Infertility, surrogacy and a picture really can say a thousand words

First there was the New York Times article by Alex Kuczynski (with its accompanying pictures, as referenced in my title) about her experience with a surrogate gestating her baby, and then there have been a lot of very nasty responses (don’t we just love to hate on women for all things reproductive?) and some very [...]

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In the house of no limits

Three year olds seem to me to be not unlike raving conservatives, they both really need to be certain of the categories, the rules, the parameters. They fear liberal thinking. Lauca leads many a conversation with me  about what bigger kids are allowed to do in comparison to what little kids are able to do, and what girls like [...]

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Go TV yourself

Kudos to pregnant mothers who unlike me don’t immediately double their child’s TV viewing. Am so tired.
Lauca likes to quote movies she’s seen or books she’s read but because I use her book-reading, movie-viewing time to do other things, like this, I never have any idea of the context of her quotes. Lately she has [...]

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The wired mother

Introducing the International Mothers Network (IMN)… right over here.
The initial goal of the IMN is to invite mother organizations from around the world to join this network; in particular,  progressive mothers groups – mothers from the global south, mothers in poverty, mothers with disabilities, welfare mothers, grandmother caregivers and others.
Our hope is that the network will [...]

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The only thing stranger than being pregnant is..

.. being pregnant with a boy. When I discovered I was having a boy I suddenly felt a degree of self-consciousness that I hadn’t recalled with Lauca. Something about growing female cells inside my female body felt very natural. Now, I have a boy on the premises, like constantly. Weird. (And exciting).
Another strange thing is this. I [...]

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And so the lie continues

Lauca: This tiger, he is going to have a baby soon.
Me: How exciting. But you know boy animals don’t actually have the babies. They help make the babies but they don’t get pregnant and give birth to the babies.
Lauca: I know,  Mummies get pregnant. Did you give birth to me?
Me: Yes.
Lauca: What’s give birth?
Me: It’s [...]

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Father finds parenting utopia and terrapin

No cynicism. For real. Fatherhood bliss. This is it.
Lauca’s father has wanted to take her exploring creeks ever since he first knew he was going to become a father. This is his moment, this is what fatherhood looked like to him when he was inspiring himself for the life he was about to enter. During those long [...]

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Future feminist

Image: Hey, this plug is on me – ‘Future Feminist’ t-shirt was purchased from here.
This is what a future feminist looks like… well, I very much hope so.
And this is what feminism looks like right now.. Down Under style at the Ideologically Impure. I know Ms Impure (or the Queen of Thorns as she [...]

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Two interviews with the author of ‘Maternal Desire’

Our feminist mothers group discussed Maternal Desire: On Children, Love and the Inner Life by Daphne de Marneffe this month. And it was a fascinating discussion, enhanced by the diversity of the group that evening – intergenerational mothers were among the attendees, and so was an Iranian mother who has immigrated with her husband to Australia to undertake PhDs.
Alas, I have [...]

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