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