probably ingrained in a lot of us.
“I think for a long time I let fear dictate my life – if you really truly want to make a change you have to do the things that terrify you. Front Lounge is not just an organisation that does a Clothes Making course or runs a playgroup, you will always find someone to talk to here so don’t be afraid to take that step.”
Amy now heads up several projects with the charity, including Adventures of the Little People, a play, eat, create project aimed at children aged 5-11, facilitating the current Kindred Clothing cohort and organising an event for International Women’s Day in conjunction with Barnardo’s and Dundee Women’s Aid.
According to Front Lounge founder Chika: “Amy is amazing! In many ways she is still a carer. But her caring now also includes working in partnership, fundraising, training others, work in groups, and helping to build strategic vision.
“Whereas before she worked focussed mainly at the personal level, she is now operating with a much larger community focus. So much so she is actively involved in organising an international youth exchange project with China! She is doing all this with a young family in tow,” he points out with admiration. “She undersells herself. She’s planning to go to uni – and is still very much writing her story – it does take courage, she has got a lot of courage, she made a leap when lot of others probably wouldn’t.”
From supporting young parents, their children and other groups through Front Lounge, Amy will head home to spend some precious time with her family this weekend. She is looking forward to Mother’s Day. “I have intentionally left the day clear so rest and plenty of cups of tea brought to me is all that’s on the cards,” she says.
“But who knows – maybe the children and James will throw in a cooked breakfast!”
Visit kindredclothing.org and frontlounge.org for more information.