Tag Archives: motherhood

Three funerals … we need a wedding!

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Little Birdie is only eight months old and already she has been to three funerals. First, we lost my Grandma when LB was only a new born. Then, when she was six months old, we lost a dear friend in a tragic accident. Now, we’ve lost my uncle to cancer.

Grief is an unpleasant experience at the best of times, but it is somewhat more confusing now that I am a parent. On the one hand, I have some distance, because I’m busy looking after a baby and I don’t have time to be self indulgent and dwell on my own feelings too much. In a way, that spares some of the pain. On the other hand, it’s a problem, because you don’t have time to process the situation. I certainly found that at my dear uncle’s funeral on Monday; when the realisation that he was gone hit me like a sledgehammer during the service.

At all three funerals, as awkward as it was negotiating the event with a baby, I was very glad she was there. More than one person has commented that LB represents the cycle of life and I know my uncle’s family is focusing on her in an effort to distract themselves from the thought that he won’t be with them for Christmas. She was also a good talking point as you speak to people in those awkward conversations that you tend to have at funerals. It is also true that you are never alone once you become a parent and it was nice to have a little person to cuddle through a very sad day.

The deaths of these three important people in my life have really made me reflect on parenting and relationships. My Grandma wasn’t always the best mother or grandmother herself, but I really appreciated her. She was very witty and very intelligent. Even at 90, she was razor sharp. Visiting her in the old person’s home was also one of the few trips out of the house I could manage with a minimum of stress when LB was first born. In those days, LB cried pretty much all day long, but the elderly people at the home didn’t seem to mind hearing a crying infant in the halls. Instead, everyone seemed to embrace the hope that a new life represents. I would sit in the corner of Grandma’s room breastfeeding and I was comfortable, because Grandma was a nurse and I knew she didn’t mind if I breastfed as I chatted to her. She also reveled in the chance to show off her first great-grandchild to the nurses as they passed in and out of the room. Grandma was in terrible pain from a broken hip towards the end and I like to think that our little visits offered her comfort in some way in those final days.

A few weeks ago, the husband of one of my best girlfriends was killed in a road accident on the way to work. It was tragic, totally unexpected and incredibly sad, because he left behind a beautiful wife and three precious children. He was a genuinely good, good man; a supportive husband, a good provider and a loving father. He had been a part of my life for fourteen years, and it seemed like we would all be friends well into old age. He was special, because together with his wife, he was generous with his time and his friendship. His passing shook us and made us all realize how short our time together can be and how fragile life is. When we got the news, my husband was on a business trip interstate. Alongside the grief we felt for the loss of a dear friend, was a realization that the same thing could easily happen to us, bringing our marriage to an end and robbing LB of a parent. It has taught me to really value what I have and to make the most of every moment, because you really never know when things can change.

However, the loss of a loved one also makes you grateful for the time that you did spend with them. Last week, I lost my uncle. He was a remarkably warm, gentle, generous and sentimental man, with a marvellous sense of humour. Not much got past him. He was rent-a-crowd in my life, there for nearly every major event, always positive, proud and encouraging. He was a wonderful father and grandfather to his family and a well-liked man in the community. At least a couple of hundred people turned out for his funeral and it was quite an event, lasting most of the day. My relationship with my own father has always been a difficult one, but my uncle was always there, showing me what a good father can be like. I was certainly cognisant of that when I met my husband for the first time, noting some similar traits. It was reassuring and helped me to know that I was choosing a good man with whom to spend the rest of my life.

So, unfortunately, it has been a year tinged with grief but also a year where I have come to appreciate my family and friends and the precious time I have with them. However, as much as it is good to try to find some positives in this sad year, I think we’ve been to enough funerals for now. LB isn’t even nine months old yet. I think it’s time for a wedding instead. Now, I just need someone in my life to get engaged!

