Day from hell! Part 2

Remember Day from hell had last week? Well it was actually more hellish than I described. You see there was another minor complication that I wasn’t at liberty to discuss. So let me fill you in.

During the 2 hours of tantruming I was also vomiting. Nothing drastic, no food poisoning, my body just doesn’t seem to appreciate food at the moment.

Then there was the getting dressed. I was having the mother of all fat days! I thought my tummy looked podgy (more so than usual) and flabby and nothing fit me. I tried looser clothes and then I just felt like a slob. I slammed wardrobe doors and literally sat amongst a pile of discarded clothes and cried!

The carrying of the bleeding and broken child home was also more difficult as well, because I had a hell of a bruise on my right elbow. Not from being a klutz; though I am un-coordinated and I would forgive you for believing it was self inflicted. I had had a blood test the previous day and the pathologist had hyper-extended my elbow and stabbed me as deep as possible to extract the blood. It would have been quicker and less painful to punch me in the nose and try to catch the nose bleed.

Finally to top off the day my two year old called me ‘fat’. I nearly cried (again). He called me ‘Fatty-Patty’. To check that he wasn’t just rhyming nonsensical sounds I asked him what it meant. He replied “Means you eat too many cookies like Cookie Monster.” Nope, not nonsensical silliness, real two year old logic. *Sigh*

So if you haven’t yet put the puzzle pieces together I’ll spell it out for you; As of today I am 10 weeks pregnant. [Double points for those who guessed it from part one.] Pregnancy is not the easiest time for me. (Before you tell me its all in my attitude – yes, I am holding space for it to be easy and breezy.) I am certainly not part of the glowing skin, beautiful hair and radiant brigade. I am more of the vomit from dawn to dusk, cravings and moods swinging wildly type. You will get to hear all about it in the coming months – just you wait.

*Photo credit

200 posts and changes to come

I started this blog 200 posts ago as a way to stop me from losing my mind. I am not sure how successful I have been in that endeavor. I guess I will let you decide.

Over the course of the past 18 months or so my life has taken on a new trajectory. Some of those around me saw it coming. I sure as hell didn’t. It is cliche, and oh-so-fashionable to say, but Motherhood changed me. And soon it is going to change my blog.

Motherhood isn’t going away. It isn’t getting any easier. It isn’t taking up any less of my time, energy or focus. Motherhood is making me a better person, it is changing my perspective and changing what I have to offer. Days from hell aside I am a peaceful, calm, compassionate a relatively centered Mum. I am not the best housekeeper, I am not the most organised, but I’m going with my strengths here.

My emerging strengths are;

• Being mindful
• Honesty
• Finding the meaning in the mundane
• Walking the Spiritual Path of Motherhood
• Everyday Meditation (not to be confused with meditating every day. I wish!)
• Research. I am a research and synthesis energiser bunny (As my lovely father pointed out to me today)

So over the coming weeks you will see some changes to my blog. Hopefully you will like the changes as much as I do. I will me making the delineations clearer for those who don’t relate to the motherhood stuff, getting a little more organised (this will include a new posting schedule) and making things easier to navigate (and hopefully prettier).

I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. What should I quit doing? What should I do more of? xxx

*photo credit

Day from hell! Part 1

Yesterday was a shitty shitty day. Sorry Nan I know it was your birthday, but we will celebrate your birthday on Sunday. So I would love, Love, LOVE to just forget yesterday ever happened. But alas, vanquishing days isn’t yet in my repertoire so the next best thing is to share the tragedy so as it may become a comedy [for you].

My day started at 7.20am, pretty usual really, with the toddler crash tackling me in bed crying ‘Are you awake yet Mummy?’ 20 minutes later however, it was already the beginning of the end. The beginning of the end sounded something like this:

“Mummy, can I have a cookie please?” He had his head tilted to the side and the cutest smile he could muster.

“No, Cooper its waaaaaay too early for a cookie hunny.” At this stage I was almost dismissing the request – we’d all eat cookies before 8am if we could justify it, right?

“But Mummy, I said please!”

“Cooper, you know the rules no cookies before 10am” So shoot me – it’s a time I can live with. “Do you want me to set the alarm?” Yes, he enforces times to the minute.

“Daddy will give me a cookie. Can you bring Daddy home?”

Yes, straight from the horse’s mouth. Daddy said it was ok to eat cookies at breakfast time? Wouldn’t surprise me really, his father regularly ate cake for breakfast before Cooper began eating breakfast with him. But I let it slide.

