About my blog and me

Quoted on Lateline, appearing in places ranging from Chic Mom Magazine to Ms Magazine, writing at The Guardian,  Daily Life, Essential Baby and The Wheeler Centre, and only occasionally enjoyed by trolls.

blue milk is part ‘bluestocking’ and part ‘mother’. It is a journal of experiences. I write about what’s on my mind.

Since I started writing here my mind has been mostly on stuff like this.

I am not a doll.

I like writing. I wish my job was writing this. Instead my job is to write about other things.  I now sometimes get paid to write about this stuff. (Mostly I get paid to write about other stuff). You might also have heard me on the radio if you are in Melbourne, Brisbane or Canberra.

Sometimes I also write over at Hoyden About Town, if you don’t already read them, you should. And I have been known to write a guest piece for Feministe, PhD in Parenting, Larvatus Prodeo and Moms Rising.You might like reading all those places, too.

I recently wrote a part of this book – The 21st Century Motherhood Movement: Mothers Speak Out On Why We Need To Change The World And How To Do It – you should buy a copy.

This blog is archived by the National Library of Australia, Pandora Archive.

I’m a feminist. Everyone’s feminism is different, this blog is my feminism. My feminism is richer for understanding your feminism. I get the most intelligent comments in the world on my site (case in point: see the first two comments on this page). Seriously, I’m very lucky and after most posts I wish I could re-write them to incorporate the really good points readers have raised.

I also co-facilitate feminist discussion groups. I like talking as well as writing. Our most popular feminist discussion group ever was When sexual desire compromises your feminism. Apparently everyone feels compromised.

I have also been a guest speaker at several Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement conferences, at Ladyfest, and at Mamapalooza.

I de-bunk myths about mothers.

There is a blue milk myth I was told when I was a new mother.. and it is that if you drink alcohol you need to empty your breasts of all the bad (mother) milk (which incidentally will be a disturbing shade of blue from all the bad, bad alcohol), before you can feed your baby again. I’m ashamed to admit that in my ignorance I even repeated this myth to another new mother. So essentially, even if there was an opportunity for you as a new mother to cut loose and have a nice evening you couldn’t really take it up unless you were prepared to face the horror of turning your milk blue (in fact the first milk in every feed has a blue tint and it is perfectly normal), the slow trial of expressing it all, the heartbreaking waste of tipping it all down the drain, and then the challenge of somehow keeping your hungry, little baby quiet while it skipped a feed waiting for your clean milk. No. Small. Feat.