The Art of the Unexpected

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Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

Oscar Wilde

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_art.html#LClkXXMSlgfxpTH4.99

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

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I like Saturdays, even though I’m a stay at home Mum these days. Some might argue that every day is the same when you are a stay at home mum, but I love Saturday because my husband is home and that means there is a different feel about the house. I also like Saturdays, because every Saturday my husband and I do something fun. At the very least, we get take out and have an ice-cream on Saturday night and sometimes we watch a movie. That was a boring night before Little Birdie was born; now I look forward to it all week. However, we also like to go out on a Saturday and have lunch somewhere or with friends.

Last Saturday, my mother was supposed to come over but she cancelled so that she could visit my ailing uncle instead. So, all of a sudden, we had no plans for our Saturday. There’s not a huge range of choices when you have a small baby, especially last minute ones. It’s very easy to just fall into the trap of going out to eat. It’s also not easy to get out and get some exercise when you are a mum, so going out to eat all the time can be a problem.

We mused over what to do while LB had her morning nap. We tossed about the same old ideas. Shopping centre? No, it’s too tempting to spend money. Seaside? No, it’s too hot to walk at midday and then we’d probably just end up sitting somewhere eating fish and chips. Drive? LB was already asleep, so was unlikely to sleep in the car. Then my husband put forward a new idea – the art gallery.

I LOVE going to the art gallery, but I had never visited with a baby. To be honest, I felt very apprehensive about going, because it might interfere with LB’s naps. It takes time to really enjoy a gallery. You need time to read the information about the artworks and then peruse them. I didn’t think it was really the right activity for a little one, whose attention span is still pretty short. However, I was looking forward to getting out of the house, so I ignored my feelings of foreboding and off we went.

It seemed to be a disaster from the start. My husband chose to go to a car park that was at the opposite end of the expansive public parklands to the gallery. He was hoping for a family walk, as well as a trip to the gallery. I was concerned that it was going to be too big a day for LB but, once again, I decided to go with it and see where the day went instead of letting my worries take over. We couldn’t even seem to find the lift to get out of the car park and had to carry the pram up a staircase. To my amusement, we weren’t the only parents who were caught out, another couple carried their pram up beside us and they had a toddler to contend with as well. I looked at them and thought to myself how much easier our life was with only one child. It was a good leveler, I knew I was being silly and worrying too much about the day rather than enjoying it

When we reached the top of the stairs, we walked straight out into the weekend markets. I cannot resist a market and these were selling all sorts of beautiful things. We slowly walked along the stalls and I checked out all the children’s clothes. As we walked, we considered going to one of our favourite restaurants for noodle soup but we knew our time was limited. It was the soup or the gallery. The walk between the two was too far for us to enjoy both. We decided on the gallery and I felt a little tug of disappointment, I haven’t managed to go out for noodle soup since LB was born. I was reminded that these are the freedoms that we miss as parents. However, it was lovely to be out and going to the gallery at all and I was grateful for that.

Soon, we had perused all the stalls and we decided to walk towards the gallery along the river. As we walked along, I saw lots of people out who had babies in prams as well. I’m not sure whether I didn’t notice prams before I had a baby or whether there has been a baby boom, but wherever we go, we see lots of people doing exactly the same thing we are. It’s very comforting.

LB was just as tolerant of the walk along the river as she was of our journey through the markets. I hoped she was enjoying seeing all the people and the beautiful scenery. Taking a family walk is one of my favourite times to spend with my husband because we are not exhausted and about to go to bed and LB is safe and occupied, so we can have a proper conversation. It’s so hard to talk about life in the detail we used to before LB was born and I worry that I don’t spend enough time discussing his work and helping him unload some of that stress and think things through.

Before long, we had reached the gallery and, as I often do when we are out, I really felt for people in wheel chairs. It’s so hard to navigate a pram friendly route and you seem to have to walk so much further to avoid all the staircases and find ramps and lifts.

We were drawn to the gallery of modern art. I was a little anxious that we had wasted all our time walking and had missed out on the opportunity to spend time at the gallery and buy some lunch. However, LB was still being incredibly calm.

