I have been thinking about writing something for the past 5 years and I cannot believe that it has been so long since my last post. The reason behind it is very simple and quite interestingly another inequality matter. I gave birth to my youngest child 5 long years ago and haven’t been able to do any of the things I enjoy the most because of that.

I can see some people cringing and thinking ‘Oh no, not another one of those unhappy and dissatisfied mothers/feminists, who moan about motherhood and what it entails. If you you have had any of the reactions described I have two options for you: 1 open your mind and continue reading; 2 stop reading, you’re not ready to hear the truth, take your blue pill and continue living your Matrix life.

I have three wonderful human children, who, despite my husband’s and my own flaws and efforts to pass all that unnecessary heritage onto them, are doing well and are wonderful, loving people. I think my spouse and I can take a lot of credit for that particular thing cause love is what we have always had in abundance and what we have given a plenty. Yes, love and other emotions too but that is what parents do and I am finally not apologising for it but looking for better ways to communicate. I find that nature and hormones are trying to intervene in my great plan with perimenopausal problems but that’s a topic for a different article.

But I digressed long enough. How and why an accomplished woman like myself did not get her act together for 5 long years to write something, anything, that was not connected to work or was not a shopping list is very simple but also quite complicated. In my head I ‘write’ all the time and I create stories and worlds that are making me feel all sorts of things in response to the moment and situation that I’m in, whether it’s to entertain myself at a rather boring time or take me into the world of phantasy because reality is so downright grey and dull, and you are not allowed to go out or travel anywhere for months on end (by the way for women often it’s not just during lockdowns that this stuff happens). To have the time and strength to sit down with a pen in my hand or to type on my laptop, that’s a very different ‘story’. I have created and lost so much material over the years for so many reasons but the biggest one of all is being a wife and a mother which is nothing more than being a woman in a society where a man needs to leave the house after being to work and attending to the baby’s a few basic needs and not attending to any of the woman’s needs at all. It’s a funny thing how they don’t seem to get that we need to get away from time to time too, meet other people and feel like a person and not a mother. They also don’t get that we need to talk about the elephant in the room – the man, who is not responding to his wife calling his name when he’s at home, because it’s been called too many times and he feels uncomfortable with it, except the cry of a baby, though names no names is a constant call for its mother but that’s ok along with getting your breast out everywhere and all the time, being on display in public places, where judgemental members of society are ready to shame you with their glances and comments for doing the most natural thing in the world. Of course there is a reason why your husband doesn’t respond to you calling his name – you were at home the whole time while he was at work and you were sitting, and chilling with the very quiet baby, who does not need to be held and breastfed and changed and taught empathy and human connection through your actions, early development has been documented and proven scientifically but it is not only mum’s responsibility to teach and that process is relentless if it falls on one person only. On top of that there are so many expectations of what mum should be able to do right away to look like that girl that she was before getting pregnant and to act like her. For the first few weeks it’s difficult to do anything that does not involve the baby and people who show mums working out with their babies to get back to shape only a day after the birth or cooking with the baby in the sling or just going to take a bath ( not shower because then you might not hear if the baby is awake) are showing those few exceptions, who for some reason can do these things but I don’t know how! It is virtually impossible if you don’t have the whole village to support you and your efforts!!! During Covid our ‘villages’ had been shut down by governments and we were left, as always, begging our male partners to share the burden. Many of them did. But even then both parents were left exhausted and not wanting to engage in any creative activity. The future was so bleak and uncertain for so many, it seemed inappropriate to even try and come out with something in fear of creating another tear in the already divided public, and we are all so critical when given the opportunity…

It takes a village to raise a child. It is such an important wisdom. Your villages are your close ones and friends. Your play groups and any baby classes that you take your child to where you create bonds for yourself and your baby creates their own. The neighbours, the people you meet when walking the dog, who engage with your child, your child’s teachers and childminders our pets but today even the people on TV, in social media. We have created a global village that makes us vulnerable and it makes our children vulnerable in so many ways. I am 5 years into being mum for the third time and a year into being a grandmother for the first. In todays world it is a whole new experience. I am a part of my own village and my oldest daughter’s village. I work with families and I am privileged to be a part of so many other small villages that raise human beings of diverse origin ‘uniquely human’ and I am proud that my life has turned out this way.

Today I have made another step to becoming myself again. I hope you can find that strength in life too!