In this post, I reflect on the role of unpaid care in my childhood. How could we better value and recognise the role of unpaid care, most often undertaken by women, in our public policy? One of the quick wins available to the government is to pay superannuation on the...
Leaving the house with a baby or small child is a feat worthy of a medal. When I first did it with my two-week-old son, I sent my husband a photograph to celebrate. In the photo, my tiny baby is in the newborn insert of the baby carrier. It’s a warm day in March, and...
In this month’s post, I share how my childhood Christmas story was and continues to be shaped by intergenerational trauma. On Christmas Eve 1963, Alexander and May were coming home from a party with friends when the car they were travelling in...
I ring my bell, but they don’t hear. I shout, but they don’t hear. I wave my hand, but they don’t see. Eventually, I swerve my bike around them and make tut-tut noises. When I was working with a man with vision impairment, he referred to them as “the...
What is an acceptable amount of crazy for mothers? I certainly identify with the idea of ‘normal crazy’, a term I discovered in my recent Master’s thesis proposal research. There have been times I have felt out of my mind during my matrescence. The researchers suggest...
Having been a social planner for over ten years, I am acutely aware of how historical town planning has overlooked the needs of women and mothers. In their article for The Conversation, academics Dorina Pojani, Dorothy Wardale, and Kerry Brown...