BUT he just wouldn’t let go of that bloody cookie. He alternated between tantruming full on, negotiating with me “Can I have ice cream instead? Licorice – licorice isn’t a sweet!” and just acting out. An hour of this and you could have heard the keys being pounded from the other side of the house. Hubby got a rather strongly worded email that stopped shot of saying “YOU GAVE HIM A COOKIE AT BREAKFAST TIME? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!#! HE IS MAKING MY LIFE A LIVING HELL!”

When I got a random call from my parents I rolled my eyes at the timing. Until Mum told me she was returning Coopers call. The little bugger had called MY MUM to dob on me that I wasn’t giving him a Cookie. For Fucks sake! Mummy just needs a break!

I managed for another 45 minutes then I caved. I changed the digital clocks to read 10:00 at 9.45 and gave him the damned cookie. For 2 minutes I had pure, blissful silence, then: “Mummy, can I have another cookie please?” My face must have said it all because he didn’t wait for an answer he just began a chant of “I want another cookie!”

By this stage we should have already left for play group. I started with the easy bits and packed his lunch box then I started dressing him. Well, trying. I tried and I reasoned and I wrangled and I sighed and I screamed and I shrieked and I threatened and I gave up and then I threatened some more. I am actually quite chuffed that I didn’t smack (I’m don’t want to be that kind of Mum) and I didn’t lock him in his room.

We finally walked out of the door at 10.35. Yep 35 minutes late and its about a 10-15 minute walk (if you have legs about a foot long). I was facing the prospect of walking into a relatively new play group, with a toddler 45 min late, with no explanation other than ‘he wanted a cookie’ or more generically ‘we had a bad morning’. Instead I sat on my front fence, totally defeated, called my husband and cried. I recall blubbering something along the lines of ‘I don’t want to go, I’m the crappest Mum ever! You can’t make me go!”

The morning got worse. We went to the park. Cooper ran full pelt (which is pretty bloody fast) into the supports that hold up the play equipment. (For a bright kid he sometimes does some daft stuff.) He hit himself on the side of the head, staggered around unable to walk straight and fell face first onto a cross-bar, splitting both his lips. Screaming like his intestines were being removed, dripping blood from the mouth I carried the war wounded home. Standing at my front door, toddler still sobbing, I found my pockets empty.

Empty? How the hell are they empty? What the fuck did I do with the house keys? They weren’t in my bag, my pockets, the lunch box. Damn, damn, damn! Then I remembered the letterbox. I checked the mail on the way to the park and my house keys were still swinging pleasantly from the lock clearly marked number 2.

Stay tuned for Part 2. This day actually got worse.

Making room at the table

Standing in the ruins of gender roles, nuclear families and male dominance I am experiencing a backflip that I never would have anticipated. I am a woman. I am a feminist. I am a mother of a son. I love my husband. I have been vocal and active in women’s issues since I was old enough to participate, much younger than many would have liked. Injustice irks me. I have a stubborn, and at times irrational, belief that the world should be fair, equitable, respectful, even and just. This was the fuel in my feminist fire.

Now 20 years later I am faced with the repercussions of a movement I have wholeheartedly supported since I was 6. The changes feminism & affirmative action yielded (increased rights for women, increased participation in the workforce, autonomy over their bodies, a belief that they can be anything they want to be) are positive and necessary but they aren’t the only consequences. Gender roles are crumbling and the traditional patriarchal power of the male is diminishing our men are lost and looked over or lashing out at women in insidious or overtly violent ways.

Since the 1980′s when women’s liberation started gaining exponential ground a few other things have been charging along aside it. Violence against women has increased since the 1980′s and no one has a clear indication as to why. The media’s generic ideal of beauty has steadily become less and less attainable while it has become more expensive and more painful to achieve. Popular culture has adopted a soft core porn sensibility and pornography has become more extreme casting women in scenes where they are sexually abused, unfulfilled and humiliated. Marriage is on the decline, perhaps because women feel less obligated to play their part, but perhaps because more women are tertiary educated and successful and thus find it difficult to find a suitable mate.

Why is it harder to find a suitable mate? This is my major concern as a mother of a son; as women have made giant leaps forward our men seem to be floundering. Boys are left in the dust by girls is all levels of education from primary through to tertiary. Statistically men were hit harder in the GFC than women and of the industries set to boom in the coming decades most of them employ a vast majority of women. Whilst women are more likely to become depressed than men, men are less likely to seek help and more likely to suicide as a result. Parents are, for the first time in history beginning to prefer girl babies than sons.

