I’ve wanted to start a blog for a while now, to yarn, to share life experiences – and I’ve finally made the time for it! Each blog I set the intention to share what is in my world, in my heart, and hope that it may strike a chord with you.
Since sharing my birth stories, I’ve been thinking about my experience so far of mothering my children. I don’t compare my two boys, but it’s interesting to compare how life is lived; how perspectives shift, how the version of me has evolved over time. I meet myself in different ways when life takes place.
Structure and chaos
I have been very open and honest, and shared life with my eldest son [now 9], because, becoming a mother at 19, I was raising my child and myself in the process. There were no boundaries; it was very chaotic and free, we had to go with the flow. I see that in his personality now; he changes his mind really quickly, and if it's not happening now, he has to move on to the next thing. We lived in the present, so unstructured, we didn't think too far ahead.
Whereas with my second, I have the experience and wisdom to give him structure, so he knows where he’s going, what the next thing is, and he's cool to just be. He’s only just turned one so he can't use words, but the way he communicates with me is like ‘mum, it’s bed time’. He'll cry and pull at me until we're lying down in bed. He's teaching me that there is sense in structure, because I've learned what works and what doesn't work. I'm really conscious of using words like failures or mistakes – I think it’s important not to have a negative connotation to our experiences. I believe they are a part of learning, growing and success, and whatever that means to each of us. Each experience brings us a deeper level of confidence.
I think it's healthy to have some chaos, because it teaches you resilience. My eldest has taught me something new in each of his nine years, he enlightens me to a new perspective – something that was always there, but I just see it differently now, and I have a better appreciation for it. It's forgiveness.
Giving ourselves a break
As a parent, you constantly question if what you're doing is right or good enough. Is my child going to be OK with how we’re doing it? You never really know until they're older and they become a parent, and they may say, ‘well, I have some things that I need to deal with because I don't agree with that, or I want to change that.’ That's the constant cycle of healing. We do the best we can with what we've got and what we know. My eldest son has been the biggest reminder that no matter what I've done or how I've felt, how I've responded or reacted, that he loves me no matter what. To him, I am the best mother for him, and that is all that matters to me. In every moment that I feel I could have done better, I have a conversation with him: ‘What does Mummy do that I could do better?’ He always tells me, ‘you don't listen to me!’ I think that's partly a society thing – how do we stop and listen, not just to the words, but being present with our kids? What are they trying to tell us? There's so many distractions in our lives these days, but at the end of the day, I'm the one that my son wants to see before he goes to sleep, and the first person he wakes up to. That teaches me the lesson of just showing up, even when it's hard and we're having a tough day. When we show up for our kids, we might just make their day better and in return, we have a happy child who leaves the house loving us. That's a gift in itself.
My youngest son has taught me the simple things in life. The first time around, with his big brother, I complicated everything; a lot of women do. We make things seem harder than they should be, and I think it’s a guilt thing. Life is hard, and this is just how it's going to be forever and always – but also, we don't give ourselves time to allow it to be easy, to allow ourselves to be cared for and helped. We pile this extra guilt on ourselves of, ‘I need to do it all, and if it's not my way it’s not good enough.’ Sure, we know our children best, so we're worried that if we don't do it, the world is going to let our children down. That fear is real. But this second time around, I have finally learned to lean into the simple things in life. For example, I might sit and be present eating with my youngest son: when he looks at me, he sees within me – he sees so much more than the woman standing in front of him. I am one woman in the world, but I am the world to this little human. And that is enough.
It's also okay that we mother our different children differently. I believe every pregnancy is different even for the same woman; we evolve, we are always a different version of ourselves. Your children are going to get a different version of being mothered; I'm the oldest of four, so I see that it was different for all of my siblings, and I understand that now as a mother. My boys will have different perspectives of how and what they'll need me for. As a very young mother, I was a child myself; there was so much I wasn’t ready to give, I didn’t know how to. My eldest was telling me at four years old: ‘It's OK, mum. I'm alright.’ It blows my mind now to realise he was telling me his feelings at such a young age; he took on a lot of responsibility earlier than I think a child should. He was a child of separated parents, split homes, and that was hard for him (and probably still is). That's a lot for a child.
