Category: Parenting

Feminism, Motherhood, Parenting

Could we try empathising with mothers, instead of judging?

Two stories about mothering in the headlines this week. One on breastfeeding, or rather bottle feeding, based on the news that updated advice from the Royal College of Midwives stresses that new mothers should be given appropriate support if they make an informed decision to bottle feed. The other on ‘working mothers’ and how they’re total slackers in the workplace.

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Motherhood, Parenting

A bed of one’s own: short notes on co-sleeping.

I lie in bed at night, drifting off and hear the feet approaching, steadily pacing along the landing. Shortly after, a small, hot body climbs over me and takes her place between myself and her father. She wedges herself against me, claiming the pillow as entirely hers. It’s funny how a four year old can take up seventy percent of a super-king sized bed.

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Parenting, Reading

January is for hibernating and reading.

This January I made a conscious decision to hibernate. Pretend like January wasn’t happening. Like I wasn’t back into the routine of lunch prepping, commuting and other tedious facts of life. Every evening, after the kids had been put to bed, (the eldest of which was always not necessarily actually asleep, using this as a time to be at his most charming, talkative and inquisitive. Nice try, pal, go to bed.) I would get under my own duvet with a book.

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Mental Health, Motherhood, Parenting, Short notes on

What’s wrong with being comfortable, anyway?

Hello. I haven’t been here for a while. Does that mean I have had no interesting thoughts? Nothing deemed worthy of sharing with the world, or at least the miniscule percentage of it that might stumble upon this blog anyway.
I have had lots of thoughts, of course, most of them maudlin and catastrophic, it is January after all.

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Motherhood, Parenting

She is four. Or, do you think I don’t love my children because I moan about parenting?

I’ve sometimes wondered if I could write one of those powerful emotional posts I see other bloggers write about their children. Where the love seeps through the page, and the words claw at your heart. Making you remember all the reasons you love being a parent; making you want to eat the chubby thighs of your newborn once again.

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Motherhood, Parenting

Whether childfree or regretting motherhood, we all deserve the freedom of ambivalence.

I read an article earlier this week about women who regret having children. I’ve also just read an article by a woman who is childfree. The thing that struck me as the common theme in the two pieces was ambivalence. You can be a mother and be unsure of the rightness of your choice, just as you can choose to be child-free and sometimes be uncertain. There are no absolutes on either side – apart from the child itself presented as either a burdensome presence or an ever present absence.

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