So whilst women still have ways to go to reach equality, I think all of our children would be better served if we looked to create a bright and equal future for girls and boys. Because the rights of one group should never come at the cost of another. If we haven’t learned this, then history has taught us nothing and we are no better than sexists and the bigots that fought to preserve the good life for white men alone. I have every intention of teaching my son how to respect a woman, how to appreciate her for what she is and not how she compares to props in porn videos, to listen to what she says and to acknowledge her boundaries. I will also be teaching him how wonderful he is in his own right, how to work, live, love and compete with his equals (male and female), how to ask for help when he needs it and to not accept injustice on the basis of gender.

*image credit

Uncomfortable bedpartners: Motherhood and Feminism

There is nothing about this subject that isn’t controversial. Everybody has an opinion. everybody has a mother, everybody knows mothers, everybody has direct experience with working mothers, stay at home mothers and children. Everybody has a vested interest in the next generation being large, healthy and productive members of society.

Despite everybody’s vested interest, we are willing to lump the responsibility of raising the next generation in the laps of the few willing to take on motherhood. Any yet, despite this seeming imbalance everybody seems to have an opinion, a judgement on how those mothers are carrying out their role. That makes ‘Motherhood’ dangerous territory.

With, quite literally, millions of people judging you and your performance as Mother and no KPI’s to guide you, except for pleasing everybody and their disparate demands of what Motherhood should look like (and even what motherhood feel like), being a ‘good’ mother is inherently impossible and ultimately guilt ridden. How can it not be when we fail in every single moment, by someone else’s standards?

Feminism and motherhood have always had a rocky relationship. Motherhood really is at the heart of many of the difficulties women as a collective face. These difficulties have led to imbalance and feminism seeks to eliminate the imbalances in society based on gender. So, Motherhood seems to be the elephant in the room. If women didn’t have burden of motherhood then their participation in the workforce would be higher, it would be more continuous (no pesky maternity leave to contend with), we could just tackle equal pay and housework and everything would be dandy. Oh, except if women as a collective didn’t have the capacity to bear children we would be men – and masculinity as the sole focal point of society is what Feminism is fighting, isn’t it?

Feminism is fighting for the rights of women; for the recognition that women are equal to men, irrespective of the inherent differences between the sexes. Irrespective of our responsibility to birth the next generation.

I am a feminist. I am a mother. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. It is possible to be a ‘good mother’ and a ‘good feminist’. We just need to get on the same page. Feminism doesn’t just serve women by eradicating ‘gender roles’ and making way for women to enter the workforce. Feminism serves women by highlighting the injustices women face in gender roles and in the workforce and working to eliminate these injustices.

I was sent a link by the lovely Elle from GenYElle to an article in The Australian about Elisabeth Badinter’s book Conflict: The Woman and the Mother, that will soon be translated to english and available in Australia. Badinter raises some excellent issues that plague motherhood. But, for me, many of her conclusions are ill thought out and some downright selfish. She points out that extended breastfeeding ‘deprives [couples] of their romantic relationship, and especially their sex life’ as though we are comparing apples and oranges. As though romance and WHO recommendations for child nutrition are equally important.

The decision to have a baby naturally is also not always a ‘moral’ either; there is more to natural birth than elevating oneself in the eyes of fellow mothers. Natural childbirth has drastically lower complication rates for both mother and child. And I see nothing unliberated about making an educated choice about our bodies and following it through with conviction. I agree with her assertion that we over police women during their pregnancies, but stop short of suggesting it is a sound or even liberated decision to smoke or drink whilst pregnant. It also strikes me as odd that she is almost flippant at the ineptitude of fathers ‘Of course men are deficient. So we expect the state to fulfil its duty as equally responsible for the wellbeing and education of the new child.’ What the? Isn’t it the role of feminism to encourage equality?

All in all Badinter raises issues that I believe need to be discussed. Society at large needs to be aware of the real experience of motherhood. The truth of motherhood that isn’t all sunshine, lollipops and Huggies ads. Liberation is being valued and recognised for who we are and what we contribute, not putting our wants (alcohol, partying, romantic trysts) before the needs of our children.

Having said all of this, I simply cannot wait for her book to be released so I can read it in its entirety. It is no doubt a book worth reading.