But I have to be kind to myself, acknowledge that I did the best I could at the time, and look at the other perspective that what he went through is what's going to make him a great leader: it taught him compassion and empathy. He knows how to be with people's feelings. I remember when he’d just started primary school, every day he'd come home and check in: he'd analyse my face and my body language or my tone, and ask, ‘Are you happy mum? Are you feeling happy?’ He just wanted to make sure that the people he cared for were okay. Now I see that in him: he'll be walking past somebody on the street and say, ‘I wonder what was going on? They didn't seem happy.’ As a parent, as much as we want to shelter our kids and give them safe spaces, we might also be giving them an insight into the world and what's going on. They need to know that yes, the world can be scary, dangerous, sad and violent, all at the same time. I try to show him that he gets to decide; he gets to be in the position of power with the knowledge that he has inside. He's not just seeing things through a screen; he's actually seeing it with his own eyes and feeling people and interacting with them. He's had conversations with homeless people on the street, and he comes to me asking, ‘Mum, have we got any spare food?’ Some kids are so awakened in that space, the ones who have had to navigate life. He's a very independent sovereign being. He’s a creative problem solver. He’s a good teacher. I want him to have those abilities, and that's something that he'll continue to navigate.
Mothering myself
For 8 years I carried a lot of guilt that I wasn't there for my eldest. I was physically present, but not there as the mother that I wanted to be. Going through my second pregnancy, where I was so present to everything that was happening, I then felt a lot of grief and guilt that my first son hadn’t received that version of me. I saw my eldest son for the first time at seven years old: this little boy, standing in front of me, at seven, not at birth. Seven years had gone by and I hadn’t seen him, because I hadn’t seen myself.
I met this version of me that I'd never met before. It was so beautiful, but so painful. I was hit with time: where has all this time gone? I was hit with guilt: my eldest missed this more wise version of his mother from that young age. I was comparing myself, not to any other woman outside of me, but to the woman inside of me. I had arrived, and I was so proud of this woman who was becoming and arriving – and continuing to create this new version of herself. But it was like looking at a really painful piece of art every time I looked at my first born. I was reminded that this version of me wasn't born yet, and that's something that I believe will be a part of my son’s journey.
At birth he was given a name that means ‘hero one’, and to me, he is my hero. He saw me, he knew me, before I had seen myself. And he stayed; he was always there, just waiting for me to arrive. Being pregnant with my second child had allowed this new version of me to come to life, and in so many ways I am a better mum for my eldest, this mothered version of myself. I would talk with my partner about how painful it was to realise that my eldest didn’t get the best of me, and he kept reminding me: ‘But he gets you now, you get to model this version for him now. Sure, he missed out on structures and boundaries, and you moved from house to house or survived from couch to couch – you did the best you could for him at the time. But you’re modelling how people can grow and get through adversity, and now he gets to lead into this space as a big brother – he gets to watch you lead. You’re giving him the opportunity to grow as a leader.’
That was a really big awakening for me.
I've had to go on my own journey of healing (and we all do that differently; for me, I’ve found different healing modalities helpful like breath work, shamanic work, and self-inquiry). I've had to intentionally look at these parts to grow to the next level. I've had to call in a lot of compassion for myself. I had so much guilt that I was robbing my child of seeing the pride I held to being his mother. Through my healing, I was able to put myself in his shoes: if my son is constantly getting this guilty version of me as a mother, I wonder how that makes him feel? Am I transferring that guilt on to him – is he then feeling, ‘Why am I not good enough to make my mum happy?’ And that was really hard for me to realise. It hurt because it triggered the child in me: I then understood that I wasn't just healing the mother guilt from being a mother myself – I was healing my family lines, and the relationship I had with my mum. Through that self-inquiry work, I now have better relationships with my son and my mother. I get to see my son in the child form; I’m not seeing the faults of myself in him anymore. When he would get upset or sad, I’d immediately think, ‘It’s because of me, it’s my fault, I'm wrong.’ But then I stepped away from that: it wasn't about me anymore, it was just about this little boy and his big emotions, and allowing him to express them. I've embraced that healing journey with him; I've allowed him to see me crying and expressing my feelings in a healthy way. Yeah, Mum's got big emotions – she's feeling angry right now so she's going to go and punch the boxing bag and scream! And that's OK. Or: I'm feeling agitated so I’m going put on music and jump and throw my body around! For so long I wasn’t ok with my own big feelings; I wanted someone to blame for how I was feeling. Now I see that all of this is OK, all of this is welcome and just part of experiencing life and expressing it. All kinds of feelings come and go, and they don’t have to make me feel uncomfortable anymore.
The same goes for my kids: I don’t have to be responsible for their feelings; they’re allowed to feel their feelings. I can just be there with them and I don't need to fix it. That’s a big learning for me – I wanted to fix things, when actually I can see I was robbing my eldest of his ability to process things. Now we have crazy moments of big feelings of any kind; we normalise expressing ourselves and moving our body and using our voices. Now when he's in one of those moments I allow him to feel free: do what you need to do to move through it, and I'll be here when you're ready. I’ve stopped judging myself for the guilt that I felt, and comparing myself to how I thought I should be. I’m just being with the version that I am right now.
