Back to blogging

Hello again! It's been a good long while since I've written a blog post (maybe 2 years or more) but it feels good to be back. I've changed the name and made all of my old posts drafts since I'm not sure how relevant they are to me now (or to you for that matter). Who knows I might rehash some of them in time.

I'm not sure who'll be reading this as I have no idea if people even read blogs like this anymore. All I know is that once again I feel I've got lots to say and no other form of social media suits someone who likes to talk/write as much as blogging. If you were ever here before when it was oh! you pretty things then welcome back.

My thoughts right now are basically this:

Why is parenting so hard sometimes?

When can I have a bit of quiet?

Why is there not more support for families from the practical to emotional? We're all going through this together yet it's so easy to feel alone.

And how is it that I do feel so alone sometimes when I have lots of friends with babies.

How can I help myself whilst I grapple with all the big feelings mothering small children provides?

What can I do with the resentment I often feel that Antonio "gets to escape" and why does my house sometimes feel like a prison?

Is it normal to long for a spa weekend quite so badly?

And finally, why if I feel like this, and clearly loads of other mothers do to, does social media, in particular Instagram which is huge with mothers not seem to reflect this?

Some of my favourite instagrammers have blogged about their struggles with postnatal depression or similar yet their IG feeds are filled with babies in sink baths, and posts about happy blessed feelings.

Is it possible to use social media to explore how we really feel whilst navigating this most important transitional phase of life in a helpful way?

I think we're scared as mothers and perhaps women of judgement. Of not keeping up with the Jones, of failing somehow. Why else are we so desperate to present our best selves, our happy moments, our "curated feeds", ugh, more on this in another post) on social media? Ok we want to remember them but sometimes in the admitting of how you really feel you find the truest, freest happiest moments of all.

I don't think it's helpful to gloss over the realities and glamorise motherhood. I don't mean the messy day to day bits but the way we sometimes feel. I'd like my girls to live in a society by the time they might want to be mothers, that truly respects being a primary child carer (usually the mother) and all it entails. And I think one of the first steps we can do is step away from the attempts at perfection and embrace the reality. Ok, but I don't want to focus on the struggle you might say, I want to feel good about my life and complaining doesn't help. So instead lets list ten things about ourselves every day that we're proud of or that we're grateful for. Whether it be managing to put mascara on to reading the news. Let's bolster our selves with positive self talk to negate the constant comparison that it's so hard to avoid falling victim to. This has got to be healthier for us as individuals and for the collective motherhood than pretending all is rosy all the time.

So this return to blogging isn't going to involve lots of posts heavy with photos and updates of our lives. That's not really me. I want to use this space to write about the wonder, the chaos, the life changing yet mundane aspects of being a parent, well a mother, in this strange post Brexit, Trump (!) world. I know lots of people are so over hearing mothers talk about motherhood, But at a time that doesn't seem particularly female friendly in many ways, at a time when the world, or certainly politics has got nasty it seems even more relevant to dissect what motherhood means to us right now as we plod on doing our best to raise the next generation.