When we arrived at the gallery, I really didn’t feel particularly inspired. If you manage to get out of the house with a baby, you really need to make the most of it. The gallery didn’t have any special exhibitions on and, as a fairly new gallery, the collections that were there were fairly sparse. We decided to catch the lift up to the second level to see what was going on and discovered an exhibition about every day life. It just seemed so mundane but my husband was drawn that way, so I followed him. After all, I’d survived thus far and LB was holding it together, so I decided that I may as well trust him and keep going.

The exhibition was as I expected, bits of junk (literally) repurposed to make comment about the everyday. I decided to make the experience less about me and more about LB. I put myself in her shoes, asking myself what would interest her? Getting out of the pram would be one thing, I thought. So I carried her around on my hip, looking for things to interest her. Just inside the door was a collection of diodes with all different coloured lights. I pointed them out to her and she seemed moderately interested. There was a father with a toddler across the room. He saw what I was doing and quickly followed suit. I’m on to something, I thought.

I gazed around to see what else would interest a baby. There was a large curtain of gold tinsel being gently blown from behind by a fan. It was sparkly, bright and moving. It was a real sensory experience for a baby. I walked LB over and she seemed genuinely engaged in watching the sparkly tinsel move. I thought it was a pity we were in a gallery, because LB would really have liked to touch the tinsel! I walked through a bit more of the collection and entered a room with a video of a man playing a traditional wood wind instrument on the side of the street in Asia. Once again, LB seemed interested. It became a challenge to spot things that would appeal to LB’s senses. Eventually, we ended up in a room painted light blue with trees made of plush; it was like being in a snowy, Dr Suess-inspired forest. Needless to say, she loved it.

One of my other favourite past times is going to art gallery gift shops. Since becoming a parent, I appreciate them even more, because the merchandise for children on offer is fantastic. Daddy came home with one of LB’s favourite bedtime story books after visiting an outlet of an American art gallery shop at Sydney airport. We weren’t disappointed on this occasion either. There were lots of brilliant books to choose from, but was chose a board book that taught children about blending colours.

That book came in handy too, because we did get a nice lunch out at a café my husband had been dying to try. I had brought some food from home for LB and she was very accommodating as I tucked into my duck salad. I read her the book over lunch and she even had a little crawl on the pavement in front of the café. It was a lovely end to a very enjoyable morning.

I can’t say I enjoyed the exhibition we went to see at the gallery, but I thoroughly enjoyed the day out with the family and a lot of that enjoyment stemmed from LB. As stressful as it can be going out with a baby, it can be really fun as well. I would have been disappointed by the trip to the gallery, because I didn’t enjoy the art, but the visit turned out to be much more fun when I made it about LB instead of me and tried to see the world through her eyes. She helped me get in touch with my senses and I was able to look at the art in a different way than I would have otherwise. The experience was a timely reminder of how even though sacrifice when we become parents, we gain so much as well.

The Tooth Gremlin (Eight Tips for Surviving Teething)

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Just as the tooth fairy takes away baby teeth, a nasty, hurtful little gremlin delivers them. My friend’s older sister introduced me to the term “tooth gremlin” and I think it’s very apt. Little Birdie (LB) doesn’t teeth well. When her first tooth came through, she made a mewing sound, similar to guinea pig, for about three days prior and then all hell broke loose for two days. So, when the mewing sound started again, I was ready for a couple of days of hell as the second tooth came through.

This time, I knew another tooth was coming, because all the signs were there. She bit me a couple of times during feeding, she started dribbling a bit more and I could feel a lump where the tooth was coming through. However, I thought I had dodged the gremlin this time, because there was no mewing. How wrong I was.

LB has been waking a little earlier each day this week and today it was just before five o’clock. I tried putting her back down after her feed, but she wasn’t having a bar of it. So, we launched off into our feed, play, sleep routine, ready to go for a nap just before seven in the morning. That seems a ridiculously early time to go for a nap, but it seems that is how a baby’s world works.

