Michelle Tant

A friend said to me the other day how her own mother was pressurising her about her weight loss. My friend is 8 weeks post partum. The hurt I felt on her behalf cut me to the core. The one person who is supposed to be a guaranteed cheerleader is your mother. That doesn't stop once you become an adult. In fact if there was ever a time you need your mothers support and unconditional approval, its when you become a mother yourself. Mothering is hard! It's also joyful, rewarding, surprising, fulfilling and utterly mad. But it is also relentless, tiring, heart wrenching and complicated. Who doesn't need the occasional shoulder to lean or cry on? Mothers are uniquely placed to be supportive of other mothers. Who should know this but a mother? Our own mothers have 'been there and done that'... sometimes right, sometimes wrong but they have been there and they know that this mothering lark is not as black and white as the books would have us think. Now ...

Tomorrow will be my 6th Mothers day. Seems almost unreal that I have been a mother for that long. I've been been reflecting today about my 'place' in mothers day. I know that to my children I am the main event so to speak on this day. But I know that I am most definitely not the main event. It's a funny day really, because even though I'm now a mother, I still celebrate my own mother. I am blessed beyond words to still have my mum and also to have a fantastic mother in law. All the while I celebrate these two women in my life, they are my main events on this day. And rightly so in my mind. The mothers day where I am the main event is the mothers day I'm in mourning and so for that reason I will enjoy my brief moment of Mummy spoiling first thing in the morning with my 3 beautiful children, and then I will throw myself into the celebration of the women who made my Mummy-hood possible. I don't want Mothers day to just be about me, we need to appre...

"I am woman! I am invincible! I am pooped!" ~Author Unknown Today is International Womens Day. Its also the 100th anniversary, first celebrated in 1911. Believe it or not, some countries actually celebrate it as a national holiday. We've come a long way baby but I get the distinct feeling we still have a way to go. A world where some women still die in childbirth where in other countries they dont, some women are routinely beaten by thier male relatives, women are still blamed for their own rapes, women still earn less than men overall and have less high powered jobs than men. Shocking stuff so yes, a way to go. "The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes." Bella Abzug A friend lately gave birth to her second child via cesarean section. Both labours failed to progress and it is more than likely that she would not have survived her first labour had she been giving birth 100 years ago or today in a country w...

I love the term Mumpreneur. It's so expressive and makes me feel like I am part of some exclusive club. It says that not only are you living the frantic life that is motherhood, but you're running your own business to boot. My observation of a lot of Mumpreneurs is that the businesses are generally to do with some aspect of family life. My own business is no exception. I provide pet services and invariably my customers are or have children. Of course in this business I'm not going to light any financial fires, become a self made millionaire etc, but it does help with the extra things we'd like, whereas my paid job (yes I have one of those too) pays for the things we need, the mortgage for example! We are tremendously lucky as women to be living in this time in history. Women have opportunities that our own mothers simply didn't have. We can choose to run our own businesses, and you know what? We'll raise our kids at the same time. It doesn't have to be...

... whatever that is of course. I've spent the day scrubbing, cleaning, changing beds, cooking, changing nappies and for a brief interlude, played a puzzle with my 2 year old and watched Chuggington with him. This is why I work part time. So that I can be the uber-housewife. NO!!! I work part time to spend time with my kids. So how come when ever anyone mentions the hushed word 'cleaner' does the rest of the population seem to go into judgemental overdrive? I might say also that the most vocal of these are the women who had their kids a looong time ago, and were able to give up work until they sent them off to school. Of course then some worked part time hours and the kids had to 'get on with it' while they scrubbed and cleaned. Most families these days cannot afford to have a parent not working. Our mortgages and living costs don't allow it. I haven't bought clothes for myself in goodness knows how long, and forget about eating out; I've pulled in the b...