I have to be honest – I’ve been struggling with my finances for years. And, it’s a little scary for me to actually share this  - what will people think of me – I like to live a life as if all is well but in reality I expected for myself to be so much further along than I am.

It’s not for lack of earnings – since we (my husband & I) moved to Melbourne almost 11 years ago, our incomings have increased but so has our debt. There have been a variety of out of the ordinary things that have contributed to that debt, but to be truthful, it’s just a reflection of an underlying pattern that needs to be eliminated for a permanent change to take place. Don’t get me wrong, we live a nice life, we’ve lived in great houses, we’ve travelled, we have nice furniture in our home and we eat at fantastic restaurants from time to time. I really just want our finances to change from spending more than we earn to spending less we earn while still enjoying a great lifestyle (and even more).

There has also been no lack of information consumed – books, seminars, blogs, from a variety of authors and “experts”. After a while all the information blurs together and starts to sound the same. I implement one plan and we seem to make headway for a while but then it all falls over and we revert to our old habits again.

Years ago I came across a book by T. Harv Eker called “Secrets of The Millionaire Mind” (I actually purchased the audio book) and I implemented some of the ideas from the book (how to divide up your income into various categories) and again, while it worked well for a little while, I think I was overly optimistic in how tight I could cut our living expenses and this eventually caused a rebound back to spending.

When you read the book (or listen to it) T. Harv does say his ideas shared in the book are a cut-down version and it’s really best to attend the “Millionaire Mind Intensive” Seminar. Unfortunately up until now, these seminars have only been held in Canada and the United States (and more recently in Hong Kong and Singapore). However, just recently I received an email to say that this seminar will be held in Melbourne and Sydney in September this year.

I’m quietly excited about attending – T. Harv promises that when you attend the seminar you will uncover your “money blueprint” and my desire is that once this is exposed, the tools throughout the course of the weekend will change that blueprint to one that will finally put my on the right path to financial success.

“It all comes down to this: if your subconscious “financial blueprint” is not ’set’ for success, nothing you learn, nothing you know, and nothing you do will make much of a difference.”

- Harv Eker

So if your finances aren’t living up to how you want them to be, come with me to the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar – I’m always eager to hear about other success stories

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Organic Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

Last week was my little boy’s second birthday and the first time I’ve made cupcakes for him.

It goes without saying that he absolutely loved them and couldn’t get enough of them and I felt a little bad because in the rush of preparing for visitors and a birthday party, I used a packet mix.

So to feel a little less guilty about allowing my child to eat chocolate cupcakes, tonight I made another batch of cupcakes and I modified a basic buttercake recipe (that I learnt in high school) to make my own “healthy” organic version.

I’ve recently been inspired by my friend Vidi who writes a raw food blog The Raw Recipe, to add some new ingredients to my pantry. So while these cupcakes are definitely cooked, some of the ingredients are ones that have been suggested to replace some of my regular ingredients to add a bit of extra nutrition to our diet.

I’ve been using organic eggs, milk and butter for quite a few years to minimise our intake of pesticides and hormones found in regular dairy and eggs and now I’ve found a great local organic store where I’ve sourced some raw cacao products (from a great company called Loving Earth) and Organic Panela (evaporated cane juice).

The Organic Raw Cacao contains potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium and iron and has up to 4 times the amount of antioxidants of traditional cocoa powder.

The Organic Panela retains the nutrients naturally found in sugar cane that are stripped away in regular sugar products. Evaporated sugar can juice only undergoes a pressing and drying process, so the natural qualities (carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins) are retained.

Enjoy chocolate mini cupcakes in moderation

Organic Chocolate Mini Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• Mini patty cases (more than 60)
• 175g Organic Panela (Evaporated Cane Juice) ground fine in a bamix mill to resemble caster sugar
• 175g Softened Organic Butter
• 3 organic eggs
• 125 ml organic milk (raw if you’re game & can source it)
• 1 tsp natural vanilla extract
• 175g Organic Self Raising Flour
• 4 Tablespoons Raw Cacao Powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 180? (or 350? – my current oven is ancient & in Fahrenheit but bakes beautifully).

Line a mini cupcake tray with mini paper patty cases.

