I got sent ashes

I have been sent many strange things over the past year. I’ve had many offers of strange things. People send me very strange emails.

But getting a jar full of ashes is my weirdest thing.

I received a jar of ashes from a family home that was destroyed by fire.

I felt – feel – ill about it. I took the ashes outside. I left them out there. I don’t want that bad juju in my house. I know misfortune or horror or awfulness isn’t contagious but even touching that jar made me feel nauseous. It held a family’s world inside, their possessions, all the things that made a house a home. I couldn’t help but look around and imagine my photos, art the boys had created, our clothes, furniture collected over the years, the decorations from my friend’s baby shower that I threw almost a year ago that are still up (I’m exceptionally lazy) reduced to ashes and put into a jar.

My mind thankfully stopped me from imagining fire and my son asleep in his cot downstairs.

So I put the ashes outside and tried to ignore them. But I kept thinking about the family whose house was reduced to those ashes. I thought of Cathlyn Paala. She was looking after her three nieces – six months, two, and six when her house caught fire and burned to the ground.

Because of her smoke alarm, she saved them. They’re alive because of a smoke alarm.

I know that smoke alarms save lives. I mean who doesn’t know this. And so I felt exceptionally foolish when I had the following conversation with my husband:

Me: Do we have smoke alarms?

Husband: I think so?

Do they work?

I don’t know.

When did you last test them?

When did you last test them?

We need working smoke alarms.

I’m a working smoke alarm. If there was a fire I’d be able to tell.

I gave my husband a look like:

Then I read to him from the accompanying letter that came with the ashes. “People lose their sense of smell when sleeping, making them vulnerable to dying as a result of toxic smoke inhalation long before flames can even get them”. And “Fires are extremely quiet in their early stages and only begin to make any noise once the fire is already well established”.

When my youngest is awake I’ll be testing the fire alarms. We moved to this house when Eddie was six months old. He’s now three and a half. So while we have smoke alarms, we haven’t tested them in years.

I asked my husband why we never tested the alarms and he said – I don’t know. We just didn’t.

I’d like to say it was because we were too busy with the kids or something but it is what it is. We just didn’t. They were just there and we saw them and subconsciously must have thought “Well, there are fire alarms in this house so that’s sorted” and thought nothing more of it.

It’s horrifying to think that there are 3,200 house fires every year. And worse still to now know that 80 per cent of house fires the New Zealand Fire Service attend have no working fire alarms.

I know that somewhere we just decided a fire could never happen to us.

But I’m reminded of the things that have happened to us that I never thought would ever happen to us. Things like the car accident my husband was in when he 24. The car accident that almost killed him and our best friend. Their car was hit by two trucks and a car on the Desert Road. I was waiting for them in Tauranga and I received a call saying there had been an accident involving someone who owned the phone they were calling from. My father worked for a media organisation at the time, he called the newsroom and was told there had been a fatal accident. For a desperate half hour I thought the love of my life or one of our dearest friends were dead. They miraculously survived. I never, ever thought my son would be born with a health condition. That he’d be unable to breathe. That a cold would nearly kill him. That he’d need surgeries and we would spend the first two years of his life in and out of hospital.

You always think – not us.

But I know better now. Well, I thought I did. So when the baby wakes I’ll be checking the fire alarms. And I’ll be making sure if the worst happens to us – we won’t lose our lives or the lives we are entrusted to protect.

Thank you to the Fire Service. I can’t believe I’m thanking someone for sending me bad juju ashes. And also, I don’t know what I’m meant to do with them now – I would like to not have them.

Tips from NZ Fire Service:

• Regularly check your smoke alarms and their batteries.
• Have an alarm in every bedroom and main living area on every level of a house.
• Have an escape plan in the event of fire, including a safe place to meet.
• Once out, don’t go back inside, even to call 111. Call 111 from a cell phone or from a neighbour’s phone.
• If you leave the kitchen, turn elements off
• Check on elderly relatives, friends, and neighbours to make sure they have working alarms.