Things I never thought I’d say…

… to a toddler under two.

1. Don’t climb the screen door higher than the door handle.
2. Put the beer bottle down.
3. Take the SD card out of the laptop and put it back in the camera. Now!
4. It is not polite to call your uncle ‘boring’.
5. You can have Sushi on Saturday.
6. It’s not nice to put your hand down your Auntie’s (every woman that hugs him) bra.
7. No swiping money from Mummy’s wallet.
8. Hang up! It’s not o.k to call your auntie before 7am in the morning! (Yes he called on his own.)
9. Lets negotiate…
10. Sure you can have lemon and Parmesan pasta for lunch.
11. No. 2 cups of (decaf) tea a day is quite enough for a little man.
12. It’s not funny any more. Tell Mummy where you hid the remote.
13. It’s not o.k to make yourself dinner. It was very clever though to get the bowel, spoon and ingredients.
14. No hustling your grand parents for chocolate.
15. No playing tug-of-war with your [Great] Nanna Peg, you are pulling her over!
16. Can you start that paragraph again? Mummy didn’t catch the second sentence.

What did you think you would never say?

To the Aunties…

Yesterday was Mother’s day (in Australia). I slept in and woke to the sound of my son running up to the side of my bed. He really does sound like a heard of baby elephants, perhaps it is the fact that he has the physique of a rugby front rower – and he isn’t even 2 yet.

“Happy Birthday to you Mummy! Its Mother’s Day!!!” He screams excitedly. This isn’t as unreasonable as it seems… my birthday was less than a week ago. His Daddy informed me that he used up his only ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ on a friend in the mall while I was still slumbering.

After dragging my sleepy butt out of bed and modelling my new mauve house socks, I grabbed the phone. I called my mum, obviously. Then I called my son’s Aunties.

Yeah, they were as surprised as you probably are. They answered the phone with ‘Happy Mother’s Day!’ (They have had more years to practice than my son.) To which I responded ‘Happy Mother’s Day Auntie!’

To all the Aunts & honorary Aunties, you rock. Really you do. To Cooper’s Aunties – you know who you are – I would be less of a Mum without you. My life, and certainly my son’s life, is more rich, fun, supported, fun, sane, fun and special having you in it.  (Did I mention fun?) You may not have birthed him, but none the less he tells me daily that each of you love him and that he loves you. Every. Single. Day. Without fail. That is pretty special.

So to those women who will not get chocolates today or flowers, don’t worry. The children you love, the children you play with love you regardless of title. Trust me.

Image credit

Square peg

Sometimes you just don’t fit. No matter how intelligent you are, how beautiful you are, how accomplished you are, how cool you are, sometimes you are the square peg in the round hole. Life also has a wicked sense of humour when it comes to showing you your misshapen nature.

Heres how it went for me:

I was sitting in the car on a glorious Sunday afternoon in a Suburb of Sydney I don’t know well. I was supposed to have a morning to myself working but my other half and I got into a D&M and instead of dropping me off we kept driving so we could finish the conversation. Thankfully my work only needs a pen and paper, so failing to find a nearby park in the street directory and having already experienced the atrocious service at the local cafe I turned on the car radio and dug out my notepad and pen.

I was busy wiping bird crap off the inside of the car door (some clever bird aimed its arse at the perfect angle such that it’s excrement flew in through the open window) when I was the lucky caller to win concert tickets for the following night. Fantastic! The only painful bit was that I had to pick the tickets up between noon and 6pm, from the radio station, the night of the concert.

The station happens to be situated in a beautiful skyscraper with water views. I used to belong in buildings like this, but haven’t had the need to be in one for, quite literally, years. I arrive in my typical ‘mum uniform’ jeans, a top, cute flats, basic makeup and hair up in a pony. Surrounded by business men and glamazons in skirt suits, stiletto heels and cufflinked blouses, I felt like the world’s frumpiest housewife.

My only concern was to get to the station’s office, get the tickets and get out of there as soon as possible, whilst avoiding the self-esteem shattering looks of the people who looked like they belonged in the sleek setting. I make it to the desk and collect the tickets.  I jump back into the car (my lovely partner has been circling the block) and drop my handbag onto my lap. I notice two things at once 1) my lap is now wet & 2) there is a strong smell of apple blackcurrant in the car.

