Being a mum is the most important job in the world. While it’s a tough gig at the best of times, today, as we navigate our way through this weird and unprecedented COVID-19 health crisis, mothering feels extra challenging.

The world’s been turned on its head, and the way we’re living now would have seemed completely unthinkable just 6 months ago. For mothers this may mean practicing social distancing from not only our friends, but also from those family supports we rely on, such as grandparents. Households are isolated, and budgets are being squeezed by very real financial pressures as the workforce is deconstructed and reshaped. Mothers are now coordinating children who were ordinarily at kindergarten or school, but are now negotiating enough kitchen table elbow room to get their on-line schooling done. All across Geelong, throughout Australia and around the entire world it’s very often mothers who are steering families through these tumultuous seas, and looking for ways for their children to cope in a brand new world.

So here’s cheers to mums everywhere! You are champions!

Next Sunday is Mother’s Day and it will be unlike any other.

While social distancing orders may put a damper on our usual Mother’s Day celebrations, mums deserve to have their hard work acknowledged in some way, even with a very simple gesture. In usual times Mothers Day cards and home-made gifts were often created under the guidance of a teacher, but as that won’t be happening this year you may just need to prompt your own child to make a card or pick you a bunch of garden flowers. Do it unashamedly!

My four children are growing up, so I’ve had lots of Mothers Days. That means I’ve received oodles of gifts, everything from bath bombs to bouquets, from pot plants to pjs, from fancy chocs to fluffy socks. But the gifts that have endured, and are still tucked away in a special box of treasures, are the very simplest and least expensive… those sweetly wonky handmade cards with drawings and messages in childish scrawl. Even gathering a few to take the photo above tugged at my heart strings.

So gather some card making bits and pieces, and create an opportunity for your kids to make you a card. Enlist the support of a partner or older sibling if they are available - if not, then some completely unashamed hints and prompting may need to come from you!

You may like to offer:

• a blank card (maybe just cardboard from packaging or panels from a cereal box)

• paper (an A4 sheet folded works just fine)

• crayons, pencils or textas

• pasting bits’n’pieces (eg. old drawings, patty pans, magazine pages, leaves)

• a gluestick

• scissors
  

Seek help when you need it

If parenting feels really, really difficult at the moment, know that you’re not alone. Remember that even your own mother never faced a global health crisis such as this – this is history making and through our actions we’re writing the ‘guidebook to mothering in a global pandemic’. If you’re feeling completely overwhelmed it can be really helpful to talk to someone. Many women worry about what others may think about them as a person and/or mother, but the truth is that one way or another everyone has their struggles and admitting to yours only makes you human.

Pick up the phone if you need to, knowing that there are lots of people and services out there that can help. You could try contacting your own Maternal and Child Health nurse or health professional, or call a helpline such as one of those listed below:

• Beyond Blue Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing Support Service: 1800 512 348 (24 hours)

• Maternal and Child Health Line: 13 22 29 (24 hours)

• PANDA National Perinatal Anxiety & Depression helpline: 1300 726 306 (9am – 7.30pm M – F)

• Lifeline: 13 11 14 (24 hours)