I have read insatiably since becoming a mother.. Something happens when you give birth to life, you just question and ponder everything. The only way I have absorbed such knowledge and understanding is by reading. My dream is to have an outside library so you can grab a book and read in the sunshine until your heart has absorbed every word with love. Naturally I have about 10 books on the go at any one time, the need for variation and something I can fit easily into 30 mins here and there.
Anyone who knows me well, knows I have an obsessive love of books, must be the writer brewing or bursting to come out! I almost buy a book a week, its my replacement for chocolate
I love reading about women, relationships, psychology, children, creativity and motherhood. I know I will soon write a book that incorporates all of those titles and my own expereince of them all.
One of the first motherhood books I found, after placing Gina Ford in the bin, was MAMA – Love, Motherhood and Revolution by Antonella Gambotto-Burke. She weaves personal experience, wit, strength and heart felt nurturing alongside interviews from knowledgeable and trusted experts in their fields such as Steve Biddulph and Sheila Kitzinger
Reading this book talked to the deepest parts of my soul, all the mothers I had been before. The wisdom rising up within like a well filling with water. Each chapter took me in a different direction, a new thought process of remembering and fiercely nodding my head in agreement.
‘So who mothers the mothers
who tend the hallways of mothers,
the spill of mothers, the smell of mothers,
who mend the eyes of mothers,
the lies of mothers scared
to turn on lights in basements
filled with mothers called by mothers in the dark,
the kin of mothers, the gin of mothers,
mothers out on bail,
who mothers the hail-mary mothers
asleep in their stockings
while the crows sing heigh ho carrion crow,
fol de riddle, lol de riddle,
carry on, carry on—’
Chorus by Catherine Barnett
Antonella really gets the root of nurturing, or lack of it. ‘The nurturance of a child is considered a squandering of the educated and the elite. Female high achievers now hunger for ‘challenges’ in place of connections’
The media coverage of mothers having it all; not letting their babies stop them, celebrities leading busy lives following the lime light instead of their children’s first steps. She sees the cultural implications on both mother and babies wellbeing, then adding in the science part of nurturing ‘But babies cannot be jump-started, and therein lies the fracture’
(This phrase shot me right through the heart… Having had a hard working young mother meant oxytocin levels may not have reached 5% within my own system) I used a whole highlighter pen to mark the words of meaning throughout this book.
‘We need to rally around mothers on an individual and cultural level, enabling them to bond with their babies so that the next generation does not suffer the wounds that have made ours so dysfunctional. Maternal vulnerability is neither indolence nor a sexist myth, but a normal response to our most sacred duty.’
Many parts of the book are written in conversation style with a back and forth. I like this style, a debate, a growing opinion that creates a conclusion. The content is both informative, scientific, spiritual, cultural, powerful and has a touch of fairytale magic – It really is a beautiful ode to motherhood and nurturing.
I urge you, read MAMA now and be part of motherhood rising – Join the revolution
It has inspired my journey into motherhood, touched parts of me I did not know existed and confirmed an ancestral knowing that runs deeply through my veins…. Motherhood is the revolution!! xx
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