I’ve seen a number of posts recently encouraging mamas to ‘keep going even though it’s hard, even though you’re exhausted, keep going’. And I’m curious about what it is they’re encouraging us to keep doing. Is it not to give up on living? Or is it to keep running ourselves into the ground? I wonder…
Dear Maxine, I feel like a terrible parent. Recently, I have been so shouty with my child. She is just doing my head in. I feel like nothing I do for her is right and we’ve totally lost the connection we used to have. She’s angry all the time, which is making me angry all…
Dear Maxine, I love being a dad, it’s brilliant. I love my son and my partner and I want to be there for them as much as possible. But I am exhausted. I have our baby in the morning, go to work, come home, relieve my partner and then it’s bedtime/tidying time and I’m wiped…
Dear Maxine, Now that lockdown is easing and people can go out and do all the things they used to be able to, I’m starting to feel really boring and like I’m always putting a downer on plans, particularly with my friends who don’t have children yet. They are all really understanding and flexible, but…
Dear Maxine, I know this isn’t necessarily on the topic of ‘mum guilt’ or even parenting, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how I could make peace with my post-baby body. There are parts of my body that I used to be quite proud of and now they look totally different…
Why? Why would we want to notice our mum guilt? It already feels like too much. It’s painful and uncomfortable and we spend a lot of our lives trying to avoid it. So why am I suggesting it might be helpful to pay attention to it? The first thing that comes to my mind is…
When I wrote ‘8 of our children’s key psychological needs‘, I knew I’d eventually have to write the post about accepting feelings. If I’m honest, at the moment, I would say that this is the key psychological need your child has. I’ve put it off and I’m curious about why. Maybe because I know how…