Beat softened butter with the sugar in a mixing bowl until pale and creamy.

Add the vanilla extract to the milk.

Sift the flour with the raw cacao powder.

Beat one egg at a time into the butter and sugar mix until well combined.

Alternate adding the milk and flour, mixing well between each addition.

Spoon the batter into the patty cases (almost to the top) and bake for 15-20 minutes or until firm.

Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool. When cool decorate as desired.

My little boy doesn’t like the icing so they stay plain for him

Makes approximately 60 mini cupcakes.

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I’m about to indulge in my one hour massage and i’m wondering how I can make this a weekly occurrence?

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Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve shared any new on here – time really does get away when you’ve got a small child.

I have installed Wordpress on my iPhone and this is a trial run to see how it works. If it looks ok, it might just be the thing that will allow me to post on a more frequent basis.

The only drawback so far is typing on a little “soft” keyboard. I’ve had my iPhone for a few months now so I’m getting pretty used to the keyboard and my accuracy is pretty decent (with some help from the auto correct).

What tips do you have for getting things done with children around?

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Being a new blog, I would really love it if you could vote for New-Age Retro Mum – the voting starts on the first of September – you can visit Kellers’ site Fresh Eventure for more information.

And of course if you have a blog that you have started this year and it’s based on Wordpress, why don’t you nominate your blog – there are some great prizes and of course the extra exposure doesn’t hurt.

All the best if you are entering & if not, keep an eye out for an announcement when it’s time to start voting.

Cheers

Helena

Related posts:

1. Testing Wordpress on my iPhone

Well, I have a confession to make; I have been focussed on wanting to lose weight since I was in my mid twenties (so it wasn’t just the pregnancies) and I have to admit it’s all become a bit tiring. Admittedly back when I first met my husband, it was only 5kg (about 11 lbs) that I wanted to lose and over the last 12 years through two pregnancies and the stress of losing a child, it’s slowly crept up. I have been so focussed on the weight that I wanted to get rid of that I ended up with more of exactly what I didn’t want. My one saving grace is that I’m tall and I have great proportions, so the weight is evenly distributed – having said that though, I still want to be a size 12 again (I’m currently an Aussie size 18).

I don’t think you can go disliking the way you are and wanting to change for this length of time without discovering some things about yourself and the way you tick. What I have learnt about myself over these years is that I hate dieting or being forced to eat according to someone else’s food ideas. Some people wanting to lose weight are perpetual dieters, always looking for the next big thing in the latest women’s magazine. I have been able to change my day to day eating for differing periods of time on a few occasions according to what someone else told me was healthy and worked for them, only to fall back into my regular habits. Changing what you eat because someone else says you should doesn’t usually work very well. You really need to have a clear reason that resonates with you in terms of creating long lasting change.

Because I didn’t think it was eating that was my problem (I’m not a pack of Tim Tams a night kind of girl), I was searching for other reasons as to why I had this weight gain (emotional & hormonal imbalances) and my solution has usually leaned toward the exercise option. Now that I look back though, exercising for weight loss wasn’t sustainable (I thought it was torturous and I was planning to stop when I got to my ideal weight) and every time a personal trainer asks me to monitor what I’m eating (writing a food diary for a week) I just want to puke.

Side note: I don’t see the point of me writing down what I am eating – I already know the “right” things I should be eating, so during that week of writing, I would eat the “right” things but then go back to my regular eating after the monitoring period is over (not that my regular eating is bad, it could do with a little improvement just like most people’s). Ideally, you would want to have someone else monitoring what you eat without you knowing it – that is the only way to get an accurate reflection of current eating patterns.

What I’ve also noticed is that when I exercise because I want to lose weight, I make some progress, but then the results seem to get even further away from me and the motivation wanes very quickly and I think this quote from Esther Hicks (Abraham) sums it up beautifully – I didn’t have the inspiration from within:

Inspiration comes forth from within. It’s what the light burning within you is about, as opposed to motivation, which is doing it because if you don’t do it, there will be negative repercussions. Motivation is making myself do something that I don’t really want to do. Inspiration is having the clear picture of what I am wanting — and letting Universal forces come into play to get the outcome.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Spokane, WA on Wednesday, July 7th, 1999

The “Get Back into Shape” Plan

I decided during my second pregnancy that I needed a plan once I had the baby to get to my size 12 body.

