Memoirs
A lesson learnt
Together with our twin boys starting school this year, I also ventured back into the hectic world of the ‘working mother’. I was scraping the bottom of the confidence barrel during my initial return to the workforce, after living the life of a contented ‘stay at home’ mum for quite some time...
A more fulfilled life
I want to say upfront that I love my son. We make a great team. He is three years old, and so much fun to be around...
A special place for Jonathon
We walked them out the front with Jonathon clinging to my neck, his face buried into the side of mine. “Say bye Jonathon,” I coaxed but he refused to look. We waved goodbye and came inside with a sense of gloom as to what would happen now...
A story of triumph and survival
My daughter is fourteen now and I am fifty. That we have made it this far is a minor miracle but we go from strength to strength every day...
A woman’s wasteland – Part I, The Journey Begins
Barren. Infertile. Sounds like a wasteland, doesn’t it? Like a desert. Well that’s how it feels when you’re there. When you yearn for a baby that doesn’t exist, it’s not like being a six-year-old...
A woman’s wasteland– Part II, Out of the Desert
ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) always strikes me as such an ironic acronym for something which can be so utterly clinical, so totally without soul...
All the colours of the rainbow
I never gave much thought to what life would be like with children. My life as a thirty-something professional woman was so far removed from the life I live now, that the breadth and depth of the transformation would have been unfathomable...
An aunt’s view
My family recently experienced a change in the core of our identity, in the way we think about ourselves, in the way we perceive the world...
Attachment parenting is for non-working moms
Attachment parenting surely led me down the wrong path. Freshly pregnant, I was innocently reading about different ways to parent, wondering why it all left me so indifferent...
Babbles of a shop-a-holic
Growing up in the late eighties and early nineties, I rarely visited a mall nor experienced the teen shopping frenzy that seemed to exist among many of my peers as a routine symptom of adolescence...
Baby within
Holding my gorgeous baby girl, I gaze at her in wonder and remember how close she came to never being. I take the time to cuddle and love her, and just watch her, asleep in my arms, with all her myriad noises and fleeting moments of emotion...
Be careful what you wish for
'It's just the routine ultrasound I have to have at 20 weeks,' I told my husband that morning. 'No need for you to come.' As if I needed him to hold my hand...
Birth
I’m not aware of much at all – just my body and the being within me, straining, urging to get out. And the pain...
Breastfeeding
Everything I do is always ‘by the book’. I like to plan each aspect of my life by researching exactly what is supposed to be done. We are expecting our first child and the path is perfectly planned out according to my extensive pregnancy and infant care library...
Breast feeding
Who knew it would be so hard? Every article I read on breast feeding was accompanied by a photo of a zen mother, meditating on world peace while her child suckled...
Bringing the baby (or taking the tot) to San Francisco
If you have a partner who is always off to conferences in thrilling locations, why not accompany him to the next one – and bring the baby. I wasn’t going to be left out this time, not even with our fourteen month-old, and not when San Francisco was the venue...
Change your attitude – set the tone
Shortly after I was separated, my oldest child, aged 12, said to me, “Why are you always yelling at us when we come home from Dad’s...
Chat story
Sylvia and I laugh as we study Rudi’s wedding photo on the wall. Four years ago, a family friend told us that the only way our shy, computer-obsessed son would ever find a girl was if she jumped out of his monitor...
Children
One of my biggest regrets is not having more children. It hits me when I see other people with children around the city. I always thought that I would get married and have a big family. Unfortunately, that did not happen...
Daisy’s trip to hospital
It was the most horrible moment of the long, drawn-out day. “Quick, this little boy needs to be with his mother!”...
December is for crying
I couldn’t control my sobbing. Weeks before Christmas, I was on the floor of my bedroom closet crying harder than I had ever before. Although he was there, my husband was unable to console me...
Eclipse
I don’t know where the rage comes from. Or perhaps I do but I don’t want to admit it. It bubbles and seethes, spitting from between my teeth and strikes those I love most...
Enough fun
We all know that the working-class don’t breastfeed. (To quote Katie Price, it’s a bit unnatural, innit.) The big question is why. And the answer is pretty simple: it’s because breastfeeding can give you orgasms...
First born
She measures out her life with nappy changes, nappy changes and breast feeds. In a haze she goes through the motions of her life, broken up into three hour intervals through both day and night...
Giving childbirth respect
I’ve come home from the hospital after giving birth to our second child. She is a beautiful little baby girl and she has given my husband and me more joy than we could ever possibly imagine...
Hey, there baby – who are you?
My darling, gorgeous boy: I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you puke, but he really is gorgeous, delicious, a delicious pumpkin of a boy. Smug, glorious, radiant...