OK SO I CHECKED THE DAMN ALARMS AND NONE OF THEM WORK! Check your alarms! Check your alarms! Check your damn alarms!

The world is big

My three year old talks about the world he will live in when he’s “Big”. Big people drive cars. Big people don’t go to school. Big people have jobs like being a garbage colepter or blowing up balloons or digging big holes or filling cups with water. Big people can go to the park whenever they like. Big people don’t have to eat their dinner. Big people go out when it’s dark. Big people go to bed whenever they want.

There is a utopia in his mind of what life will be like when he is an adult. He cannot wait to be out in that big world when he’s Big.

But I can wait.

I am scared. I see the news and I’m scared.

I’m scared of how big the world is.

I don’t know how to parent in a world that is so big. A world that is so scary.

I struggle with the small stuff – how do I get him to eat his dinner? How do I get him to stop running off?

There’s the stuff you think is bigger but it’s not – how do you teach patience? Resilience?

The big stuff, the biggest stuff, is this – how do you protect them and protect others?

I know more kindness, more love, less entitlement, less hate is what we’re told. And those words ring hollow sometimes. I try to take comfort from them but it’s so hard. How do we rise above slogans?

What can we as mothers do when the world is hurting? What can we as mothers of boys do about the fact that so much of the violence in this world is perpetrated by men in a culture of toxic and fragile masculinity?

This is not a post where there is an answer. It’s not a post that ends with a cathartic laugh.

There’s no joyous – Me too!

There’s no snark here.

It’s a call. Of some kind.

To make a world where all of our children are safe and all of our children keep others safe. I’m sure that’s what we need for this big, big world.

We need a big heart for this big world.

I want to pledge now that I will parent knowing my child is going into this big world and he will have choices – choices to harm and hurt or to walk gently and powerfully with hope in his heart and love for others. I will parent knowing he is going into a world with your children too, that they need love and protection and respect – they need to be kept safe as I hope my son will be kept safe too.

I pledge to always hold your children in my heart too. To teach my children about consent, respect, and unity. To teach them about their privilege and how that fits with their place in the world. I pledge to parent them with peace and in kindness in the hopes that as they grow they treat others with peace and kindness.

I know I won’t always get the small stuff right. But I’ll try so hard to get the big stuff right. And in the face of so much brokenness, so much breath-taking sadness – What else can we do?

What else can we do except say – not here. Not my home. Not my children.

I will pledge to love not only my children but all children. I will pledge to make my home a home for all. I will pledge to do something that brings words to life and into action.

Keep our children safe and keep the world safe.

What else can we do when the world is so big?

Put down the pitchfork

I wasn’t going to write about it. It seemed everyone else had written about it. I made a passing comment on Twitter and my mentions became unmentionable. Inevitably the suggestion that I don’t love my children popped up, by a mother of five no less…

I thought – that serves me right for talking about it. Even in the most gentle way. I’d simply said I wanted to hug the mother of the little boy who fell in the gorilla pit. I’ve thought about her often since the event. I am scared for her. I’m scared for her physical safety. And I’m scared for her mental health.

Often I find myself feeling overwhelmed by the few horrible comments I get on Twitter or in my inbox or here in these comments. The ones that say “I feel sorry for her kids” because I made a comment they didn’t agree with. It’s the easiest insult because it hurts the most.

But what would it feel like to be the subject of memes where they use racial slurs against you and say you should be shot? What would it be like to have other mothers screaming that your child should be taken away? What would it be like to hear there is a fucking petition to try to get all of your children removed from your care? To read over and over and over again that you’re a piece of shit. That you’re neglectful scum. That a gorilla is a better parent than you?

What would it feel like to have your entire life as a mother erased in an instant? Every kiss goodnight, every lunchbox prepared, every game of peek-a-boo, every blanket tucked in, every cuddle, every hand pressed to a fevered forehead? All gone.