During my first pregnancy I had some issues with my pelvis and particularly the pubis symphysis joint (see a full explanation here). This pain started in the third trimester and a course of Bowen treatments made a huge difference.

During my second pregnancy, the pubis symphysis pain started earlier in the pregnancy, so I started the Bowen treatments again but not soon enough, so the pain did get to a point where I couldn’t walk long distances. Each Bowen appointment I had relieved the tension in my hips and pelvis, but the underlying weakness remained and the pain wasn’t completely eliminated but it was stabilised so it didn’t get any worse.

While everyone around me was super impressed that I had a four hour labour and gave birth at home, I ended up having to go to hospital briefly to have the placenta removed. I don’t know why the placenta didn’t want to come out – perhaps emotional aspects surrounding the death of my first child and the fear of the same thing happening with this baby. At the hospital I couldn’t relax because the pain in my pelvis was excruciating and as much as I am against drugs, I ended up having a general anaesthetic so the placenta could be removed. I was told later that the placenta came out quite easily once I was fully relaxed – no surprise there. After giving birth, it took about a week before I could actually walk on my own & getting in and out of the shower over the bath was a nightmare.

So I decided to come up with plan for getting back into shape – nothing like extreme pain to motivate you into getting strong again. Briefly, this plan consisted of working my way up to walking 30 min every day, then adding in a couple of pilates sessions per week to strengthen my core, then moving on to strength/weight training to increase strength and lean muscle and burn the fat away. And I wanted to be back to at least a size 14 by Christmas 2008. Well, if that had all been successful, this post would have had a different title

Looking back now I can see the mistakes I made that meant I didn’t achieve my results:

1. I didn’t write my plan down, it was all in my head,
2. I didn’t write my milestones and goals down either,
3. I was swayed by what I read about “the right way” to lose weight rather than listening to my own body.

Over the last 4 months I have been working with a personal trainer to beat this body of mine into submission, to make up for lost time not exercising much last year and get back to a shape and size that I’m happy with again.

Well I have discovered that forcing myself to do something I don’t really want to do, does not create the results I want. For years now, various people (my husband, my homeopath, my NLP training partners and some work colleagues) have been telling me that until my head is in the right space, no amount of physical work would create the change I was looking for. As an NLP practitioner myself, I know this on a conscious level – that conscious change doesn’t create results – it’s changes on the unconscious level that create the spectacular results.

On some occasions I didn’t do any exercise other than the occasional walk or yoga class because I knew my head wasn’t in the right place, so what was the point of doing any serious exercise – it wasn’t going to have lasting change. I really thought though that this year when I started with a new personal trainer, the results were going to be amazing and permanent. After a two week holiday in Byron Bay recently where I walked on the beach every day for over an hour without feeling tortured (in fact I loved it and wish I could have stayed) I decided to give up on the personal training for now.

Get so fixated on what you want, that you drown out any vibration or reverberation that has anything to do with what you do not want.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Boston, MA on Saturday, October 2nd, 2004

After I read this quote, it really did hit me that when I do personal training, I am more focussed on weight loss and the negative aspects of my body, when what I really want is to be healthy and strong. I’ve also realised that the path to health for me doesn’t necessarily lie in full-on personal training sessions.

So what do I think is going to do it for me? Well I have noticed that in my life in general I have become more forceful and less flexible / go with the flow – I have been trying to make things happen rather than allowing them to evolve, so perhaps a physical focus of relaxation, increased flexibility and internal strength rather than external brute strength is a better path for me right now and will help my mind shift to that relaxed and flexible place too. It’s sort of a case of the chicken and the egg – what comes first, the physical flexibility or the mental flexibility? Well for now and the foreseeable future, mediation, yoga and pilates is how I am choosing to move towards a healthier body both physically and mentally.

Do you have to think specific positive thoughts about your body in order for your body to be the way you want it to be? No. But you have to not think the specific negative thoughts. If you could never again think about your body and, instead, just think pleasant thoughts — your body would reclaim its place of Well-being.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Orlando, FL on Sunday, January 10th, 1999

Are you doing what’s working for you? Share your thoughts and inspire someone else to follow their path

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The headline was sufficiently intriguing that I watched almost the entire hour of news, waiting to see what angle this article would take and it actually turned out to be different than I thought it would.