Home alone
Pigs were flying, the moon was blue and the gods were smiling on me. An until-then unheard-of combination of an interstate business trip, scout camp and birthday party sleepover...
Hope has no expiry
After circling down into the hospital car park, I was now in its very depths. Turning off the ignition, I stared through the windscreen. A tangle of pipes hung suspended overhead...
How much time?
Recently my fourteen-year-old daughter said, “You spend all your time with your boyfriend.” I’m a bad mother, flashed above me like a neon sign. Usually I heard from the teenagers, ‘don’t hang around me; it’s not cool’...
Just the two of us
Beneath the day-to-day rituals of feeding, coping with tiredness, rinsing out pooey nappies, 5.30pm cranky time and thinking up new ways to amuse, there is something more wondrous happening...
Kindergarten misfit
It was hard to know which of us was most looking forward to Stephen’s first day at kindergarten; himself or me. “I’m going to kindergarten!” he announced to anyone who telephoned us or visited...
Life with autism
I never dreamt I would grow up to be the sort of woman who cries at the drop of a hat. I always despised women who rode a huge rambling rollercoaster of emotion...
Memoir
The one thing that all the self-help books and all the well-meaning people in the world don’t tell you about childbirth and parenting, is how traumatic it is...
Missing
I dial Triple 0. This is the moment I have dreaded. This is the moment I have lived many times over in my imagination. I have seen it on the news, I have seen it in the newspapers and I have seen it on all those cop shows...
Mommy-fication
I can’t get a conversation I recently had with an associate of mine out of my mind. “Well, it’s all gonna change when the second child gets here,” she said...
Mother of an identity
When did I start feeling like a mother? Was it the moment I stared, open-mouthed, at the positive pregnancy test? Was it that first Mothers Day that I proudly posed, babe in arms, at the camera...
Moving day
I never expected to cry when my first child started school but as the big day draws closer it’s becoming increasingly apparent that I will...
Mum’s the word
There is an unwritten rule when one becomes a parent, that one must never, ever say out loud how much they may hate being a parent. I know, I’ve seen the expressions on peoples’ faces at Tupperware parties...
Mussel man
My twelve-year old son, Conor, patiently walked around Rome all day in the pouring rain, sharing my umbrella or traveling like a sardine on the packed subway...
My breastfeeding career
We fell in love with each other over breastfeeding, my daughter, Makela, and I. It happened during the many long hours we spent staring deep into each other’s eyes during feeding time...
My first child
My first child was born in May 2003. We named him Rusty. Not only did he have a playful and adorable personality early on, he was also quite the looker – beautiful blond hair and matching golden eyelashes...
Naming Rico
When you’re not pregnant, babies’ names all seem temptingly romantic: Isobel, you think, yeah, Isobel, or Patrick or Christian or even Isolde, Greta, Courtney, Sebastian. Juliane. Kate. Nina. Daniel. Rosa...
Networks
My computer got me pregnant. Well, my husband helped out a little, but our beloved 18-month-old son is well and truly a product of the information age and the Internet has been an integral part of his short life to date...
Nimby
‘They’re putting a parole office next to the school. I’m scared of walking by myself. I want to go to a different school.’ My eleven-year old was greeting me after school one Friday. By Monday I had learned a lot about our town...
No stork bites
It was in the early hours of 25 November 2001 when the midwife handed me Danielle, wrapped snugly in a blanket, only her face showing...
Oh, son
Angels are all around us. And without these helping hands from God, life would be much more difficult. It wasn’t so long ago, my wife and I hurried down long corridors of polished floors at London Psychiatric Hospital...
One child’s words
The first English language word spoken by my son reflected his healthy appetite for food: Yum. Since then, I have been jotting down his increasingly complex utterances...
One of these mums is not like the other…
Mention childcare and sooner or later someone asks what makes a real mother.
My mum was a real mother. She still is. More than that, she’s a real grandmother...
One of those women
I was always one of those women who would never have a kid. I glared at little girls who cut the line in public restrooms. Why couldn't they hold it? I had to go, too...
Our boys
It’s my first ever World Cup not in England.
You can’t imagine what it’s like in England in the weeks leading up to the World Cup. They bring out every expert in the whole country, we’re talking vicars, doctors, brain surgeons, plastic surgeons, tree surgeons...
Outnumbered
When I first got married I was so idealistic. I thought nothing of the idea of having six kids. After all a big family would be close and loving and helpful...
Pretty and picked on
My daughter Khari is remarkably beautiful. At two years old, she knows how to flaunt her good looks too, poking her heart-shaped lips out and gazing out of her Bambi-big eyes angelically as she begs for something that’s been pulled out of her grasp...
