The Good Enough Mother

In this conversation with Carly Grubb, founder of The Beyond Sleep Training Project, Little Sparklers, and Grubby Mummy and the Grubby Bubbies blog, we talk about the consequences of sleep training, the failure of our systems in supporting new parents, the intense emotional load that women carry in our families and communities, and what valuing motherhood means. Carly shares her own story of atten...

Let this be a little slice in your day where you take a moment to draw inwards and connect with yourself – even when (and perhaps most importantly when) you are busy multi-tasking in listening to this with while parenting your kids, or driving, or walking, or taking a moment for yourself. I summarize some information for you recommended by Aisha Ahmad – a researcher who has lived through disease o...

What does the research actually say on screentime, particularly for young children? I provide an overview of both the detrimental impacts and the ways screentime can be helpful. I apply this information about screentime to the philosophy of good enough mothering and discuss how to integrate screentime into the context many of us find ourselves in working from home with our children. I also offer s...

In putting together this week’s podcast I reflected on the extent to which our lives and the information that surrounds us at the moment is shaped by this worldwide pandemic. It almost seems as though anything worth discussing needs to relate to the context of the virus. But then I am also mindful of the type of fatigue that we are likely to experience in terms of information overload and feeling...

We generally go through a number of points in our lives where we come to question our identity and who we are: we experience a shift in how we see ourselves, how we experience the world, and what our values are. This episode journeys on a philosophical exploration around what it means to reflect on ‘who we are’ as women and mothers. How we think about ourselves and our lives – both in our memories...

I talk about the process and practice of conscious mothering through The Good Enough Mother, but what does that paradigm look like when applied to birth? This episode is with Leisa Masters of Earthside Birth Services who is an online pregnancy and birth mentor. She works with women who wish to uncover what they want for their births and their lives, and holds the vision that women know themselves...

What does dealing with aggressive behaviour in your child look like when you're a conscious parent? In the first part of this episode I dive into what it means to parent from a place of consciousness and reflexivity. Why it is that so often our children – including the ways they behave – call us into doing the work of self reflection in coming to know ourselves more deeply, where our limits are, a...

What is it like to grieve the lost opportunity of motherhood? This week’s conversation is with Sarah Roberts who is a grief teacher and counsellor with over 25 years experience. After travelling her own journey of infertility for 10 years and living with the grief of involuntary childlessness, she now works to support women who are experiencing motherhood loss. We talk about Sarah’s work and journ...

Sociologists pull back the veil on lived experience and connect this experience with the broader social and cultural context that we live within. Diving into analysis and coming up with theories that speak to individuals’ experiences, we can give broader meaning to them, and this analysis can ultimately be used to provoke and propel social and cultural change. With this in mind, this episode dives...

Current notions of ‘self care’ are letting mothers down. Part of the ‘perfect mother myth’ is that mothers are self sacrificial saints who have responsibility for the physical and emotional needs of the family. Yet, they are also expected to prioritize their ‘self care’ in order to continue meeting the needs of everybody else. In our individualistic culture we ask mothers to advocate for their own...

This episode offers insight into what the research says on sleep training practices and frames the struggle with baby sleep as a structural and cultural one, rather than a purely individual one. I try and move the debate away from the divisiveness it can cause within motherhood, towards fostering compassion for parents while calling sleep training marketing tactics to account. I detail 7 ‘myth bus...

Sleep is one of the most loaded and controversial topics you can discuss within motherhood. There is judgement regardless of whether you sleep train or not, and I firmly believe all mothers are doing the best with the information and support they have available to them at the time. I know that not getting quality sleep can have severe impacts on our health and quality of life, but I want to shift...

In this episode I delve into research and evidence behind why the way we parent is so important – from a neurobiological perspective. I talk about polyvagal theory and why it’s important to understand as a parent, and the scientific benefits of holding our babies. I share research that gives insight into the interplay between genes and environment in our children’s development, and the power of to...

This episode is about injecting passion, energy, and power into you as listeners and as mothers. I open up difficult and controversial conversations around the lack of evidence-based information and practice that underpin many of our mainstream understandings of parenting and child-rearing. I talk about the paradoxical ways that in being ‘good enough’ mothers we can both strive to grow while also...

The move into a new decade is a great opportunity to harness this time and energy to be intentional about what you want for the year ahead and who you want to be. In this episode I share with you the intentions I set for 2019 – which ones worked and why, and which ones failed, and why! I think an important part of moving forward consciously is to look back at where we have been. Not with judgement...

This time of year and the festive season can bring pressure, expectation, sadness, a bubbling of grief, intense gratitude and joy, and so much more. Often, the emotional and physical load of organizing communities and families in this season falls on mothers’ shoulders. I encourage you to think of yourself as a ‘rebellious mother’ this festive season, offer some tips on how to embrace this idea, a...

Note: Trigger warning that there is discussion of my Dad’s death and some of the acute challenges that came with his illness. If you’re a listener with MND/ALS or support a loved one, please be mindful of this and know that you can reach out for support. There is a power in story-telling that goes far beyond what we recognize and acknowledge. It is the thread that ties us together as human beings...

Feeling guilt as a mother is almost part of an initiation process into modern day, intensified motherhood. There can be guilt from the moment of conception right through to being the mother to an adult child and a grandparent. Mothering more than one child is laden with feelings of guilt at the obvious impossibility of meeting every child’s needs right when they arise. This episode unveils what I...

You acquire certain skills when you mother children, and ‘maternal thinking’ is one of them. I describe this concept to you as a way of re-valuing the work of motherhood, and relate it to the weight of responsibility mothers carry in caring for children and running a household. This weight can be talked about in terms of ‘emotional labour’ and the ‘mental load’, and also relates to ingrained and o...

Big emotions from our little humans can make this season of motherhood so challenging, and parenting from a place of respect and self-awareness can often feel like an uphill battle. In this episode I dispel some of the myths of toddlerhood to give you insight into neurologically typical, ‘normal’ developmental capacity for young children to regulate their emotions. I reveal why ‘tantrums’ are purp...

This episode uses the motif of contraction and expansion to show how all of our lives mirror this process and cycle of challenge and growth. I connect the threads of birth, new life, childhood, major life transitions, old age, death, and grief. In doing so, we delve deeper into the role that contraction has to play in our lives – including through emotions such as anxiety and stress – and I offer...

This episode is a follow on from episode 8, which spoke about birth as a feminist issue, the cascading nature of interventions, and the latest in Australian birth research. In this episode I give insight into some harrowing accounts of birth demonstrative of the widespread issue of psychological and physical birth trauma. I talk about why the #metooinbirth movement needs to gain momentum and publi...

This episode is the first in a series of 2 that has been released following the release of a major research study, drawn from data that spanned 13 years and followed over 1 million births in Australia. I unpack some of the results from this study, critique the problem with ‘choice’ framing in the birthing context, and talk about the cascading nature of interventions in the birth system. Based on M...

Who are you? When you strip back all the labels and all of the ‘roles’, who are you at your essence? This episode explores this question, inviting you into greater awareness of yourself and the power you have to change your perceptions and therefore experience of this world. I also delve into a critique of this ‘mindfulness’ movement from a sociological perspective, but offer a bridge for understa...

Talking about how we raise our children can be a highly emotive – even moralistic – conversation. It feels deeply personal because of our relationships with our children, and the high investment (in every sense of the word) so many of us put into childrearing. Why this topic can be emotive is also connected with the ways motherhood sets us up for comparison, judgement, and critique – from both oth...