Sure enough, by half-past-six, LB was showing tired signs and was really quite grumpy. I changed her nappy, put her in her sleeping bag, read her a story, and gave her a hug and a kiss. That’s when I decided to act on a hunch and I put some teething gel on the spot where the new tooth was starting to break through just prior to putting her in the cot. LB seemed bemused by the gel as I put her in the cot, sang her “Twinkle, Twinkle” and wished her sweet dreams. However, that wasn’t the end of it.

After twenty minutes, I confirmed my hunch was right. LB wasn’t settling, even though she was clearly tired. I decided to abandon the comfort settling. I went in, picked her up, gave her some Panadol, a big hug and a rock in the rocking chair for a few minutes, then I put her back in the cot, sang “Twinkle, Twinkle” and wished her sweet dreams, before leaving the room. For once, I had a win. Within five minutes LB was asleep and slept for a further hour-and-a-half.

This teething thing is no biggie, right? Wrong.

We enjoyed a nice morning but after a couple of hours, I could see that LB was getting tired. It seemed ridiculous to be going for a second nap at half-past-ten in the morning, but LB was grizzling, yawning and rubbing her eyes. So, I went into my routine – nappy, sleeping bag, story, cuddle, twinkle – but it just wouldn’t work. I started the comfort settling techniques that I learnt at sleep school but that didn’t work either. After half an hour, I tried a cuddle and a rock in the rocking chair again. No luck. Poor LB screamed for another half an hour before she finally went to sleep. To her credit, she slept for two hours, giving me a chance to wash, sort and iron some clothes, then write this blog post. However, I really feel for her. Teething must really hurt, because it has such a profound affect on LB’s behavior. As I was doing the washing, I began to think of my “Top Tips for Surviving Teething”. I will list them below.

Eight Tips for Surviving Teething

  1. Be kind to yourself when your baby is teething. They call it a teething gremlin for a reason. In reality, nothing you do will help much, so comfort your bubby so they don’t feel alone while they suffer. You are not being a bad mother if your baby is hard to settle, they are just uncomfortable and letting you know they need extra comfort.
  2. Don’t believe everything you read. Some Internet sites that give information about teething infer that it’s not really a problem and that the unsettled behavior babies experience is all in their parent’s minds. Hogwash. You just have to look at LB to see she’s not happy when she’s cutting a tooth and as soon as the tooth is through, she’s happy again.
  3. Teething is like labour; everyone experiences it in a different way. This is actually a tip from a friend from mother’s group and I think it’s a great way of looking at it. It’s the reason why some bubs seem to turn up with teeth with a minimum of fuss, while others seem to suffer and suffer.
  4. There are two types of teething, chronic and acute. Chronic is a term that refers to the whole period of time from when the first to the last tooth appears. Acute refers to those periods when the tooth is cutting through the gum. The acute bit is the bit that really sucks.
  5. Do anything you can to make your baby feel better. It will make you feel less stressed. I keep a teething ring in the fridge and produce it when nothing else seems to work. LB sees it as a real treat to go to the fridge and get her “fishie”. It distracts her for a while when she’s upset. I also find going for a walk in the pram with a rusk to chew on is a good way to get through the late afternoon. If all else fails, I sing lots of nursery rhymes. I’ve also heard that babies like to chew on frozen cucumber when they are teething, but I haven’t tried it.
  6. Use teething gel, even though it’s virtually impossible to get it in the right spot. And yes – I use the one with alcohol in the list of ingredients. I used it myself when I had problems with my wisdom teeth years ago and it seemed to make a small difference. However, if you’re not comfortable with that, there are herbal versions available. I suspect teething gel is a placebo, but if it makes you feel better to be doing something proactive to help your bub, then it’s worth it and will make you feel less stressed. Babies are calmer if their mother is calm. Put it on before feeds if your baby won’t feed while teething. I put it on before naps because LB has trouble sleeping at the best of times, so I will do anything to make nap time less stressful.
  7. Be proactive with the painkillers. There are a few brands available and they’re all good. The one I use allows you to give a dose every six hours, so I try to get one in early in the morning, so LB can have two doses in a day.
  8. Don’t try to do anything when your baby is teething. Accept that the day is a right-off and go with it. It will ease your frustration.

