Spend any time saying anything on any social media platform and you’re going to find yourself the target of trolls at some point. It’s part of the job, it comes with the territory and while I never condone unkindness, bitchiness or the dissemination of untruths, I’ve come to realise that they have the right to say what they feel they need to say. Continue reading
Recently, in the New York Times, Diksha Basu, commented that motherhood was in need of a rebrand saying that the trend, led by social media, was to sell motherhood to the masses as the ultimate sacrifice. “It’s no wonder that most of my friends have chosen not to have children and women are embracing the term “child-free” as if they are free of an illness,” Basu writes. “We already don’t get paid maternity leave, and child care and health care are expensive, there’s little state help, and now we’re telling each other that motherhood is pretty awful anyway?” Continue reading
Today I was asked whether I was a regretful mother. I can understand why people would think that. I do spend a lot of time banging on about how shit motherhood can be but that’s the difference. I don’t regret becoming a mother – I don’t regret having kids – but I do resent the job of motherhood at times and yes, I regret that this is the situation I find myself in. I regret that I’ve made a choice that society doesn’t support me in. Continue reading
Just a list of a few things I hope I can impart to my daughters…. Continue reading
When I was 27 years old I experience my first episode of depression. It floored me. It was a mental whirlwind that left me disoriented in its wake. No one in my family had suffered from any mental health issues, at least openly, and while I navigated the journey, I felt exposed, isolated, lost and frankly, a little disgusted with myself. Why couldn’t I cope? What the hell did I have to feel so down about? Wasn’t everything pretty damn sweet in my life? Continue reading
It’s been a tough month. I don’t know whether there’s been a glitch in the universe’s matrix, or whether it’s just good ol’ fashion bad luck and timing, but my soul has been groaning under the weight of it all. Continue reading
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know two things:
…which is why what my daughter is doing at the moment is just not ok.
There’s nothing more terrifying that having your own worst traits staring back at you through the words, actions, facial expressions of your children. It’s inevitable, but that doesn’t make the punch in the emotional gut any less painful. It’s even harder to take when someone else has to point out that maybe, just maybe, your daughter’s behaviour is a reaction to your own crappy ways of dealing with things. Ouch. Continue reading
It is a fact universally acknowledged that, as mums, we have the perfect excuse to avoid exercise and getting healthy. I mean, no one is busier than a mum, right? No one is more tired than a mum and anyway, don’t we spend all day running around after the kids? I mean, if that’s not cardio then I don’t know what is. And OK, I may eat oven chips and fish fingers for dinner but it’s only half a fish finger because, you know, I only ate the left overs so it doesn’t count, right? Continue reading
It’s no secret that I found the transition to motherhood hard. I’ve banged on and on about it in the hope that honestly recounting my experience may chime with other mothers struggling and perhaps offer them a virtual life raft to hold on to. After all that’s why I started the blog and why I still write it because it’s still necessary. Despite all our efforts to dispel the myths surrounding motherhood, they still exist. New mothers (and old mothers) are still finding themselves lost in a haze of breast pumps, maternity pads and wailing babies. Continue reading