When would all of those horrible, hate-filled voices become your own? As you recover from the most traumatic and terrifying thing you’ve ever been through? As you try to parent through this?

I wouldn’t be able to cope. No way.

And I’ve looked at all of this – this hatred and hysteria – and I’ve felt a deep fear.

If you think you could never be that mum you’re wrong.

Any misstep you ever have as a parent, any moment as a mother, any time you are less than perfect – you’re at risk.

If someone sees you, if something happens – you could face what this mum is facing now.

Because this is the society we are living in. The braying mob is waiting. They need women to tear apart and mothers are great for this.

Because we fuck up. We all do. Show me a mother who hasn’t ever fucked up. Show me a human being who has never fucked up.

And they’re ready to catch us and begin the punishment.

This isn’t about a gorilla. It’s about the need for a mother to be publicly and seriously punished for not being perfect.

And race absolutely does come into it. This will be a far harsher attack because this little boy’s mother is a woman of colour.

And every time we say “that would never happen to me” we’re putting another stone on the pile. Ready for it to be flung at her. To cause as much damage as possible.

When you say “that would never happen to me” you’re really saying:

Dear god, I hope that never happens to me.

When you say “I have five kids and I never turned my back on them once” you’re really saying:

I have to imagine that this isn’t something that could have happened to me.

Because of course you do. It isn’t as fun to tear another human being apart if at the back of your mind you know that it could have been you.

This is the same reason why women disbelieve other women when they talk about rape. If you believe it doesn’t happen often or at all, that it’s an anomaly – this violence against women – you believe that it won’t happen to you.

We think we can magic up a world where we are safe. Where our children are safe. A fair world. A just world. A world where there’s no way people will talk about us and say that we are neglectful and we deserve to have our children taken from us.

If we judge others. We might not be judged.

If the crowd is busy hanging this woman. They won’t see my inattention or my imperfection or my failures and attempts and fuck ups.

But they will. It’s luck of the draw.

And if it happens to you – they won’t care that you were one of them the month before when someone else was being punished.

You won’t be one of them then.

And what does this do to us a society? When our default isn’t support for mothers and care and empathy and compassion? When we don’t ever even attempt to understand the nature of children? When our default is hatred and seething madness? When people are frothing with excitement when a mother fucks up?

It was hard enough when as a parent you were concerned about what age you should start solids, whether your child was getting enough sleep, if they were reaching milestones…

It was even harder when you had to deal with everyone having an opinion on everything and that was difficult when it was people you knew.

Then it became people you didn’t know who for some unknown reason really cared about whether you breastfeed or bottle feed your baby and what type of car seat you have and is that a jolly jumper?!? And then there was how you get them to sleep – the only thing you can be sure of there is that you’re doing it wrong.

THAT was bad enough.

And now you add infamy and weeks of public flagellation and death threats and petitions.

What impact does this have on mothers?

We’re trying to build villages and they’re being burned down.

What can we do?

DON’T PICK UP THE FUCKING PITCHFORK.

It’s that simple.

When you start to say that would never be me consider if that’s really true.

Stop.

Cuddle your baby. Finish the washing. Go back to work. Call a friend.

Don’t contribute to this hate and don’t contribute to this culture.

We probably can’t end this mum-shaming and this hatred of women. But we can at least not participate in it. We can at least extend a hand to those who are being destroyed and say:

It could have been me and that scares me – but I won’t join in and I want you to be OK.

We are not different you and I. Don’t let fear divide us.

The Just Fucking Doing It Club

When I was pregnant with my first baby I would often ring my sister and bitch and whine about how tired I was and how hard everything was and how I hated being pregnant. I absolutely cringe about it now because I literally moaned about being pregnant (kind of relentlessly) to another pregnant woman who already had a child to look after.