As I finish this post, it occurs to me that teething is like labour for another reason. Although different people experience labour pain in different ways, there is one common element. Eventually, labour ends. This is also true of teething. Eventually the tooth comes through. It might be painful, but it’s not life threatening. Just as you get a lovely little newborn after your labour, babies get a shiny new tooth after teething. As the old saying goes, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Did you hear that Tooth Gremlin? I must admit, though, I am looking forward to a time when it’s the Tooth Fairy’s turn to visit instead! She’s much kinder than the gremlin.

Home invasion

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It was bound to happen. Fine weather can only hold out for so long. Our mother’s group has taken to meeting at a local park which has a conveniently located coffee shop across the road where we can go and get a good take away coffee. It’s a great spot, not too far from the river, which has shady trees and is cool even on a hot day. One of the mums even has a super-sized picnic blanket that can accommodate several mums and bubs. We were on to a good thing, until it rained.

We do have a wet weather plan, which involves going to the chocolate-themed coffee shop up the road from the park, but as the bubs get more mobile (Little Birdie is leading the vanguard by crawling), it is a less attractive option. So there was a little confusion on our Facebook group page as to what we should do.

I was pretty much the last person to log on to see what the plan was. It was the morning we were supposed to meet and it was raining. Some of the more organized mums had seen the weather reports the night before and flagged that there was a problem by posting to our shared Facebook page, but there was no general agreement on where to meet. In my usual last minute fashion, I logged on an hour and a half before we were supposed to leave and saw there was willingness by a couple of girls to meet up, but no agreed venue. One girl had offered her house, but it hadn’t been conformed. I knew one thing, however, I was looking forward to the catch-up. I knew what I had to do.

So I put my hand up for everyone to come around to our place. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, unless you are a parent. LB takes up a lot the majority of my time and I try to fit cleaning and everything else around that. Not to mention the fact that I am a pretty ordinary housekeeper at the best of times. It doesn’t come naturally to me and I’m always on the back foot with the house. Hubby and I had agreed to a program of spring-cleaning, but it fell by the wayside pretty quickly because our weekends always seem to be so full and we work very hard to preserve the structure of LB’s day so she can get some sleep. To compound matters, I had had food poisoning earlier in the week and decided to take things a little easier so I could recover faster. So, I really had no business offering up our house, but I did anyway. I really treasure my time with my mother’s group and I know I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t seen the girls.

Of course, the minute the invitation was out, I had to click into action. As soon as LB went down for her morning nap, I raced around cleaning toilets and basins, sweeping floors, tidying and getting dressed. It was a losing battle.

You have to turn off part of your brain when you are a perfectionist and a parent. My house was pretty untidy when the mums and bubs from mother’s group turned up but it wasn’t embarrassingly dirty. The babies had a lovely play on the mat in the lounge room, with access to all LB’s toys and the visitors got to see another side to LB, because she is a lot more confident in her own home. We also didn’t have to worry about ants, or the elements or parking. In fact, it was super good for me, because when LB started getting really tired, I put her down for a nap in her cot straight away and we went downstairs and continued our chatting. We have a coffee machine and I had bought some biscuits the day before to bring along anyway, so it was cheap and easy and comfortable.

As always, after the mums and bubs had gone home and I was thinking over our morning, I thought about how things had turned out better then I had expected. I refused to dwell on the fact that people had seen my imperfect house, instead choosing to focus on all the benefits of the day. One of the biggest plusses was that I had actually done a lot of housework in a short time while preparing for the visitors to arrive. I had sorted washing, put more washing on, cleaned, tidied, sorted and organized. It was very likely more than I would have done normally. I also had all afternoon to organize dinner.