A string of four letter words run through my head as I put my hand into my bag and bring out an exploded popper (juice box). As if looking like I got lost on my way home to Kansas wasn’t humiliating enough. I call the radio station reception to let them know that a popper exploded in my handbag and that the carpet in front of the reception desk probably resembles a purple puddle.

Like I said, square peg, round hole and damn the universe for making it abundantly clear.

Lets talk about … My fine line

There is a fine line, at least in my pretty little head, between submitting to someone else’s will and choosing to find happiness in someone else’s happiness.

You might need to read that one again. It is a really, really, fine line.

This is a really complicated issue. At least for me. The concept of submitting to the will of another is abhorrent to me. It makes my blood run cold and every single cell in my body rebels against it. As a woman especially, I harks back to millennia of women without an avenue to exercise their own will. Similarly though the concept of finding happiness in someone else’s happiness reeks of the feminine mystique, of 1850′s housewives socially trapped into living only for their husband’s and children.

The key here, I guess, is choice. Choice is what we have been fighting for, isn’t it? Somehow some choices still seem to betray myself, my gender. The difference between an enlightened, empowered choice and a choice that flies in the face of my freedoms and rights? Awareness.

Conscious choice makes all the difference. Conscious choice is the only thing that makes the life of a modern wife and stay at home mother different to that of her 1950′s counterpart. I am choosing fulfillment in my role as domestic goddess. They had no other option.

I chose to marry because it was important to my husband. Not out of fear. I chose to remain at home raising my son, because it is honestly the hardest, toughest, most fulfilling thing I have ever undertaken. And I don’t back away from a challenge. What makes my choices, in my mind, revolutionary and rebellious and empowered is that I am aware of every choice I make. I put my life under the microscope and analyse who I am in the face of my freedoms and choices.

I walk a fine line. My priorities and daily tasks are essentially for my family. My self inquiry, my honesty with (and about) what goes on for me in my heart and head in response to this, that is my saving grace. Conscious choice is the difference between oppressed and living breathing empowerment.

I bet I am not the only woman steadily walking this line. What lines do you walk?

(excuse the late post, I am trying a new parenting style today and it is labor intensive.)

Lets talk about…. my imperfection

This blog should have been written 24 hours ago. Maybe more. No excuses here, mind you. I am open to criticism and may she who embodies perfection throw the first stone. Any takers? No? Really? That’s no surprise to me. But it does bring up an important question – Why do we try so hard to appear perfect?

I am no super woman. Yet so often I catch myself trying to be. So when I sat in the hair stylist’s chair this morning, after only 2 hours sleep, with the world’s greasiest hair, a piping hot coffee and grapes from the fruit market across the street, I apologised. Not once, but about a million times. I apologised for not getting my stylist a coffee because I couldn’t remember how he takes it. I apologised for my hair being greasy because the hot water system had been down for nearly two days and I can only bare an ice-cold shower for long enough to wash my body. I apologised for eating despite the fact that I hadn’t had time for breakfast (I spent my breakfast time sleeping and having a cold shower). I apologised in advance for rudely leaving my phone on incase the plumber called. I apologised for not taking better care of my hair. And then apologised for having such fabulous hair that despite rarely conditioning or brushing (yes bad rae!) that it still looked good to him. I apologised for not being my bubbly because despite two highly caffeinated drinks I was not alert. At all.

Honestly, this was my morning. And that only demonstrates the need I felt to be perfect for my hair dresser! On the way home I was to pick up a prescription for my baby and ingredients for dinner. Dinner is covered but the prescription was still on the fridge! Damn. Getting home, feeling that I was doing pretty well, only stuffing one thing up, functioning on caffeine alone (the grapes didn’t go down well) I realised that I had promised my son a kinder surprise. Epic. Fail. Mum. The darling child was happy with my discarded grapes none the less.

I am calling myself out. I am so far from perfect it is laughable. Don’t expect me to be, the closest I will come is apologising for my shortcomings.

PS Oh and I will apologise to you if you find spelling or grammatical issues. My editing eyes only kick in after 4 or more hours sleep :)

The price of motherhood

I didn’t realise how many erroneous beliefs I had absorbed about motherhood until I had my son. Then suddenly all I felt was guilty for all the things I assumed I was doing ‘wrong’. I felt horribly sub par as a mother every time the baby cried. Every time I winced audibly when he attached to my breast, I felt a failure, despite the fact that my nipples were irritated by a cotton bra only days earlier. Somehow, despite knowing better, I was  convinced being hurt my feeding my child was wrong.