There’s a hierarchy around complaining when you’re pregnant (and also around sleep – as in, if you wake up once a night I don’t want to hear about it, go tell someone whose kid is sleeping through the night) and as I wasn’t a parent yet (and I was also a dick) I didn’t get this.

My sister is a very patient woman. Particularly when it comes to me. Which is handy given how much I must test her patience.

On one of the days when I moaned to her (to make matters a hell of a lot worse she was VERY pregnant and ill and I was just a bit pregnant and ill) I said to her: “I don’t know how you do it. There’s no way I could cope without being able to nap as soon as I get home from work”
I just….what a dick. Honestly. I was such a dick.

Not taking my sister’s sigh as a polite shut the fuck up now I decided to double down and say:

Really, how do you do it? I would just be so tired!

HELPFUL!

Then, and it’s stuck with my ever since, my sister said “I don’t know, you just do it, it’s not like anybody else is going to do it for you”.

At the time I was really committed to being annoying so I just said some more annoying stuff like WELL I AM JUST SO TIRED I THINK I’LL HAVE A NAP! YOU SHOULD HAVE ONE TOO!

Like, it’s a blessing my sister doesn’t live in the same country as me, I would full on punch her in the face if she told me to have a nap when I was super pregnant and running after a small child. But she wouldn’t say that because she is the brains of the family.

Luckily, she didn’t jump on a plane and punch me and she didn’t even yell or anything (she was probably too tired, or quite used to me being annoying).

Fastforward to being pregnant with my second baby and running after my first and one day at work someone said to me:

I don’t know how you do it! I get so tired when I have a late night and I’m not even pregnant!

And my sister’s words came back to me.

Every time someone says “I don’t know how you do it!” or “You must be exhausted! How do you cope?” or any variation of this I hear my sister’s voice and I just think:

You just fucking do it. You just do.

And you know what – it is fucking impressive but also – it is what it is.

We are the Just Fucking Doing It Club.

Nobody gets shit done like mothers do. The fierce determination, the focused energy, the quiet and methodical mahi of parenting – mums are killing it.

When you’ve got to work because nobody else is going to pay the damn bills.

When you’ve got to get through that kindy drop off because shit has to get done.

When you’ve got to get through the day with a fucking smile (or 8000 smiles) after three hours sleep.

When you’ve got to get the lunches done even though you’d rather be watching House of Cards and having complex feelings about whether or not you’d sleep with Kevin Spacey if you were really drunk and somehow a Washington intern even though he isn’t actually hot at all but that scene with the Father’s Day thing that was gross right but also kind of hot? BUT DEFINITELY GROSS RIGHT but hot?

When you’ve got to get to a Plunket appointment then to Rock n Rhyme and get six loads of washing done then make your midwife appointment and entertain your toddler in the waiting room for 40 minutes.

When you’ve got to finish the newsletter for your kid’s co-op while your toddler tries to maim himself by climbing up the pantry shelves.

When you’ve got to somehow get the baby to realise pamol isn’t poison so you can bring down a temperature while you try to make a doctor’s appointment but you keep getting put on hold.

When you’ve got to fix the wheel on the buggy and make sure the baby doesn’t chew through the cord for the TV.

When you’ve got to sort the phone bill and pair up all the socks and listen to your three-year-old’s complex story that ends with “SO WHY DON’T YOU HAVE BALLS DEAR MAMA?”

When you’re sure you’ve got nothing left and you just want five fucking minutes but that’s not going to happen because your baby needs to watch you poo like seriously they seem to need this more than anything they’ve ever needed before.

When you’ve missed the fucking bus or your car needs a warrant of fitness and you have to get to a job interview.

MAMAS ARE JUST FUCKING DOING IT.

No matter how shit the sleep was, no matter how exhausting the morning was, no matter how hard it was to get the kids out the door to start the day – mamas are just fucking doing it.
And they’re doing it with grace and love and compassion.

When they’ve got nothing left to give mamas are still giving.

