Australia Day celebrations, as we know them, are about celebrating the best of what Australia has to offer: golden beaches, national parks, many of the world’s most liveable cities and a culture founded upon the ‘She’ll be right, mate’ mentality. Australia Day is our national day, marking the anniversary of the First Fleet of British … Continue reading Australia Day
A friend yesterday confided to me that her nineteen year old daughter has come out to her as being gay. Believe it or not, I cried as she told me. I cried even more afterwards. I was stunned at how much it affected me, and it’s only just now, the day after, that I’m figuring … Continue reading Growing Up
She stood out, not just for the time of day it was, but for the location we were in. She was a young, attractive mum, probably late twenties, dressed in a dark blue sundress, matching summer hat and white Converse sneakers. The bark-covered ground was wet and boggy which I thought mustn’t have been great … Continue reading Tough Gig
I feel like a coward. I keep teetering on the edge of ‘Coming Out’ at work, but then I keep finding that the opportunity doesn’t present itself. Even when it does, I sidestep it. I don’t think I’ve been ready. Over the last couple of weeks, however, I’ve started to feel differently. It’s coming, I … Continue reading Out of the Box
I’m often asked if how I feel about my eight year old Master M is any ‘different’ to how I feel about my biological kids. The answer is a resounding no. I carried him but he isn’t my child biologically. My partner at the time went through IVF and had her eggs removed, fertilised with … Continue reading The ‘Oven’
“When it comes to generating writing material, teenagers are gold. Their world is a narcissistic, anarchic, paranoid hell of anxieties and stresses about how they look; how popular they are or aren’t; and how fast or slowly, big or small their private parts are growing […] Lifts and pocket money aside, teenagers crave privacy – … Continue reading So Many Baskets
Now here is a contentious one for you... I write this entry with as much care and sensitivity as I can muster, having already experienced a taste of the polarising and colourful reactions to this ‘land mine’ of a discussion. I stumbled into this issue for the first time about fourteen years ago, completely by … Continue reading Donor ‘Siblings’
It’s a sign of growing old, I am sure, but I regularly think about my younger self and wish that I could go back and give myself a few timely words of advice. I also wish that my younger self would listen. Growing up, I hated my body. Forget that it was the only one … Continue reading Russian Roulette
It was one of the best, but also one of the worst years of my life in 2003 when Master Z made his way into our world. I was 36 weeks and 4 days pregnant and had suffered lower back pain all day. Thinking I needed to lie down, I went into the bedroom to … Continue reading Earlymark
Parenting is a drug. The highs are amazing, euphoric even. The lows: the worst come down ever. Nothing makes you confront your own feelings of inadequacy and fractures your sense of self-worth like a teenager with a bee in his (or her) bonnet. That same being you held to your breast and nurtured, that you … Continue reading Drug of Choice
My Rainbow Tribe 
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