Ready or not
Hot tears are streaming down my red and puffy face. I wipe them away with trembling hands. My husband pleads with me to tell him what’s wrong. The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them...
Sanyata’s first day in grade one
This morning Sanyata nudged me awake at 6.30am, saying “It’s morning time.” I begged for a few minutes more, mentally noting that the birds have not yet begun singing outside our bedroom window.
Schooldaze
As a university Arts Graduate, I am looking forward to completing my final year of secondary school. That’s right! I am re-doing my senior years of schooling...
Secondary (in)fertility
It wasn’t always this way. I remember being normal, unscalpeled, unscarred, mostly intact, as I had come into the world. But it all changed when I became part of a peculiar battalion of women-turned-mothers...
Self-reflection
It’s a quarter to ten in the morning. My little girl is dancing around the lounge to Hi-5. My little boy is asleep in his cot. Although I have been up since six, I still haven’t made it to the shower...
Sit up straight
One of the more interesting things you can do with your life is take a child on an overseas trip. It’s a real test of all you’ve accomplished as a parent...
Skin to skin
It all started with a dream. A dream that remains both profound and lucid even now, some six years after it came to me one wintry night. This dream changed my life forever...
Snapshot of Harry at 15 months
Running on wobbly legs, my fledgling, my sweet smiling boy with your trusting grin from ear to ear. Your blond hair tousled in all directions, tickling your ears, soft against my neck as we hug...
Snapshot of Harry at 19 months
Crinkly nose, eyes wide in shock and the ‘o’ mouth, Mr Lip and the howl, laughing eyes and grin from ear to ear… so many expressions! Our play-actor, mime artist, show pony...
Snapshot of Harry at 26 months
My baby is almost grown up now! You are most definitely a toddler – striving for independence but not quite able to do things for yourself; desperate for attention and often clinging like a vine to Mummy’s legs...
Snorkeling with stingrays
‘Come on, Mum,’ my daughter Rebecca moaned. ‘Just do it.’ ‘All right, I’m going, I’m going,’ I said. As I slipped into the sparkling, blue Caribbean water, a wave knocked me back towards Rebecca who’d followed me in. I hung onto the side of the boat as my feet grappled in the sand to find their footing...
Soapbox tumbles
Parenting is a journey. Some days it is like sipping champagne watching fireworks in Paris on New Year’s Eve. Other times it is more like cold dim sims in a Footscray milk bar on a Tuesday night...
Something we make
I didn’t love my son when he was born. I didn’t love him by the evening of that first day either, or by the end of the week, or indeed for a good few months. He was a planned baby, a much-wanted baby, a settled, healthy, ‘good’ baby...
Surrendering to motherhood
It’s 2.36am. I am sitting in the dark, in the nursery, breast-feeding my baby. The night is still and all I can hear is the suck, suck of my baby on my breast...
Teen driving me crazy
The basis, the essence, the very core of being a parent is the eternal struggle between wanting to hug your child and wanting to pound his or her ass...
The compro-mum
Will she love me, love me not...... I agonised, as I confirmed with my employer that I would, indeed, be returning to the work-force, full-time and permanently...
The curse
My mother cursed me. She pointed at me, summoned all her strength, and hurled the most heinous words she could summon straight into my little five-year-old eyes...
The delicate art of sleeping
I have wandered along the Great Wall of China, I have plumbed the depths of caves deep in the Pyrenees for prehistoric art, I have scaled the cactus-covered cliffs of a buffalo jump...
The eviction
We didn’t handle that very well did we? Too much blood all together. And from what I remember, quite a lot of pain...
The first day
Today is going to be a good day. Correction – today is going to be a GREAT day. Today my twins start school. No misty-eyed moments for me this morning when I drop them at their classroom...
The first separation: Portrait of Georgie at 21 months
Your last taste from me was more like a bite. It’s not how I wanted your weaning to be. I’d imagined it being a gentle, gradual lessening of desire...
The human hot-water bottle
Berlin winters are cold. It doesn’t matter how many layers you drape over yourself – hats, scarves, gloves, coats, jackets, waistcoats, tights, stockings, thermal vests, old curtains, old buckets, duvets, blankets, it doesn’t matter...
The last time
I suspected I might be putting on too much weight when the toilet seat began to squeak as I sat down on it. I was in my ninth month of pregnancy and alternating between feeling constantly tired and constantly hungry...
The lightness of dark
It’s not often you get to wake up with the absolute knowledge that today will be the worst day of your life. But let’s not start there. Let’s start back when all was good. All was easy...
The old gum nut up the nose trick
It happened late one winter’s day as I was busy lighting the Conara. My daughter came up to me and said proudly, “Got a gum nut up ‘a nose Mum.”...