Giving to their kids.
Giving to their partners.
Giving to their family.
Giving to their friends.
Giving to their community.

So on the days when everything goes wrong, on the mornings after the nights that were agony, in the afternoon when you’re so tired you feel like it hurts to move – remember you’re doing it. You’re fucking doing it even when you feel like you’re a failure. You’re not.

Look at you – you’re fucking doing it.

I know it feels sometimes like you’re not doing it well. I know it feels like everyone else is doing it better. I know you want to be the best mum you can be.

You’re fucking doing it.

When the kids are crying and you’re overwhelmed remember: You’re fucking doing it. Right now, right here you’re getting shit done and you’re just fucking doing it.

This life is you, you’ve made it and you’re making it.

Never forget that. When you get a chance to stop and drink some cold coffee or tea, if the kids get to sleep and you get to pour a glass of wine or fuck it, a gin, make sure you take a moment and say:

FUCK YEAH I’M FUCKING DOING IT.

You’re doing it so well that everyone around you is just like how does she do it? How does she cope?

And you can stand up and say:

I just fucking do it.

And, just so you know – you do it really fucking well.

For my sister who always just fucking does it and who inspires me to just fucking do it too – I’m sorry that I was a dick. I love you Joey x

If you liked this or any of my other posts and you want to support me you could put my name forward for events or get people to commission me for writing or you could make a one off donation or support me through my Patreon account. If you’ve supported me by sharing one of my posts, making a comment, or making a donation – I can’t ever thank you enough. Ngā mihi nui. E x

The mother of assumptions

I can cope well enough with some of the ridiculous feedback I get on my posts. The people (let’s face it – the men) who send me their thesis Everything Wrong With Your Article That I Don’t Care About At All…

Oh how they don’t care. They don’t care so much that they fill up my inbox with all of their not-caring. They insist they don’t care – aggressively (and in the most boring way possible).

Here’s 287 bullet points about how I don’t care at all about what you said. A rebuttal of every line that lasts a century.

I didn’t read the article but…

I don’t have kids but…

Because I’m wrong. So wrong. And everyone knows you cannot ignore an opinion you don’t agree with. You must (it’s your duty you must) say something.

Even if all I’m saying is I’m tired they’ll say ‘Well, actually…are you tired or are you exhausted? Because these are two different things and actually….”

Those I can take. I can laugh off (or at least sign deeply) about the man who told me that the laughter of children annoys him. I can ignore the person who told me I’m raising feral kids. I can roll my eyes at the woman on Twitter who has to subtweet every time I write anything (I give her life and I sincerely worry about what will happen to her if I stop writing). I can disregard the comments that say I don’t value myself – that I am trashy and embarrassing and gross and talentless and fat (if you see a fat person you must point out they are fat, otherwise how will they know?)

I even agree with some of the things they say about me.

It stings when someone says I’m a bad mother. Particularly if they land that blow on a day when I really feel like I’m a bad mother. It pricks when they say that my children are better off without me. Maybe because I’ve had days when I’ve thought that too. I chuckle when they say they feel sorry for my husband (I do too). It bothers me when they say that I exploit my children and that my children must hate me.

But I can handle those. Most of the time. I don’t like them, but after a year of abuse they’re starting to roll off me. Not really water off a duck’s back. More like washing play dough off your hands in the sink. It takes a while to get it all off, it’s sticky and messy. And you wonder why you ever fucking made play dough when it’s such a pain in the ass (I’m going off topic).

No – the thing that upsets me is the assumptions made about me by my fellow mums. The ones who also have it tough with wee ones. The ones in the same boat with me – trying to get up this creek without a paddle – or a broken one at least.

