Bridie Jabour thought she was an ambivalent mother - until her son Cormac developed a severe stutter, and she found herself doing daily therapy with him for 18 months, which turned out to be the opposite of ambivalence.

It started when Cormac was three, seemingly losing the ability to speak overnight. He went from chatty to struggling with every sentence: 'W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-what c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-can I-I-I-I-I-I-I' - and then silence. Jabour, who jokes about her 'benign neglect' parenting style, initially dismissed it. But after a six-month waitlist through NSW Health, the stutter worsened dramatically in a week, leading to a 'severe' classification and the Lidcombe Program - an evidence-based treatment requiring daily therapy by a single parent.

Jabour took on the role, because her husband had a new job and she had flexibility. The therapy was, in her words, 'so annoying,' but she persevered through exhaustion, crankiness, and regression when she missed days. After 18 months, Cormac spoke fluently - a 'miracle' that was actually the product of perseverance and evidence-backed methods.

During this period, a professor called Jabour an 'educated, anxious mother,' which she initially rejected, clinging to her ambivalent self-image. But she realized she had confused common, ordinary feelings about motherhood - snapping, hating swimming lessons, resenting pickup - with genuine ambivalence. She wasn't ambivalent; she was a mother who cared deeply, even when she didn't enjoy every moment.

This realization reshaped her writing, which had been centered on an ambivalent mother character in her novel (out now). The character evolved from a 'toxic' archetype into a fully human being. Jabour concludes: 'We do not need to be perfect to be good.' And also, apparently, to write a novel while doing daily speech therapy.