Category: Motherhood
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Trusting the Journey: The Secret to Happiness in Middle Age
It is only now, in middle age, that I am finally accepting that I don’t possess the superpower (or indeed any superpower) to fix everything – no one does, not even those with the money to buy whatever they want or need. Money may be able to buy rockets, but it can’t buy you back…
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The Truth About The Mask Of Mental Illness
It turns out I haven’t quite finished writing about masks. Today, however, instead of talking about clinical masks, I want to talk about a different type – the mask that society forces people with mental illness to wear. It is the mask of being well – that many of us expect them to wear, even…
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Pity The Parents Whose Boomerang Children Have Been Forced Back Home By COVID-19
One aspect of COVID-19 that is rarely mentioned on the news is the impact on families who – due to recent job losses – have had grown children return back home. Some of you, I imagine, view the bounce back home of our Boomerang Generation as an opportunity to rebuild relationships, fatten them up and…
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The Meaning Of Life And Why People Who Live In Hot Countries Suffer From Depression As Well
Kurt experienced a few personal setbacks a few weeks ago and because I know that many of you follow this blog because you too have young adults who struggle, I thought I’d take you through what we’ve learned from it. Obviously, I won’t go into precise detail about what happened, but suffice it to say…
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Mothers: Admit It, We Never Stop Worrying About Our Kids
Mothers, be careful with those little comments you drop into the conversation each time you see your adult kids (who have left home) and look like they haven’t eaten a square meal that month. Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash You know the type – How much fruit are you eating? ARE YOU EATING? You’re…
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9 Reasons Why Empty-Nesting Is So Much Better Than I Expected
Since Kurt left home – the last of our young adults to leave the nest – friends keep asking us how we are coping with our loss, how much we miss him, and whether we’ll get another dog? Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash And my diplomatic answer is a resounding YES – of course,…
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Should We Share Our Birthing Stories Online? Absolutely!
There has been a backlash recently against new mothers who share their birthing stories online. Some people don’t like this latest version of “oversharing” because they think it traumatizes pregnant women. Although, not as much as the birth… I hasten to quip. I have to admit that I always felt a bit cheated after the births…
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Kids’ Birthday Cakes: Or As I Like To Call It, The Public Shaming Of Mothers That Can’t
Yep, there it is – new evidence of my failure at motherhood in one of its major disciplines – Kurt’s twenty-first birthday cake. Kids’ birthday cakes have always felt to me like one of the ultimate tests of motherhood; rather like keeping your kids alive when as toddlers they seem hellbent on killing themselves. In…
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Abortion Has Never Been Something Women Take Lightly
I do not begrudge the third of Ireland’s voters who wanted to keep the existing abortion laws in the recent referendum, to protect the rights of the fetus; we are each entitled to an opinion in a democracy. Which is why I get to share mine so freely on this blog, and why you are…
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My Kids Will Be Able To Say A Lot Of Things About Me, But Never That I Didn’t Love them.
A friend asked me the other day about how I felt about Mothers Day, and I knew that the question was loaded – you see, I haven’t had a mother for a long time. And for the first time, it struck me that I don’t view the celebration from the perspective of my own mother.…
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Royal Baby #3
I like to think that I am a good person, but fundamentally, I must be a bitch, (as well as a hypocrite if you look at my last post about women supporting women), because I can’t help feeling a tad jealous about the way Kate squeezed out another heir, seemingly without a perfectly-coiffed, soft-curled hair out…
Louisa Simmonds 