My culture in parenting
Culture is life. Culture is embedded in how I live and do everything. It's in my home. It's in the way I communicate. It's in the way I express my love and affection to my boys. It's embedded in our family ways and how we play with each other. It's in how we learn to do things, and I always try to bring our cultural traditions into a modern way of living in culture today. That might be that we eat together or be outside, and talk about what life was like. We'll bring in elements of Country that were used for different ceremonies; we've had our own smoking ceremonies out the back of my place, using the fire as a way to share story, sit around the fire and listen to each other and talk about our experiences, sit with the different generations and talk about life’s celebrations and hardships.
The older I get, the more aware I've become, the more confidence I've developed in who it is I am and where I come from. Through that knowledge, through learning and listening, I now get to walk through life with that pride, and my pride is growing. Yes, sometimes it can be painful and conflicting, but I always instil it in my boys, like my parents did. That was one thing that was always in our home: be proud of your culture, of your people, of who you are and how you look and how you talk, while also being encouraged to walk in the mainstream of life. To know who you are and where you come from but also understand how to walk in both worlds. That has been the biggest advantage of life.
When I was a kid I never understood why I had to be one of three indigenous kids that had to go through mainstream school, and I couldn't be with my cousins. Or when I played sports and was the only indigenous person on the team. But as I've grown, I now understand that was building my resilience. Yes, there's going to be adversities. There's going to be people that don't understand you, who will question you and try and diminish who you are, and tell you that you shouldn't be in the spaces with these other kids. This will come from children, from parents, from spectators, from officials, from every angle. And that built character. That built kindness. That built a curiosity to understand people. I learned to turn it into a gift. I’m grateful for that because now I can walk into any room, with any person, and sit and have a conversation with them; I can learn to understand who they are and where they come from. That's something that I will cherish from my parents, and now I will continue to pass that on to my children: yes, we’ll go and learn out on Country and learn the cultural ways. We’ll listen to our elders and go at the pace of the Country and the seasons, we’ll eat from the land and be really mindful of how we walk and what we say. But you're also going to learn how to thrive in Western education and in schooling with children who may come from parents with a lack of knowledge, or even ignorance, and that's OK because we're going to build your resilience up so that words won't touch you unless you let them. We’ll build our strength and our armour to navigate these two worlds.
That's what supports me to walk into these spaces where I do my Queen Acknowledgements work. The people I grew up with, I don't see them in these spaces. Sure, I see them in mob spaces, where culture is present and evident, and our people outweigh number of non-indigenous people – I love that we have these spaces. But I understand that it is hard to walk into spaces where we’re very evidently still the minority, on our own land. It can make you feel small, it’s confronting; you can feel a lump in your throat. I feel that it's my purpose to walk in those spaces, to learn and understand and then question the systems, and invite people into these spaces with me. Not only as a business woman but as a mother, I'm happy to bear that, to lay the ground work for my children to have safer, more inclusive spaces where their presence is invited and welcomed, and people are there for them. That what they have to say is being heard. So I'm happy to bear that – I think that's the superpower that being a mother, having children, gives you. I've physically taken the shirt off my back for my child’s comfort. I want to make it easier for them, while also having them understand the real-life concepts of what the world has to offer. It's beautiful and painful at the same time. To succeed in anything that they want to do, it's going to feel like failure, and it can look beautiful. You're going to make a lot of mistakes in the process – like watching my youngest learn how to walk. He's been doing it for a month now, but still he falls over time and time again, he bumps his head, he trips over his own feet. But he just gets back up. I keep teaching my boys that no matter how many times you fall, who cares who's watching? People will be watching you fall. But will you get back up? I love the work of Brene Brown who says: if you're going to be in the arena, be there. Don't run away from yourself, from the situation. Life is going to knock you down – get back up.
Looking forward
Back then I felt I had to do it all; now I can just be mum when I am, and when I need to go on stage, then that's who I am. I want my boys to see that you can be all the things you want to be. I take my youngest on stage with me a lot; I try to show the mothers in the audience that we don't have to wear all the hats in that stop/start way. It's more fluid. I am a partner, I am a mother, I am a sister and a daughter, a business woman, a mentor to people, a friend – all the time, in harmony with each part of me.
That's what's being constantly asked of us as parents: can we be who we are needed to be? As well as what we need to be for ourselves? I had these visions of what I wanted to be like: I wanted to be the woman who wakes up and does yoga, to be so Zen and so chill. I wanted to be the mum that organises the lunch boxes all the time and has the umbrella for the rainy days and the hats and sunscreen for the sunny days… but I'm not! Yes, sometimes I'm glamorous – and sometimes I have snot and food all over me, and I'm cool with that. Let’s give ourselves some slack and love.
We all have a crown and we all wear it in different ways in different moments. That's what I want women to know: you are a queen all the time, for your little people, for your home. Queen energy: we get to make that, whatever that means to us. We’re the creators of our energy.
Queen x