The Good Enough Mother

Latest Episodes:

31. Beyond Sleep Training - with Carly Grubb Apr 20, 2020

Show notes

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 attending sleep school, and the ways she has used her painful and isolating experience to create what has become a groundswell movement of like-minded parents. The group Carly founded and runs with her team of admins and moderators – The Beyond Sleep Training Group – is approaching 100,000 members. The group supports biologically normal infant and toddler sleep, providing a voice against the tidal wave of the sleep training industry. We talk about the group’s formation, the ways it provides support, what goes on ‘behind the scenes’, what it’s like to run a group of this size, and what is next in stall through the work of the charity Little Sparklers. Part of this involves acknowledging the emotional work, unpaid labour, and personal sacrifices experienced by Carly and her team. This discussion extends beyond sleep training into our everyday experiences as mothers in this society. Having these conversations in public forums requires courage and vulnerability, but Carly’s passion for supporting mothers and babies, and her yearning to see institutional change has kept her going. This is a must-listen for pregnant women, Mums of babies and toddlers, and anyone who is interested in making our society better for mothers and their children.

30. A Pause in your Day Apr 06, 2020

Show notes

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 outbreaks, war, and long periods of social isolation. I break down her 3 stages of adjusting to a pandemic and talk about how they can help you. I hope for this episode to leave you feeling more connected to yourself and reminded of your resilience.

29. Screentime: research and integration Mar 30, 2020

Show notes

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 strategies if you would like to try and limit screentime, as well as ways of how to integrate screentime into your lives in ways that minimize potential harmful consequences. I also discuss how to deal with feelings of guilt, while offering a frank but honest account of the research landscape and how to apply this knowledge into our current context.

28. Self Isolation as a Single Mum Mar 23, 2020

Show notes

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 like we’re being saturated. With these two aspects in mind, this week I’m sharing what my experience of what self-isolation has been like in mothering my 2 year old without any available social support. I know this is or will be the position of many and so I felt it may be useful to share my experience as an ‘ordinary’ albeit privileged person, within our current context. Sometimes it can feel we’re lost within a sea of statistics and predictions, and it’s through individual stories that we can find anchoring and connection. I hope as a listener you are well and are weathering this storm and holding onto hope.

27. The 'Story' of Life and Letting Go Mar 15, 2020

Show notes

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, the present, and in the future -involves the creation of stories. I explain how this process of story-ing works and why the process of story-making and story-telling is so important in our own lives and the lives of our children. Part of this story-making integrates processes of ‘letting go’ that we move through in mothering, relationships, our working lives, and in grieving and loss. I talk about the meaning and construction of ‘family’, critique advice of ‘everything happens for a reason’, and reflect on the ways we can alchemize our pain, fear, and struggle to lead richer and more engaged lives.

26. Conscious Preparation for Birth and Motherhood Mar 08, 2020

Show notes

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 best. In this episode we break down what conscious preparation for birth actually means. We confront and raise difficult questions about how women deal with systems and often-oppressive structures, to arrive at what it actually is that they want for their births, their motherhood, and their lives. The way our conversation unfolds reflects the interwoven nature of birth, consciousness, feminism, patriarchal motherhood, individualisation, shaming, lack of choice, silencing, re-claiming, and the power we have in modelling for our children. The journey of birth preparation – and mothering – is ultimately about how we find and ‘be with’ who we authentically are.

25. Aggression as a Call for Connection Mar 01, 2020

Show notes

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, and who we can become. The struggle we have around our children’s behaviour has so much to do with our yearning for ‘control’ and the constant releasing of control that motherhood often entails and requires. I talk about the power of surrender, and speak frankly about the ways we can unfairly hold our children responsible for our happiness and wholeness. The second half of the episode reveals how these foundational understandings impact on how we can respond to our children’s aggression. I talk about coregulation and dysregulation, why our children lash out aggressively, and how you can respond. Part of this involves releasing the judgements you hold over yourself and embracing a practice of ‘good enough mothering’ in order to connect with your child in the ways they’re calling out for.

24. Grieving the Loss of Motherhood - with Sarah Roberts Feb 23, 2020

Show notes

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 journey, and grapple with what ‘motherhood’ really means in our society today. We discuss the value placed on motherhood and how our current models of ‘the family’ rob mothers, children, non-mothers, and the broader community of support and enrichment. Living through fertility treatments and involuntary childlessness brings with it a complex tapestry of grief, and we explore the ways that this grief can be exacerbated by isolation. We offer ways of having conversations as both involuntary childless women, and as mothers, so that we can create spaces to talk about these difficult topics. It is through grappling with discomfort and pain that we realize our shared humanity and open the possibilities for deep connection and growth.

23. Reconstructing Motherhood: Special Needs Mums Feb 16, 2020

Show notes

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 into some of the research I’ve conducted with mothers of children with disabilities. I want to give you an insight into these women’s experiences, because I believe mothers of children with disabilities are at the intersection of everything that is empowering about mothering, AND everything that is disempowering about motherhood. The work these women put into their mothering is unparalleled, and it’s not just through choice: it’s often through necessity. But the struggle and isolation they endure is mostly unrecognized, and often unnecessary. We need social, cultural, and institutional change to value the work these women do – and the work that all mothers do. We need to value unpaid care work. Despite living within a patriarchal model of motherhood, I argue these women’s stories show us how we can reconstruct our own experiences as mothers to experience our power and potency, despite the deep complexity and perhaps ambivalence that will always be inherent in the experience of mothering.

22. Embracing Good Enough Mothering as your 'Self Care' Feb 10, 2020

Show notes

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 self care when they are already drowning in the care needs of everyone else. Considering the interplay between society and the individual, perhaps there are deeper reasons behind our ‘need’ for self-care in terms of our sense of worthiness, and living out the gendered narrative we’ve been programmed with since we were little girls. I want to flip how we think about self-care in the context of motherhood and argue that it can be a way to push back against the rhetoric of the perfect mother and patriarchal motherhood. We do this through rejecting the individualized, commercialized idea of self-care, while embracing ourselves as good enough mothers.

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