Shorty after a baby is delivered (which is a misnomer too, by the way) the hoards of guests arrived. The good ones made the visit short and sweet, offering assistance, but I felt obliged to politely decline any help feeling I ‘should’ be able to breastfeed around the clock and and keep the house in order. Then came the questions of whether he was a ‘good sleeper’ and the implication that if he was I was, by extension, a good mother. Unfortunately, for the first 8 weeks before I began co-sleeping, my baby was a terrible sleeper.

As he settled and I felt like I had moved on from drowning in nappies, breast-pads and sleep that came in 40 minute stretches, the ‘wrongs’ increased. I was wrong to co-sleep, wrong to feed on demand, wrong to rock my baby to sleep, wrong to respond to his cries immediately, wrong to fall asleep mid breastfeed despite not physically being able to keep my eyes open and wrong to drink coffee. And all this in the first 3 months.

I felt I should instantly know what the baby needed, immediately respond putting his needs first without a second thought. Bliss, happy cuddles, contentment and ease where the fantasy I had come to expect when the reality was was filled more with resentment, frustration, guilt and exhaustion. And that was a good day. There were times when I put the baby on the floor for his requisite ‘tummy time’ and rushed quickly from the room to slam doors, punch pillows and cry burning tears of furious frustration. Others where I thrust the baby into his father’s arms and balled myself up sobbing from failure. The days were many where I barely hugged my partner because the idea of touching another person for another minute drove me beyond breaking point. Who knew one could be ‘touched out’?

I relish motherhood. Genuinely so. But I also ball my hands into fists and screech at my toddler when, after a sleepless night he will do nothing but grizzle ‘mummy’. (When you child says ‘mama’ for the first time you never expect to cringe at the word a year later). Just 5 minutes to myself will make all the difference, I tell myself while he clings to my leg as a try to make a cup of tea. And the times you awake without a child beside you and, for the most fleeting moment, forget that you are a parent – only to remember a moment later; it hurts to feel a twinge of sadness with the happiness.

I love my son more than words can say. I love watching him grow and learn. I feel privileged when he brings his bumped knee to me to kiss better and every time he cries it is a dagger through my heart. But without the darker side of motherhood these moments wouldn’t be as meaningful. The potential our children have to stretch us to breaking point is born out of our pure love for them. Our total dedication. Dedication that comes at a price. Unless we openly discuss the price of motherhood in the same breath as the rewards of motherhood, I feel, we devalue ourselves as women and as mothers.

Youthful mis-perceptions

A dear friend posted a blog asking us what out 16-year-old self would think about our lives now. My 16-year-old self wouldn’t think anything about my life now. She would be seeing red, steam pouring form here ears busily hating on and writing off my life. No, I am not kidding.

My 16 year old self was a feminist & punk. I happily sported a leather dog collar, totally clueless as to its BDSM symbolism of submission (something in my naivety I would have considered anti-feminist). I was a card-carrying member of a radical political organisation, who believed that ‘awareness’, achieved via protests and the liberal use of soap boxes, was the answer to all life’s ills. I despised the suburban life and the ‘white picket fence’. I flatly refused to cook believing that is was a shackle that kept modern women attached to the feminine mystique and preferred to be addressed as ‘Conrad’ because it was genderless, and as such freed me from gender stereotyping.

I was convinced that I would never marry. Not only because I thought of the institution of marriage as unnecessary (we at least some things never change), but because I aspired to running my relationships the way ‘men did’ – all satisfaction and no commitment. After all the feminist way is to live my life the way a man would, only better. Right? I intended on adopting one child later in my career orientated life. Adoption, because there are plenty of orphans that require love and care, and also because I believed the pain of labour and the inconvenience of pregnancy to be an unfair burden on women.

In short my 16-year-old self was wrong in so many ways. She simply didn’t have the references or framework to apply her feminist views to the real world. She thought feminist was to be devoid of femininity and to shun inherently feminine experiences.

She would disown me now. She, like many a young woman, wanted true equality in life but had no role-models to show her how. She would judge my choice to marry, to have a baby, to exit the work force to raise my son, to live in the suburbs, to cook daily and whole heartedly support my family. She would say my choices are not my own, that I have allowed society to dictate my role and thus devalue my true worth. And she would be wrong. But she earned me my freedom. Her investigations into the power dynamics of society bestowed me the room to make my choices consciously – the real gift of feminism.