Any woman who has given birth and hears a man say that birthing women should “toughen up” would be tempted to give him a good knee to his private parts and then tell him to toughen up. Well, that was my first reaction anyway, until I watched the entire article, then my view of his comments changed completely.

If you haven’t seen or read an article about this then search for Dr Denis Walsh on Google – plenty there to choose from.

The basic angle of the story was that Dr Walsh (a midwife who has a PhD, not a medical doctor) believes women today are overly reliant on pain relief during birth (particularly in the form of epidurals) and that this administration of pain relief may impair bonding between mother and child.

I must admit, it was very brave of Dr Walsh to make such a bold statement given he is a man who never has and never will experience childbirth and the associated pain – in reading some of the articles on the internet and the comments left by many mothers, the views range from the predictable outrage that a man could say such a thing about the “sacred” event that is childbirth having never experienced it himself, right through to complete agreement with his views.

And I have to say that I agree with him too.

Now I’m not a doctor or a midwife (you can read one midwifes’ perspective of epidurals here) so I can’t comment on the medical aspect of his point of view. What I can comment on though is my perspective having had two different extremes of birthing experiences.

My first birth (8 years ago) was in a private hospital, complete with obstetrician, an induced birth, gas, pethidine, epidural, ventouse extraction of my daughter, an episiotomy, initial difficulties with breastfeeding and then a cascade of bad events during her short life, culminating in my daughter passing away well before her time at only 13 1/2 months of age.

In terms of pain relief, the epidural was not completely effective in eliminating the pain and because the majority of the bottom half of me was numb, pushing was inefective and this required the ventouse (vacuum extraction). Once you start down the path of intervention, it’s a self perpetuating cascade of events that can have a negative impact on the mother and baby.

On the other side, last year I gave birth to my son, at home. There was no obstetrician, only two midwives that I saw for all of my appointments, both of whom attended the birth. There were no drugs during the labour (which lasted only 4 hours), I used a birthing pool, (although my baby wasn’t born in the pool) and the only hiccup was that the placenta was stubborn and eventually required a trip to hospital and a general anaesthetic for it’s removal. I was in hospital for just under 24 hours and that short period of time certainly reminded me why I chose to birth at home.

My little boy has now passed that anxious 13 1/2 month mark (the age my daughter died), he is still breast-feeding and growing in leaps and bounds.

In my mind, this is a great outcome.

Birthing Choices

My decision to have a home-birth for my second child initially came about because of the nauseatingly bad experiences I had with mainstream medicine every step of the way with my daughter. You could almost say it was a knee jerk reaction that I never wanted to step foot in a hospital again or place my trust in a doctor ever again after Isabella died.

The experience of losing my first child was so traumatic that the only way I could move forward to even contemplate having another child was to do everything I possibly could completely differently to the first time around. For me this meant a home-birth, with midwives as my primary care givers and the barest minimum of appointments with a general practitioner (for essential blood tests).

Because I had chosen a home-birth and midwives to be in attendance, the option of pain relief via drugs was simply not an option – I would just deal with the pain. A friend of mine had used “Hypno-birthing” during her labour and while I had intended to give this a go, I never got around to it – I figured that I was a Master NLP practitioner, I could use the tools I had from my training and manage the pain myself. Looking back now, I wish I had done the Hypno-birthing classes & will definitely be doing them next time around.

Half way through the pregnancy I was fortunate enough to see the movie documentary “The Business of Being Born” – it confirmed my distaste for the medical system and their view of birth as a medical procedure. If you have an opportunity to see this movie, I highly recommend it. While the premise of the movie wasn’t new to me, what I did find very interesting was the shock and disbelief from a lot of the members of the audience who were in their first pregnancy and were not aware of how fear based the medical system really is. This wasn’t new to me – I’d experienced it first hand.

At this particular screening of the movie in Melbourne, we were lucky enough to have respected midwife Rhea Dempsey provide a brief introduction to the movie.

