Motherhood Our rights arent your wrongs

hello everyone

and welcome to my tedx talk the title of

my talk today

is motherhood our rights are not your

wrongs

as you’ve probably gathered from that i

am mum

i have three children my two sons are

currently aged seven

and nine and my daughter my baby

would be four in a few weeks time

motherhood completely transformed me

it helped me cast off the layers of code

and should

that i had shrouded myself in for well

ever really i had no idea

who i really was and i was full of

self-doubt

but all that changed when motherhood

helped me find

my gut no not the sadly larger than i

would like one thanks to all the cake i

hoped breastfeeding would burn off

but my intuition got

being able to listen to my intuition

and trust in my ability to know what to

do

really was life-changing but it wasn’t a

quick transition

actually at the start the self-doubt was

worse than ever

any parent out there will know the

tsunami of information that comes at you

from

all angles once you are expecting a baby

friends family healthcare professionals

the we woman in the supermarket lots of

people

with lots to say doing lots of confusing

and this is what i’d like to get you all

thinking about today

does the way that we try to help new

parents

actually help and who does it help

them or us

when i was pregnant for the first time i

had questions

lots of questions

is that twinge normal can i eat that

uh when is someone going to come and

tell me how this baby’s actually coming

out and stop with all this crazy vagina

nonsense

all parents want is one clear right

answer google reckon

that new parents perform 2.7 times more

internet searches

than non-parents i reckon google did

their research before i had my children

because i’d have bumped that figure

way up in fairness if overthinking was a

competitive sport

i’d be an olympian in all my searching

not one clear right answer was

forthcoming

now at this time i was also a solicitor

i knew about evidence and sorting the

good information

from the less good i knew that google

was not the place to turn to for advice

legal or otherwise but come on

how many of us have had a twinge in our

finger and consulted dr google

only to receive a fatal diagnosis

when the stakes are as high as making

the right choices for your baby

common sense goes out the window

when my eldest actually arrived things

didn’t get any easier

i was breastfeeding on demand but kept

hearing about schedules and

if he was feeding that often maybe i

didn’t have enough milk

my body made his food and was his

comfort and i loved that

but i kept hearing that he was just

using me as a dummy and i should really

set him down more

and as for sleep let’s not even go there

it all changed for me when some

wonderful women reminded me

about what i knew evidence

and good information when you are able

to identify

information that is based on research

and science

and is unbiased you can make

an informed choice you take the facts

apply your gut and get the right choice

for you

because here’s the thing opinions

are not facts marketing

is not evidence there has been one

aspect of my mothering in which this has

been particularly clear breastfeeding

i made the informed choice to breastfeed

all three of my children

and um that baby who’s almost four

still breastfeeding

now i know that when i imagine

breastfeeding

that will have provoked a strong

emotional response

in a lot of you breastfeeding is a topic

that can really do that in fact

when writing this talk it was a topic

that i thought i should really avoid

but then i realized that that was the

very reason i had to include it

because our experiences affect the way

that we help others

and this leads me to a story that i

would like to share with you all about a

mum i met a couple of years ago

at a breastfeeding group this encounter

had a profound effect on me

so this mum came along to the boob group

with her four-month-old son

needing help he was her second baby

and she had made the choice to

breastfeed her first son as well but

hadn’t received the right support to

make it work

so she really wanted to make it work

this time

she sat and told me about all the

challenges that they had faced

and how she had been dismissed by

everyone around her

family healthcare professionals had all

told her to

just give the child a bottle and said

things like but sure you weren’t

breastfed and sure you turned out just

fine

as undoubtedly well-meaning as these

people were

this is exactly what had happened the

first time around

and this mum had never stopped feeling

the pain

regret and guilt

of what she perceived as her failure

a lot of tears were shared that morning

i headed back to the office like an

absolute

bear i was

so angry at how this mummy had been let

down

and i felt like i too had just let her

down because i hadn’t been able to fix

it

however fast forward two days

this mum came along to another group

that we ran

she was worlds apart from the moment of

two days before

visibly brighter there was a light

behind her eyes that had not been there

just

two days before

honestly if i hadn’t seen it i wouldn’t

have believed it

she came and found me and was another

emotional encounter

she thanked me for all that we had done

and said that we had been

a lifeline but sure

we had done nothing

wrong we had

lessened truly listened

to what she had to say to her choice to

breastfeed her son

she was able to feel all those emotions

instead of having them suppressed by

well-meaning comments

like but sure doesn’t matter if he’s not

breastfed

it mattered to her

now she knew what to do she had

contacted her healthcare professionals

and made her voice heard

she had a plan she felt positive and

impart i

couldn’t believe it the power

of just listening

i’d like you all to think about a time

recently when someone spoke to you about

a problem

how much listening did you do

and how much talking

it’s only human to want to help we offer

our experiences by way of us solution

or solidarity but how often

when faced with someone who is upset do

we say things like

now it’ll be grand don’t be getting

upset

but does that help the person or does it

help us

because we don’t have to deal with their

uncomfortable emotions

there are another few examples of this

in mothering circles

birth trauma breastfeeding grief

and baby loss we try to soothe the pain

saying things like butcher haven’t you

you’re lovely healthy beer but isn’t

that all that matters

and fair is best hun

and but at least you know you can get

pregnant you can always try again

as well meaning as these platitudes are

they don’t help without a safe release

feelings get bottled up and eventually

they have to overflow

and when they do we project all that

hurt

onto the person in front of us

bottled up feelings faster

allowed a safe release just think of my

boob group mum

i hope you can see how our emotional

response affects the way we help others

but it really needs to be emotion out

information and intuition in

i think baslerman makes a good point in

sunscreen

advice is a form of nostalgia

dispensing it a way of fishing the past

from the garbage disposal

and recycling it for more than it is

worth

i hope if you can remember one thing

today

it is my boob group mum and the power

of keeping your mouth closed and your

ears open

parents have the right to unbiased

information

to make the right choice for them and

the right choice to follow through

on their choices not yours

because our rights are not your wrongs

thank you

you