As I am so often finding since becoming a mother, somehow you always get there in the end. So many times since LB was born I have wondered where all this was going to end up and yet we have just scraped through. I have also learnt that it is important to make the effort to get out and catch up with people, because it can be so lonely and depressing if you do not. That little bit of stress in the morning was worth it for the lovely time I had with the mums and bubs. It was also worthwhile because it lifted my mood and got me moving.

I don’t like having visitors when my house is messy, that will not ever change, but sometimes we have to accept that we cannot always be perfect and just move on. There’s also a little motivation to be gained from the experience. The wet weather was also a timely reminder to always be prepared for the unexpected. I think it’s time for hubby and I to get back to our program of spring-cleaning!

Bathing Beauty

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Thank goodness for swimming lessons! I really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but I booked Little Birdie (LB) into swimming lessons because it seemed like the right thing to do. Little did I know what a gem I would find.

Some of the other mums at mother’s group have been very proactive about booking their babies into swimming lessons but I felt a bit intimidated. I hoped there would be a little group who may decide to book in at the same place and time but it wasn’t the case. Finally, with the start of the term approaching, I brought myself to make a booking at the pool up the road. It was a bit of a gamble leaving the booking so late (I actually booked the morning the new term started). I’m not sure why I couldn’t bring myself to book, I kept making the excuse I was too busy. However, in hindsight, I think I was nervous about taking LB.

I love to swim. I really do. However, I don’t swim very often. I have had two stints in my life when I have regularly swum laps and both times have been when I’ve had access to a nice, cosy, quiet heated pool. In fact, one of those stints was just last year when I started swimming in the pool at the school where I worked. I injured my hip when I was pregnant and swimming was about the only exercise I could do and it made me feel great. The best part about it, though, was the company. I only ever swim with a friend or two in tow; I’ve just always been a bit of a nervous nelly about the whole thing. Also, I hate the cold. I really hate that moment when the cold water hits your belly as you enter the pool. Then there’s the whole wearing a bathing suit in public issue …

So, I had quietly worked myself into a tither by the time our first lesson came around on Monday. However, in usual fashion, I ‘white knuckled’ it. I had to just not let my fears take over for LB’s sake, because, after all, the lessons were about her, not me.  The day had not started well, I took LB for a walk before her first nap and then she didn’t sleep well. I refused to let that stop us, though.

The first thing that struck me, as we got dressed to go to our lesson, was how exceptionally cute LB looked in her little pink frilly swimsuit. Before we left for the lesson, I took a moment to take some photos on my phone and send them to the grandmas and her aunty. Next, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had somehow made it to the pool on time. The staff there were also exceptionally welcoming and I was impressed to see that the pool complex had had a major facelift since my last visit. There was now an indoor pool and this was where I had booked the lessons.

The next pleasant surprise was how warm the water was. As I walked down the stairs into the pool, I wasn’t uncomfortable at all. I was also relieved by LB’s reaction. Prior to sleep school, LB tended to react very badly to new experiences, but with more sleep she is a lot calmer. She looked to me for reassurance and I gave her a big smile and told her the pool was like a big “splish-splash bath”. After an initial shock at getting her face wet and an incident swallowing a bit of pool water, she was at home. The lesson went exceptionally well and I was sad when it drew to an end. They offered us the opportunity to stay in the pool after the lesson, but I knew LB needed to go home for a feed and a nap.

LB was exhausted by the time we got home and fell asleep while feeding, which was a disaster, because she generally won’t go into the cot if this happens. I usually follow a ‘feed, play, sleep’ routine, but the swimming lessons mean I have to keep her up a bit too long and sneak an extra feed in before she goes down for her afternoon nap. It was a pretty messy afternoon with lots of crying around the afternoon nap but I still felt on top of the world. Our first swimming lesson together was a precious experience and I felt so grateful. I even mooted the idea that we take our babies for a swim together one Friday to my mother’s group.