“Get back to me when you have a child who doesn’t sleep through the night”

“It’s easy to say that when you don’t work and you’re just hanging out at home. Some of us need to sleep”

“You’ll change your mind when you’ve got more than one child”

“If she had a job she wouldn’t have time to whinge so much”

“I’m so sick of her articles – she is so judgemental and she is bullying mums who aren’t perfect like she is”

“She’s one of those crunchy hippy mums who hates formula and c-sections”

“You might feel differently about vaccination if you knew what it was like to have a sick child”

“You’d be grateful if you knew what infertility was like”

Sometimes I feel like throwing in the towel. Because I keep getting told we are all in this together but somehow I’m not part of the togetherness…I feel like an outsider when I read some of the comments other mums make about me. I wonder why I’m not considered worthy of the benefit of the doubt. Or why they can never assume positive intention in my writing.

The assumptions hurt. And I’m not sure how to get past them.

Anyone who reads my posts knows my kids don’t sleep. Yes kids – I have more than one (but frankly, that doesn’t matter and it’s shitty to attack people for not being tired enough or overwhelmed enough. There’s no hierarchy – If you’re exhausted the response should be, “How can I support you” not “Well you don’t have two so shut up”).

The posts you’re reading on the Herald are work – that’s my job. Along with two other jobs. Yes I work three jobs and look after my children because that’s what we do to make ends meet.

I don’t know how anyone could think I think I’m perfect given the most common theme of my blog is:

What the fuck am I doing?

Yes, I breast-fed my second son, but I couldn’t with my first son. I love formula! Yes, I had an unmedicated birth – but I’ve never called it a natural or normal birth. That kind of language is language I’ve rallied against because they seem like value judgments – as if other births are unnatural or not normal. I vote Green but that’s probably due to lack of options. I don’t recycle so I don’t know what makes me a hippy.

I don’t even like dolphins.

I tried for four years to get pregnant with my first son. I was under the care of Fertility Associates for two years and I had three surgeries – so I know a little about what it’s like to feel truly and deeply that you’re never going to have the life you feel you can’t live without. But I don’t write about it because when I was trying I hated hearing people with children say to me “I was infertile! It will happen for you!” It felt unfair – it pissed me off. And it’s not a true statement for every woman. Sugar coating fertility hurts people. So I don’t do it. I boost the voices of those women who are living that life now instead.

And I am pro-vaccination because of what my sons have been through with their health. I don’t have the privilege of being anti-vaxx. I don’t know anyone who has seen their child unable to breathe on their own who then says “oh you know whooping cough is just a cough!”

Assumptions.

Assumptions ruin everything.

All of the assumptions people make about mothers, about each other – they stop us being able to connect. They burn down the village. They keep us lonely and isolated.

When you have little information to go on – don’t assume the worst in people. I know it’s hard – I have to actively try to stop myself. And here’s why I do:

The one thing that has keep me afloat in this whole crazy year of weirdness is my circle of mama friends. My coven. We are all really different women – and sometimes I wonder how we ever found each other in the first place.

But I’m so glad we found each other.

We looked past all of the bullshit assumptions that stop you from taking that step to say Hi, how are you? Is that your little one? How old?

For whatever reason they looked past my scatteredness, the awkward jumbly way I talk – my social faux pas, the way I dress (Soccer Mom Dressed as a Goth for her High School Reunion) and the fact that my foot is always protruding from my mouth.

They gave me a chance and I gave them a chance. And now we really, really are all in this together.

I try my best never to assume now. When I see and talk to another mother and my brain starts up, wanting to sort them into that kind of mum or this kind of mum (that need for order is weird and we all do it) I force myself to stop.

I remind myself what happens when you close yourself off, only see the worst. Make assumptions that put someone into a negative light so you can’t see any good in them. That darkness we created keeps us from each other.

I remember that it would be a tragedy to go through this time as a mum new in the world all alone.  That if there’s one thing I regret it won’t be the way I parented, it will be that I didn’t reach out because I was too busy assuming the worst in people when I could have opened a hand and a heart…

I stop myself. I start fresh:

Hi.

Is that your little one?

How old?