Local Mom: Kelly

In celebration of Mother's Day, for the entire month of May we'll be featuring local moms of preschoolers and toddlers.

Today's Featured Mom is Kelly!
Occupation: Perennial student…this time, medical student.
Age: 38.
Number of children and ages: Four: Darragh 13, Molly 10, Aoife 6, Tadhg 3

When you were a teenager and you thought about your future life what did you think and how does the reality match up
??????????

What is the hardest thing about being a mom?
For me it’s Mornings! I am so NOT a morning person but as a mom you have to function anyway - get everyone up, dressed, fed, organized, bums changed, teeth brushed, hair done, permission slips signed, lunches packed, ballet shoes found – you just can’t opt out!

What is the best thing about being a mom?
The unconditional love you have for your kids and they for you in return. I never knew such all-encompassing, selfless love existed. Not to mention their warm, sweet bodies as they melt into your loving arms. I could stay there forever but unfortunately they won’t have it.

When you think about your parenting style, what words would you use to describe it?
Attachment parenting peppered with alternative spells of smothering and benign neglect…”go play now okay momma’s got to study” …”Can someone wipe Tadhg’s bum I’m in the middle of something” …etc.

All new mothers get lots of parenting advice, sometimes more than they want! What was some advice that you appreciated and would pass on to others, or alternatively, what was the worst piece of advice you ever got?
I had my first child in the Edinburgh. I was working in a fair trade shop, which was a bit of a hub for alternative people and lifestyles in the city. There I met some remarkable moms who introduced me to the movement that is midwifery, home birth, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, baby wearing, the family bed, real food, and natural childhood. It held intuitive appeal for us and we went for it, although we didn’t have much of a clue about anything! Fourteen years and four amazing kids later there is now a ton of health and neuroscience research to back this up and I am so grateful for that advice.

What is the one thing you wish someone had told you before you became a mother?
Something about the omnipresent guilt that is motherhood…What’s with that?

What kind of grown-ups do you hope your children will become?
Mostly just happy, but of they are also disposed to healthy relationships, lots of children, good food, social activism, well that would be dandy!

How do you keep a sense of balance in your life between being a mother and a person in your own right, or between your career and family (if you work outside the home)?
For me it’s been school. Part way through my first mat leave I knew that this thing called motherhood could swallow me whole so when baby number two was seven weeks old I started my masters. I’ve been in school ever since. The student life is great as it has given me the flexibility to be the kind of mom I want while keeping other parts of me alive as well. 100% motherhood is the hardest job in the word and I have a lot of respect for the superwomen all around me who embrace it full on everyday.

What do you do to ‘get away from it all’?
Study. As sad as this sounds it is my time to myself and on the plus side I find it invokes pity in others towards me rather than scorn, as frequent spa vacations might, which really seems to help with the guilt :o)