The second lesson today was even better than the first. LB was a lot more confident and the other two parents in the class were lovely and their children delightful. The instructor was supportive and the lesson had a good balance of fun and safety. In time, I’m confident that LB will be able to save herself from drowning if the need arose, which is really the point of the whole exercise. We don’t have a pool, but our neighbours on both sides do. In addition, there are so many other developmental aspects to the lessons that make them really worthwhile. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that LB is a bit of a natural paddler and kicker, which should help her in the future.

Once again, motherhood has made me overcome my petty anxieties and fears and try something new. I’m so proud of LB and her efforts at swimming lessons. Now, instead of dreading getting into the pool, I am looking forward to my next opportunity to spend time with my little bathing beauty.

One Mother’s Musings on Gender

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As soon as I said it, I regretted the comment but that didn’t stop me digging an even bigger hole for myself. My weekly coffee after our library trip has seen me make some really bigoted comments of late, which is strange, because I don’t consider myself a bigoted person. I consider myself quite the opposite, actually. So, the fact that I have caught myself first making comments about race and then gender has me feeling quite ashamed.

We don’t like to admit it but Australia can be quite a racist place, at times. Especially out in the country. I grew up in a regional area and have acquired the habit of categorizing people by their race and their religion. I don’t think any less of people after I’ve categorized them, but it just goes to show that you can’t completely separate yourself from the discourses in which you have grown up. Some ways of speaking and the prejudices embedded in those conversations become naturalized within you, even if you don’t want them to.

This week’s transgression was gender-based. Firstly, I whined about working with Lesbian teachers, who were particularly nasty people. Then, I whined about working with middle-aged women. As I made the comments, I felt like I was having an out of body experience, because I am a feminist. Always have been. I also have a degree in Journalism and English Literature, so I know that language has immense power and can be used to do great harm.

However, there is another reason that I am particularly mortified at myself as well. Not only am I a person who respects women, but I am also the mother of a beautiful daughter. I want the best for her in this world and I want her to treat others with dignity and respect. I want her to treat herself with dignity and respect, as well. I believe that when we make comments that disparage others on the basis of gender or race, we hurt ourselves a little as well by supporting the very patriarchal power structure that subjects us in the first place.

As I was driving home from coffee today, I got to thinking about why I was so particularly mortified at myself and why I had come to make such comments that undermined other women. A lot of it has to do with how disillusioned I feel with second wave and third wave feminism. When I was young, I was fiercely passionate about women’s rights and I had to be, because growing up in the country and then starting a career in commercial radio meant I had a lot of prejudice to fight against. I knew I didn’t have the same opportunities as the boys in my university course and when I did start working, I had a battle to try and be something other than a pretty little thing that read the news with a nice voice. It was a battle I ultimately lost, as the pressure from ignorant, bullying, often lecherous, middle-aged men ultimately drove me out of the job and into teaching. Even in teaching, where women are well represented, it was clear you didn’t get anywhere unless you were a member of the boys’ club or a force to be reckoned with.

My thoughts turned to a segment I saw on the news about Miley Cyrus. Apparently, she is at the centre of a furore over her latest video, her comments about which drew an open letter from Sinead O’Connor and Annie Lennox. I thought about what I would say to Miley, if I had the chance to speak to her. I would counsel her about the way she was representing herself, explaining that you cannot control the way people perceive you (cue: Marshall McLuhan, “the medium is the message”). So, even though she may feel that she were representing herself as an empowered female who is comfortable and in control of her sexuality, others may see her as an object for their gratification and exploitation, devaluing the myriad other talents and gifts that she possesses. I would warn that by allowing herself to be treated this way, she implicitly supports the subjugation of other women, even if she doesn’t mean to.