She explained the complex and miraculous hormonal processes that occur during pregnancy and labour and how essential these are to the entire birth process. Here are some of the things I learnt from her talk:

• being fearful and in a strange environment (such as a hospital) can drastically slow down labour,
• extending labour is detrimental to both mother and baby and may lead to unwanted interventions such as the administration of pain relieving drugs and even c-section,
• birth is increasingly being viewed as a medical procedure that needs to be managed in hospitals only,
• pain relieving drugs actually interfere with the delicate hormonal balance present during labour which ultimately does impact on bonding between the new baby and the mother (and father),
• women have been giving birth for centuries and it’s time for them to be encouraged to view the birthing process as miraculous and something that we do have the strength to participate in fully (without drugs),
• all drugs administered to the mother affect the baby.

Interestingly there were comments by doctors in response to Dr Walsh that there are no studies that prove bonding is adversely impacted by administering drugs during birth. Surely the increased number of cases of depression in children and adolescents, teenage suicides, increased teenage use of drugs and binge drinking all reflects that there is some breakdown in the relationship between children and their parents (parents’ ability to influence their children positively seems to be decreasing while negative peer influence is increasing). Is there is a correlation between the increased number of caesarians & the use of pain relief and decreased bonding and this increase in parent/child relationships later in life?

Some doctors also expressed concern that Dr Walsh’s comments were “dangerous”. I don’t quite know what they mean by dangerous, but what is more dangerous is women believing that the drugs are safe. No drugs are safe. When you agree to have drugs administered, you believe that the benefits outweigh the risks as per the information provided to you by your doctor. While a doctor may be able to provide you with advice on the risks, remember that ultimately you are signing a form that releases the doctor from any blame should an adverse event happen.

So basically, the doctor provides you with information about the drug (which has been provided to them by a pharmaceutical company representative in an attempt to “sell” the doctor on how fantastic this drug is), but ultimately takes no responsibility if something goes wrong.

Now I believe that each person should have the right to choose the care that they deem is best for them, and this choice should be made with all of the information available, not just the side the doctor wants to promote.

I think this is the whole crux of the viewpoint Dr Walsh has expressed. Women and in fact the majority of our society, have come to a point where they believe that pain relieving drugs and caesarians are the norm for childbirth, because this is what doctors promote as the “safest” birthing option and they downplay the negative aspects of this type of “interventionist” medicine.

Clearly there are life threatening situations where medical intervention is necessary – but this certainly doesn’t equal the current 30% caesarian rate Australia currently has. If women really understood the repercussions of choosing such heavy intervention when it isn’t truly necessary, I believe there would be a lot more women deciding on a more natural approach to the birthing experience.

What experiences did you had during birth?

If you have older children, do you think the type of birth you had has influenced the relationship you have between you and your child?

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Here is what I extracted from the email:

This is called the Perfect Day Exercise. It’s a preparation for living your life according to your highest heavenly vision.

If you could have an entire day filled with nothing but your most inspiring activities and dreams, what would it look like? Sit down with your journal and write out your perfect day exactly as you would most love it to be.

Schedule an entire 24 hours from the moment you wake up, whether it be 4am or noon. Have the sleep you want, see the sunrise or sunset from some beautiful place, eat the perfect breakfast, meditate, run, swim, exercise, study, have a massage, garden, dance, write, sing, travel, teach, serve, work, consult, speak, make love, dream, play …. this is your day. Whatever that perfect day is for you, map it out, pick a date, commit to doing it, and then go fulfil it.

First plan it for once a year, and once you’ve done that and realized it’s possible, raise the number to four times a year – once a season. Then go to once a month, and then work toward having a perfect day every single week. Increase the frequency until eventually almost every day of your life is lived in accord with your dreams.

Let yourself go with this exercise. It’s an amazing opportunity to think about what you love doing, and then to find out you have the capacity to make it happen. This is a day dedicated to doing exactly what your heart would love. If you don’t schedule it, who will?

That last sentence is spot on – “If you don’t schedule it, who will?” Every time I have opened up my notepad files, this exercise has been staring me in the face & every time and have pushed it aside thinking I didn’t have the time to put into it.

