Why bother with a blog?

It’s probably life’s biggest challenge: how to be a good Mum?

How to navigate through the noise and chaos of fact and fiction about breastfeeding, sleep-training and postnatal-blues, all while juggling raging emotions, drops in hormone levels, mind-blowing weight gain and most of all the huge responsibility for that helpless bundle of joy lying in your arms?

Rather naively I said to myself, “Hey, so many mothers have gone before me, this should come naturally, right?” 

Wrong. I was experiencing the purest joy and the deepest satisfaction gazing upon this new miracle, but with oxytocin coursing through every inch of my veins and flooding every cell in body, it also felt like I was drowning. Was this god’s great joke as I swung from happiness one moment to panic the next? I knew from my reading that it was not uncommon to feel like this, but I’d be lying if I said it was anything I was expecting or even ready for. Still, I was thankful for every moment and I knew I just needed to find the best instructions to help me maneuver my way forward.

It doesn't help that all the reading material on motherhood seems to have been written by women who’ve ‘made it’ and have the ‘winning formula.’ They don’t paint the ugly struggles of how hard it really is for an emotional wreck of a human being to deal with the stresses of caring for a new life. Desperate to do it right, I ploughed through the fields of insights by other struggling mums in groups, forums and the like, but every time I came up feeling like a failure. I found that there wasn’t just one way, but many varying ideologies all converging to confuse the hell out of me! 

So two beautiful babies and four years with the ridiculous dramas of life later, I’ve decided to write a blog; my survivors guide to being a Mum, to help us bumble our way through the discourse of parental advice and write what works for us.

I’ve decided to call it Leopard Mum because I’m trying to own my new very visible scars, which look very much like the beautiful markings of this agile creature (but more about this later). I’m not the tiger mum we know and grew up with, but the urban, new wave mum, finding my way (our way) through work, life and crying kids, keeping a straight face as we maintain some kind of normalcy, professionalism and balance, so that we can forge ahead to “prove it” to the rest of the world (who really don't give a shit), that we can do it all.

I’m lucky that my vocation is teaching design and design thinking and I’m practicing what I preach to help myself find solutions to the ‘Motherhood Challenge.’ Clearly it hasn’t been easy, but I think that slowly, through everyday learning, experimenting and struggle, I’ve found my ‘new normal.’ Writing a blog has made me more aware of the taking stock of the all the good I see in this journey, looking to find find the lesson in the bad, and not just dwelling on them. I only hope that through writing down my own, honest account of what I’ve learnt that other mums can find some sort of respite and inspiration in all the joy and madness of bringing a life or two into this crazy world.

Love the Leopard Mum.