Can we create the community
mothers need and yearn for? DO YOU REMEMBER THE DAYS WHEN WOMEN WOULD GET TOGETHER, WHILST THE CHILDREN PLAYED AND “CHORES” STILL GOT DONE?
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pecifically, those early days with a newborn, where the support of another mother who gets it - especially one with older children - was so
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helpful to the mind, body and soul. I am one of the lucky ones that do remember this, as I grew up in a culture where my grandmother, my aunts and others in our village were an integral part of my upbringing. Sadly, when I became a mother, this was not my experience. I want to make it clear that it was no fault of anyone. It was a mixture of the system/society and the judgement that mothers can have for each other.
The Australian maternal care system tries hard to create this support through a mother’s group. I know this has been successful for some mums who years after their children have grown up, are still connected. However, I know for many, this is not the case. For me, it personally brought a lot of shame and inferiority with it as I never fitted into the group I was allocated. I don’t hide the fact that I went through an awful bout of post-natal anxiety and received judgement and criticism from the group. Most days, I was trying to survive to then only feel judgement for not having a child who played a certain way or slept through the night, which added to my feelings of inadequacy.