That is also why I feel third wave feminisim has failed us. It is so hollow and focuses too much on sexuality, as though that is the sum total of what a woman is. The very tool, which means to free us, binds us. Young women take control of their sexuality but end up presenting themselves according to some very damaging stereotypes, which have more in common with pornography than healthy self-expression. Sex sells and some very astute marketers have learnt to hijack young women’s attempts to represent themselves as confident and in-control of their sexuality and turn them into a product to market, regardless of the fact that they are exploiting those young women and undermining them in the process.

So should we turn back to the message of the second wave feminists as a means to fight this? Unfortunately, no, because the well meaning attempts of our mothers and their mothers have failed us too. The second wave tried to bring us equal opportunity in the work place but instead just ended up leaving women with more on our plates than ever before and lead to isolation and lack of support within the female community. As a new mother, I have had to resign from my employment because I just cannot do it all, much as I would like to. Of course, I feel guilty about that, as the expectation is that we should do it all these days and being a stay at home Mum is undervalued. I think that was the unintended by-product of second wave feminism.

So, what does it this have to do with motherhood? I am Mum to a beautiful little girl. I care what sort of a world she grows up in and what sort of a person she matures into. I want her to have every opportunity to have a happy, balanced and successful life.  I need to think about what messages I send her and, more importantly, what example I set. It’s a huge responsibility and something I’ll try to keep in mind next time I’m making careless comments over a coffee at mother’s group.

A mother knows her kind

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Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer.

Radhanath Swami

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/mother_nature.html#hEodRQVQVkWXrrDw.99

We had an unexpectedly beautiful day yesterday. Little Birdie (LB) woke very early, so it was a three-nap day. My husband and I wanted to enjoy our Saturday and decided the only way we could do something was to drive far enough away that LB could have a nap on the way there and another on the way back in the car. Therefore, the beach seemed a logical conclusion. We set off, looking forward to a nice lunch in a scenic location.

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones with such ideas. It was the first day of a long weekend and it seemed every man and his dog also wanted to take a nice little drive to the beach. The traffic jam started fairly early into our journey and neither of us relished being stuck in a car with a crying baby for hours. My husband swung into action and we decided to head out West into the countryside instead. We made a snap decision to visit a winery and lavender farm a bit over an hour from our house. It was an ideal length of time to give LB a short nap and get us to our destination in time for lunch.

As soon as I hopped out of the car at the winery, I felt waves of relaxation wash over me. My eyes soaked up visions of grape vines, rose bushes, rows of lavender, cattle grazing and the surrounding mountains. We were some of the first diners to arrive for lunch and were rewarded with a table in front of a large window with a spectacular view. It was hard to imagine the day getting much better.

Unfortunately, the restaurant did not have high chairs, so my husband had to pop back out to the car to get our pram. Since we were virtually on our own in the restaurant, I decided to take LB a little closer to the window to have a look outside. It was then that I saw her. A mother kangaroo was in amongst the rows of lavender gazing up at us, with a little joey in her pouch.

It was an amazing moment. Two mothers holding their babies gazing back at each other. She had soft brown eyes with long lashes and it amazed me that she didn’t seem uncomfortable that I had noticed her and try to hop away. It was as though we empathized with each other. I imagined her telling her joey to look at the mummy and the bubby in the window, just as I was telling LB to look at the kangaroo and her joey.

This little kangaroo and her joey were just outside the window as we ate lunch.

This little kangaroo and her joey were just outside the window as we ate lunch.

Soon, my husband returned with the pram and I motioned to him to come and have a look at the kangaroo. He came over, phone camera in hand. Then, as suddenly as the moment had come upon us, it was gone. My husband’s presence seemed to break the spell. The kangaroo looked more wary and I knew it was time to go back to the table and order lunch. However, the thoughts stayed with me, that feeling of a mother knowing another mother’s heart, an understanding of the love and commitment it takes to raise a little one, the curiosity about another mother’s experience and a feeling of mutual respect. It seems motherhood is a force of nature and it’s in more natural surroundings that you can appreciate why it is so.