“You’re a better parent the more yourself you are.”

As a stay-at-home-parent I really agree with this comment; though I am not always true to it. My first child was born when I was 29 and I can’t say I ever really found the right career for me before then. However, I did have many interests which I’m still very passionate about. When my four year old daughter talks about different jobs, and what she’ll do when she’s older, she asks, ‘What will you do when you grow up, Mummy?’. This is so cute, but has so much more meaning that she realises.

She sees her Daddy going out to work every day, but me at home. I really see the importance of her, and her younger sister, seeing me as more than just ‘Mum’.

So, I talk of the different jobs I have done and of my interests. I explain that some of my interests aren’t easy to follow at the moment (such as extensive days away enjoying adventure-sports in the New Zealand wilderness) but I’m looking forward to doing them again and introducing her to them too. I’ve started to do this in little ways – we go for local walks and get involved with local conservation groups. I’ve taken her to the local climbing wall and shown her videos of what I used to do.

I have other interests that are more easy to manage with young children – in music, the arts and literature – which are wonderful to share.

Being a full-time Mum is something I totally adore, for the meantime, and I can see myself working with children in the future.

It is so important to keep a hold on ‘who we are’ and continue our own journey of self-discovery; as we marvel and guide our children on their own.

I don’t think that women who say they’ve been transformed by motherhood are saying that they can’t or won’t be themselves anymore. I think the comments by Ms. Moore are very presumputous and rude. Mothers were mothers before her and they will be after her; her ideas about motherhood are NOT the end-all-to-end-all perfection.