The mystery of Jesus’s siblings

Since I gave birth four years ago and then, too soon afterwards, two years later, I have deliberately become a sponge for other women’s experiences of childbirth and raising babies. I found the whole process almost unbearably difficult, and I was baffled that other women didn’t seem to be walking around sharing their birth stories with strangers in the way I was.

During Christmas 2020, amid the fog of sleep deprivation, lockdown blues and postnatal depression, I began imagining Mary giving birth in a stable with only Joseph for a midwife. I also imagined other children running around, because my two-year-old daughter was doing just that – running around shrieking, demanding to be read a story while I tried to feed her baby brother and hide my tears from them both.

Did Mary have other children? Did she feel stretched, pulled in opposite directions by the needs of more than one child? That’s how I felt when I had my second.