Even on the very worst days, there’s usually a light to be found. Flecked throughout or dappled like sunlight we can usually find at least one Good Thing. But on our very hardest days, the days when we feel like we sighed more than we spoke, on days where we collate our unkind words into a rap sheet, we forget the good.
Parenting is wild. In every single…
Read MoreYou are not a permissive parent.
You are not.
It’s tiring. It’s tiring to turn against things so ingrained in us, since childhood, since…
Read MoreI think that we are often sold a trope, a stereotype of what kindness in motherhood should look like. I ask you to imagine it, to close your eyes and think of the words “self-kindness”.
Is it bubble baths and facials, a spa day, shopping without children, getting your haircut, a massage? Or is it something more deeply nourishing than that?…
Read MoreThe night and days before you become another year older I find myself playing a game. It’s always “this time last year”, “this time two years ago”.
On the seventeenth, it’s this was so very nearly your birthday.
On the twenty-ninth…
Read MoreEvery time I speak to parents about sleep, it’s the one thing that repeatedly comes up as having always have knocked them for six when it came to becoming a parent. We are told often as new parents that “just wait, one day you’ll wake up and you’ll have slept the whole night!” and that’s the end, close the book, we’ve ticked the sleep box and off we go into the sunset.
I could shout it from the rooftops; sleep is not linear. It’s not a track clacking…
Read MoreI remember crying, big wracking sobs, because all I wanted was a bath. Eilish was seven weeks old, I was seven weeks postpartum unsure as to whether or not she would wake up. A ten minute soak in some warm water was all I wanted. Just five minutes, even, would do. It was a small lifeline to before, the smallest indulgence that had become an impossible task. I didn’t have one…
Read MoreYou may have seen it, but maybe you didn’t. We’re moving. To halfway across the world, to Australia, to a place where it feels like everything is upside down, the wrong way and inside out. We leave the start of summer to arrive in the beginning of a new winter. It’s all different, the seasons are different, the food is a little different, the lifestyle is different, even the air smells different. I’m sitting here writing this in a house that is slowly emptying out and existing within boxes more and more each day. We are excited. And nervous. And tired. But mainly…
Read MorePower to the Mother is a series of interviews on the transformative, diverse and empowering experience of motherhood.
Over the past couple of weeks I have had the pleasure of speaking to Leata-Mae D’Avoine, a birth worker, doula, and mother to one about her experiences of motherhood. I’ve loved following Leata-Mae for a while, she has an incredibly open and honest approach to sharing her motherhood, and is a huge advocate for birthing women’s rights. Read on to find out more about her path to becoming a doula, her mindful approach to the simple things in life, and some important words on being a birthing mother of colour in the UK…
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