Then a few weeks ago I listened to a teleseminar with Wayne Dyer where he said that each day he swims, meditates, goes for a walk on the beach, does Bikram Yoga and writes – that sounded fantastic and I seeings I had a holiday in Byron Bay coming up, I thought that would be the perfect time to implement my “Perfect Day”

Well with one week down & only one to go before I leave Byron Bay, I still haven’t written out my vision of my Perfect Day – it’s almost as if I don’t feel like I deserve to have a full day to myself exactly the way I want it and other things (seemingly more important things) are getting in the way of writing it all down & then living it.

Even this afternoon when I had the opportunity to think about just this exercise, my mind was having a hard time staying on the task of creating my perfect day – flitting about, thinking about other things I needed to be doing. Even when I was maintaining some semblance of focus on the exercise, it was then a case of “what was the ‘perfect’ order of things to do for that day. Somehow I think I had missed the point – rather than thinking about what were the “right” things to be doing, I needed to think about what I really wanted to do. Is this just me? Or is it a “mum” thing – where we put everyone else first & have forgotten what it’s like to just think about what we would like to do?

Then other variables arise – my ideal day would be different depending on:

Where I am living

The time of year (season)

my level of health & wellbeing

my financial status

and, there are some things that I wouldn’t do every day, maybe only once a week – so then do I create an “ideal week”?

Aaargh – I think that I am “thinking it through” too much & need to just start on the exercise and make this day happen before my holiday is over.

So what is your “Perfect Day”?

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Children need to spend lots of time with their Dad's too

In my last post on “Housewife Superstars” I shared my beliefs about mums being at home with their children – I am aware that not all share this belief – each to his (or her) own – whatever works for you. This is simply my belief based on what I have experienced in my life.

I also commented that I thought that dads should be at home too and today I came across an article called “What About Dad’s?” that discussed the role that dads play in their childrens’ lives.

What memories do you have of your Dad when you were growing up?

When I was a baby, my Dad was working full time during the day, and studying at night. My Mum has told me that when Dad was studying, he’d have the door shut to the room where he was studying in the evening & I would sit or lie next to the door because I wanted to be with him. I don’t consciously remember this, but there must be some unconscious memory of it and a belief about what it meant to me because the tears are welling up as I write this. As I think about how my relationship has been with my Dad over the years, there has been a constant yearning for approval from him that perhaps stems from him not spending as much time with me as I would have liked. As an adult, I know that he was doing the best that he knew how.

Now that I have my own children and I’m experiencing being a parent first hand, it seems sad that traditional parental/gender roles dictate that the father/husband leaves the house to go to work for in excess of 40 hours per week to support the family, and to add insult to injury, he misses out on spending precious time with this family he is supporting.

I see the struggle my husband has between this need to create an income for us to live and the desire to stay at home with our little boy (who just turned one and is an absolute treasure). It’s not that we don’t have the tools available to us to be able to create an income stream working from home – we have multiple opportunities available to us, I think it’s more that he doesn’t (& maybe I don’t either) fully believe that this is actually possible. There certainly aren’t any men in our immediate circle friends that have this lifestyle that we could model. So now we are keeping our eyes and ears open for families where the dad does “work from home” and has ample time to spend with his children. We are looking for some inspiration and in return, we would like to be the inspiration for others who think this way of life would suit them too.

I know this isn’t for everyone – there are jobs that require a persons’ physical presence away from home – all I’m saying is that if this is you and you want something different, perhaps it doesn’t need to be for the full-time work week – it’s time to start thinking outside the box and really take responsibility for your own life and create it the way you want it. And if your first reaction is “but this is the way I want it” – that’s fine, but before you dismiss the idea outright, probe a little deeper, it could be that you’ve convinced yourself you want it that way because you haven’t ever thought it could be different.

Imagine how amazing this would be for children to have both parents at home with them – little children love being with their parents – they thrive from the attention they receive from their parents. Imagine how great it would be to share the care and upbringing and all the amazing milestones with your partner. You would both be there to see the “firsts” and if you weren’t it would be because you consciously chose to be elsewhere (maybe having a much needed massage or exercise session) and not because you felt you had to be at work. There would be no crying when little children are dropped off in the early hours of the morning at daycare, no crying when daddy (or mommy) leaves home in the morning to go to work, not to be seen again until late in the evening, parent tired and stressed from a day at work, needing his/her own space for some mental downtime – a child doesn’t understand this, all they see is that their Dad (or Mum) doesn’t want to spend time with them.

