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Mothers As A Foghorn For The Family's Needs: Why It's Not As Simple As Telling Fathers To "Step Up"

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“My doctor was lovely but they didn’t get it. They suggested therapy and yes, it might help, but I already know what I need to do to look after myself. I need to read a book in the sunshine, with more than five minutes between interruptions. I need to go for a run, regularly. I need to sleep for ten years. And above all, I need my husband to deal with his own sh*t so he can actually parent instead of me doing everything for everyone and him being a passenger in this family.”

I receive multiple …

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Reimagining Post-Lockdown Life

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Where do my priorities lie?
In the home where I’ve been while dreaming of outside?
In the eyes I avoid when the feelings are too strong?
The teeth that bite if you’re awake too long?
The food demanded, chewed then thrown away?
The same path walked each and every day?
In day care or swim class or playgrounds galore,
Or a job that beckons behind long locked doors?
In a bank account that could be healthy or be bare,
Or a heart that is full of love to share?
In lessons to learn and l…

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Identity Through The Eyes Of A Child

where's mum
“Where’s Mum?” she asks her dad.
“My wife? She’s back now, just there”, he says cheekily.
“No, it’s Mum!”, she shrieks, seeing me down the hallway.
“Oh, you mean Grandma’s daughter?”
“No, it’s Mum!”
“Aunty Ro’s sister?”
“No, Mum!”
“Lisa’s friend?”
“No Dad, it’s just my Muummmmm!”
She runs to me, squealing with delight, and wraps those pudgy little arms of hers tightly around my neck.
This is how my child sees me – in relationship with her alone…

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Catching Up Post-Lockdown? 6 questions you can ask new parents before you meet their new baby

6 questions to ask a new mum
New parents might have felt sad or isolated through lockdown. They might also be feeling anxious about restrictions easing.
Here are 6 questions you can ask new parents before you meet their new baby to help them feel prepared for and safe during your visit, and to help you feel a lot less awkward about not knowing where their personal boundaries lie.

1. Would you like to meet up soon, or hold off a while?
You may be busting to meet the baby, but ultimately your job …

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Are There Societal Silver Linings To Lockdown?

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🤔I’ve often wondered what the effect is of sectioning off age groups is.

In families where intergenerational living and few siblings are common, we spend a great deal of our lifetimes with people our own age:

👶🏽At day care and preschool with other under 5s

👧🏻Primary school with other kids

🧒🏼High school as a teen with teens

👩🏾‍🦱Study/early work/travel with other young adults

👱🏼‍♀️Work with other adults

🤔 Then we hit mat leave, caring (largely alone) for someone i…

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The answers you seek aren’t in your feed

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We talked through that scene over and over.

✈️ The plane crashing through the doors of the hanger, John Travolta in black hunting down Nicolas Cage in red, bullets flying everywhere.

Miss Two had seen some of the 90s movie Face/Off accidentally, and told me it was “scary”, yet still she asked to watch it again. Instead we talked about it as nauseam, role played, and I cuddled her as we went through it for the fifteenth time.

🤔 When we see or experience something at odds with our reality we want to und…

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How I "Get So Much Done"

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“How do you get so much done?”

I give answers like “well my house just stays filthy” and “I get my ideas in order while mothering then smash them out when I get time”, but really what I want to say is this:

  1. A lifetime of white, middle class, cis-gender, heterosexual, generally mentally well, neurotypical, sans-physical disability, local family, partnered, non-traumatic life experience-related privilege; and
  2. My partner parents.

If the first point sounds like you, and you have a partner an…

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I knew I’d be tired, I didn’t know I’d be furious.

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I knew I’d be tired, I didn’t know I’d be furious.
Furious waking up, after a brutal night, knowing I’ll be solo for hours on end.
Furious opening my social feed, to see some BS targeted ad telling me my baby must broken and I better buy their wonder program/white noise machine/essential oils or else.
Furious in the aisle, when the requests for purposefully placed, sugar-laden, cartooned-charactered cereal boxes are declined and met with a meltdown.
Furious at the c…

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Support services and resources for expecting, new and experienced fathers.

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This resource was compiled for Australian Men’s Health Week 2021 but was most recently updated in 2024. Text in quotations marks is copied directly from the website shown. You are welcome to print or distribute this list providing you reference www.annacusack.com.au or @annacusackpostpartum as its source.

www.howisdadgoing.org.au
This is the Dad-specific branch of panda.org.au (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia). It includes mental health resources for expecting and new dads, info o…

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When It Stings, But Isn’t Meant To - Social Commentary is not a Personal Attack

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🤔Lately my criticism of certain sleep training practices has been met with a type of defensiveness and anger that I find difficult to name.

🤰The same has happened in the past when I have criticised the birth and maternity care system.

I’d like to make something clear here:

👉Nothing I say on this platform is a direct criticism of you, your loved ones, or your parenting.

🏨Yes, on a systemic level, I am concerned by the medicalisation of birth and the fear mongering that goes along with it.

🏕O…

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