The real first three months
My son, now six months old, is a beaming tubster. He wouldn’t hold anything against anyone. He sleeps. And yet, for much of his first three months, I thought that having a child was nothing but an albatross around my neck...
The room next to mine
In the room next to mine there used to be a Turkish woman with two kids, eleven and four, who’d wake up in the middle of the night to scream and wail...
The shape of love: Snapshot of Harry at nine months
You wake about 6.30am, refreshed and smiling after a ten hours’ sleep; we can count on as many fingers these nights though, as ‘sleeping through’ is a recent phenomena that feels an impossible luxury, unimaginable a year ago to regard eight uninterrupted hours’ sleep as a godsend...
The sunset
Last night I was reminded of the importance of being still and living in the moment by an unlikely person – my energetic four-year-old daughter. It was past Abbie’s bedtime and I was seated at the computer in the hallway outside her bedroom...
The top ten things a five year old has taught me that no adult ever could
When I became pregnant at 19, I was convinced my baby would save me from myself. I had visions of rose gardens and Baby Bjorns, of receiving this child into my arms like a gift...
The wheel thing
My son likes cars. Actually, he doesn’t so much like cars as eat, sleep and breathe them. Old cars, new cars, anything with four or more wheels, vehicles of every configuration...
The worst housewife in the world
A Russian girlfriend of mine, Lena, is officially The Best Housewife in the World. She hoovers twice a day and, at night, after her baby goes to sleep, she peels carrots and then slices them into handy finger-food-sized portions and freezes them...
This too shall pass
Who was it that coined the term ‘bittersweet’? Whoever it was, they weren’t talking about chocolate. They were talking about love. About the exquisite agony of complete, all-consuming love...
Those other worlds
I meet him in a bus station café. It’s the first time we meet. He doesn’t know who I am, he thinks I’m just a stranger, a girl on the street. We are calm & polite, we’re gentle...
‘Tis the season to be jolly?
It was Miss 4’s last day of kinder and the day of the big kinder performance. Miss 4 was to be an angel in the nativity play and was very excited...
To market, to market
I was having coffee with two girlfriends when one of them broached the sensitive subject of family size. “You’ve finished having kids, haven’t you?” Jane asked me abruptly as I reached for my second Tim Tam...
To my daughter, dancing
June again, the whirlwind finale to a busy school year. The calendar strains to contain all the playoffs, wind-ups, and cool-downs, but I am a smug June veteran, confident in my ability to anticipate all these events...
What shall we name the babies?
Two babies! There are two babies! I have two babies? My morphine-addled brain was having trouble processing this information after giving birth to my twin girls. My husband, James, and I gazed in amazement at these two tiny beings we had created...
What’s in a name?
I predict a population explosion – of hyphens. Just wait until today’s kids start having kids of their own, and all those double-barrelled surnames are combined into appellations longer than War and Peace...
Why are we afraid to have babies?
I am lying in my soft warm bed. A glimpse of sunlight peeks through the shades. My husband is by my side in a deep sleep, and I lie flat on my back staring up to the ceiling...
Why did my friend try to kill herself?
Recently, I was speaking with a friend at work. He told me about his daughter having a bad time the night before when she found out that her 14-year-old friend attempted suicide...
Why I love the Turks
Everyone in Berlin hates the Turks. Even the Turks hate the Turks. They have orange skin and they wear gold jewellery and plus they poison the drinking water and stuff. Except for me: I love the Turks...
Why would you want to do it?
I think it’s wonderful but why would you want to do it? Do you get money from the government? I’d heard these questions before. The tone and words may change, but not the incredulity...
Wonderwoman
The pathos of my postpartum period did not pause at my perfunctory six-week check-up. In the waiting room of my OB/GYN’s office, I found myself surrounded – stage left, stage right, upstage and downstage – by burgeoning bellies...
Working it out
My youngest child starts school this month. For the first time in almost nine years, large chunks of each weekday will belong solely to me. I have been thinking about this for what seems like an age...
You don’t know what you are going to get…
For all the parents who ordered a different child to the one they received
For all the parents who believed they were right and the teachers were wrong.
For all the mothers who trusted their instincts … and God ...
“Children are not a job you can leave, or a country you can return from. No one can guarantee you a child who matches your imaginings. You will get what you’re given – and there’s no turning back.”*
After seven years of motherhood, I still grapple with the truth of this brutally honest fact. There’s no walking away when things get tough. There’s no resigning to look for another job, one that pays better or appreciates your worth. There’s usually no gratitude for all the sheer, dogged hard work you put in on a daily (and often nightly) basis. And sometimes there’s no one around to de-brief with when you’ve reached your limit and have resorted to screaming to make yourself heard!
* From The Divided Heart, Art and Motherhood by Rachel Power