Parenting

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…

“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…

🤔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…

“Fine. I’m leaving you behind”.

The mother walks away from the boy, all of 3 at best. He is wailing on the ground, she is swearing under her breath.

My daughter watches them. “Cuddle him. Crying. Cuddle his mum”, she says. She is stuck halfway up a ladder, transfixed by them.

“Nooo don’t leave meeeee”, the boy squeals.

I can feel my daughter’s distress rising, and my body closing down too.

My heart hurts with the sound - “just go to him, Mama”, I urge her silently.

Before long the critical…