I find it strange that if the years of 0-7 (the imprint period) in a childs’ life are the ones where they are “sucking” in all their experiences like a sponge, why are they left to be cared for by strangers at a daycare centre (in the case of both parents working) or missing out on the input from one parent (in the case of one parent working and one staying at home)? Shouldn’t it be the parents having the greatest influence over their children?

Currently my husband works from home one day a week and I see how much our little boy Daniel loves spending time with Warren on the days that he his home. On the days that it’s just Daniel and me, we have a great time together and he adapts to his environment – that’s the great thing about kids, in the early years they just accept it, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be thinking about how this may impact them in the future.

In my ideal world, Warren and I would both be at home with Daniel (or travelling or wherever, just all together), spending time with each other, teaching Daniel about the world and creating the income to support our desired lifestyle. Having said that, I am still happy to be in charge of doing most of the cooking and half of the cleaning and I would still like Warren to be in charge of the “heavy lifting” types of jobs around the home, but as for “having” to go to work in a job, I think we’ll be finding other ways of earning money.

What is your ideal family/working/home situation? If you could truly have it any way you wanted it, how would it be for you?

I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. Is being a "Housewife Superstar" all cupcakes and roses?

For a while now I’ve been wondering where I fit in the whole hierarchy of womanhood/motherhood. I’m not your traditional “Stay at Home Mum” or “Housewife” like my mum was (dinner isn’t on the table at 6pm and Daniel isn’t bathed and ready for bed when Warren comes home). I also don’t have what you would call a career either – the thought of working for someone else has never really been my cup of tea (and my favourite cup of tea is Twinings Earl Grey).

Instead, I’m a wife and a mother, I own D-Zyne Solutions with my husband Warren, I create websites, dabble in share trading and I have my own Neways distributorship. This is what I term a “New-Age Retro Mum” (hence the title of this blog) because I strongly believe that a mothers’ role is to stay at home and raise her children (I also think dads should stay at home too, but that’s a whole article in itself) and maintain a sense of her own identity through whatever means she prefers.

I feel sad for the women who feel they have to go back to work once their 12 months of maternity leave is finished. In the 60 minutes article, I think the percentage quoted was something like 75% of mums who were working would rather stay at home and be a housewife if they could.

Of course no article about traditional gender roles would be complete without an interview with Germaine Greer – it was interesting to hear that she doesn’t agree with a woman’s perception that she needs to be able to do it all – be a great mum and have a career. Her view was more about independence and being true to yourself (well that’s what I took from it anyway).

I wonder where this premise of being the perfect woman (domestic goddess and career woman) came from? I know in my home, Warren (my husband) has told me countless times that all he wants is for me to be happy and then he is happy. If that means making him breakfast, lunches and dinners then great, if not, then he’ll make his own breakfast, sometimes lunch and we’ll work out what we do for dinner when the time comes. To me that seems overly simplistic – perhaps men don’t have as high expectations of us as we have of ourselves and our lives.

I was about to write that for me, it’s not enough to be a wife and a mother – I need something more than that – but why would I say that? In fact, I feel almost guilty saying that because I feel that someone reading this might take it to mean that I’m not happy being a wife and a mother. It’s not that at all – I love having a partner to share my life with and I am in awe of my little boy – the amazing growth that has taken place in the last 12 months since he joined us. What it is, is that I have other interests that drive me in addition to my family and I want to be able to pursue those as well. This is where it can be frustrating at times though – I want to provide an environment for Daniel where he can truly fulfil his potential (and I believe the best people for him to do that with are his parents) and I also want to put time into my projects too – it’s all about finding the right balance. And right now that balance would be better achieved if Warren was a stay at home dad and we both shared our time between caring for Daniel and creating income to support our family.

Have we perhaps come full circle and just as in fashion, the retro notion of being a housewife is in vogue again but with a modern twist? Just like in fashion though, I think it’s time to take the bits that work best for you and toss out the rest.

What do you think? Are you a stay at home mum longing for more, or perhaps a career woman wishing she was at home with her children? What works best for you?

Related posts:

1. Should Both Parents be at Home?