What price Motherhood?

We were mothers because that was what you did.

We stayed home with the children because that was what you did.

Didn't we?

We had children just as we had birthdays, went to school, got a driver's licence, got a job because that was what you did.

Didn't we?

I suspect it's not that simple and I can guess at other motives for myself and they will be different from yours too.

But whatever the motives, they were strong enough, either singly or as a collective, to overcome any other priorities we might have had, like income or lifestyle.

When I say we, I mean myself and those like me - a particular class, a particular culture and belief system.

It was tough, horrendously tough, 

but also incredibly rewarding in all sorts of ways.




But I want to look at the price, and specifically the economic price ... the economic value.



I/We stayed home with the children.

For a certain generation that was accepted as the norm.

There was a breadwinner and there was a carer of the children usually decided by gender.

So the childcare came out of the pockets of the household.

Mothers provided the childcare.

Because it was an accepted norm, 

and there was no pay packet for that childcare, 

it was not seen, generally, as an economic entity 

and consequently degraded in value.  

"Just a Mum"   !!!

{   Unless you are receiving a pay packet, society seemingly does not recognise your talent or contribution to society.    }

That income situation (usually) determined the level of spending that was possible, 

which in turn, usually, 

determined the lifestyle of the family ... 

again for that particular economic class.




Effectively the household paid for its childcare,



within that class, that culture, that belief system, 

though there was change.



Mothers did not stay home, automatically, any more.


They could create their own income, contribute to the income of the household and its lifestyle.



Now who pays for the childcare?



Who provides the childcare?



Professional mothers?????

Lessons for Mothers ... from Magpies

I feed lots of birds that arrive in our back yard each day, and, of course, that includes magpies.  Bullies, they are, these magpies, mainly because they are bigger than the normal clientele.  They simply stalk up to someone else and take their food.  The butcher birds are simply too polite, or merely too canny, to fight, though the lorikeets will object and sometimes win, so gamely.

This is one of the recent crop of baby magpies.

"Bubbacluck" because he clucks as he eats rather than make the baby noises he would use with his mother to be fed.

I wonder, sometimes, if the lump on his heel is a cancer, but it doesn't seem to concern him.

The parents feed normally most of the time, swallowing down each morsel as it comes, but then suddenly they will start collecting the morsels, waiting for each one, until they have a huge beak load.  Then they will fly off.  And it's then that I know they are feeding babies.

Eventually, when the babies can fly and fend for themselves to a degree, the parents bring them to our back yard.  I had gathered from previous years that there is a fairly high level of communication between parent and offspring.  This year I am starting to understand some of it.

I like all the birds, but I tend to get cross with the bullying.  Most, even the kookaburras, will wait their turn, but the magpies seem most prone to stealing, especially when they have young ones.  What made me really cross this year was when they would bring a baby - or more likely the baby would come begging and then along would arrive the parent, only to severely box the baby's ears.  Well, magpies don't have ears, as such, but that's what came to mind - give the baby a severe pecking until the baby cowered on the ground whimpering. What a horrible mother!  Poor baby - do you want him to eat for himself or not?  I learnt to feed the mother until she was full and either then shared with the baby, or left and then I could throw food to the little one.  Strange!!

That is not what happened in our human household when there were babies around.  You feed the hungry baby, even if that means postponing your own meal, or organising things around the hunger.  We do not neglect our children in favour of our own needs, much as we would be tempted to do so!!

And yet, here is this mother magpie making sure she is fed before the baby gets a look in, and soundly punishes him if he even tries!

And then it came to me - that amazing instruction when we are embarking on a flight.  When the oxygen masks come down, make sure you fit one on yourself and only then, attend to your child.  You cannot look after your child if you have no oxygen yourself.

I think that has amazed and astounded more people than just me ... and also made perfect sense.

And that's what that magpie mother was doing - making sure she was fed well enough that she could feed her baby.  

Lesson to learn - Mothers need to take care of themselves if they want healthy babies!  Duh!  From a magpie!

P.S.  Is that really what was going on?  Please comment below if I have this whole story wrong!!  I do know that the mothers and fathers encourage the babies to sit down very still until they arrive with food - obviously for their safety, but I think this is another issue.

Either way I it's a valuable lesson!!

I'll flog you within an inch of your life

Yesterday in the supermarket, there was a lady with a 2-year-old.  

I remember shopping with a 2-year-old.

I remember life with a 2-year-old.

Not easy.  Not easy at all.

And yet it was the time, for us, at least, of some of the greatest learning either of my boys ever did.  

Well did the Jesuits, or whoever it was, say "Give me a child for his first seven years and I'll give you the man".  And however you interpret it, I choose to interpret that in those years and I would say within the first 5 - a huge part of the person's learning and beliefs and character are formed.  

So it is a huge challenge for a parent to keep the child safe, away from destruction of public property and yet allow them to learn and grow and develop as they are driven to do.  

They are not making a conscious choice to "get into" everything, they are driven by the need to learn and develop and grow. 

In the supermarket, this particular mother was dealing with the challenge verbally.  I heard, "If you keep that up I'm going to flog you within an inch of your life."   There was also the familiar "3 ... 2 ..."  I'm not sure what was to happen when she got to 1 because it never happened.  Her voice changed and she tried another tactic.  I wonder if there was ever a flogging within an inch of his life.  I also wonder if that is what her mother said to her ... or her father, and it just came out of her mouth in certain circumstances.

I worked with a mother who reported that she said to her sons "If I ever find you doing that I will belt you up."  This despite the fact that both were taller then she was at the time.  It obviously worked because both are reasonably well-behaved.  Perhaps it was the expectations ... and that's a whole other blog post.

Back to the supermarket and the 2-year-old.

I passed the little family later in another aisle, and I recognised the look on the mother's face - the knowledge that she was at the end of her tether, that things weren't working.

I remember that one too, that feeling.

It was about that time that I realised as a mother that control, and expecting a 2-year-old to be perfectly behaved according to a set of principles that did not allow him to grow and develop and learn just doesn't work.  He will grow anyway but there will be a whole lot of angst and misery in the process.   

I found success on both sides comes when both sides are committed to that growth, development and learning (within the parameters of safety and the preservation of public property.)  

The child is committed to it.  

As a parent, much as we would like to get through the supermarket in the same way we did before children, it is just too important, not to change that shopping trip to a learning exercise.  

You will learn what strengths you have and what patience and endurance are.  
Your child will learn lifelong lessons of shopping, of self-control, of social responsibility, of maths, of compromise ... if you just let him.  

You can make it difficult and full of anger and frustration and angst or you can facilitate it and allow it to happen quickly.