Mothers Day Special Feature

Hi All! It’s that time of year again when Mother’s Day is celebrated, this one day a year when in reality this should be celebrated like every day, especially for those mums who have two to six kids to take care of daily alongside their other mundane duties!

Photography: Magdalena Cserny Muscat at M & J Photo Studio International
Baby Luna’s clothes: Monsoon Malta
My clothes: Monsoon Malta/ Accessorize Malta
Jewellery: 202 Jewellery
Makeup: Daniela @ Melita Health & Beauty

My special Mothers Day Blog today apart from showing you these lovely outfits from Monsoon and Accessorize Malta is to talk about motherhood especially in the light of raising awareness about our voices online. I am blessed to be the mummy to a 2 year old daughter called Luna and I’m just about getting the hang of things. I am a career mum with a good support system and yet I don’t feel very confident giving advice about how to raise children and to give special tips because I still feel I’m at the very beginning of this beautiful journey. I can only tell new mums to find their own way of doing things and to try to keep calm in every situation, one day after the next. When I need help which is quite often, I tend to search online for help for example when I need to do things I have no clue about and I find online blogs and groups extremely helpful. So I extend my gratitude to all Mum Bloggers out there for maintaining this online content – you are truly awesome!

The rising wave of voices we hear from blogs, online motherhood groups, message boards, Instagram and Facebook posts and the comments sections in parenting articles are definitely no longer confined to silent tones over coffee meetings or conversations over lunch breaks. Women everywhere across the globe are speaking to each other about their triumphs, challenges and bodies with a level of public enthusiasm like we have never enjoyed before.

Our similarities as mothers outweigh our differences. We ALL love our children and want what’s best for them, even if our methods for achieving that can be completely different. We all hurt sometimes, behind our smiles and positive shoutouts, even if the pain presents itself in different ways. We all want to be loved and appreciated, even if we each bring different strengths to the table. I am so proud to be the mum to my daughter and I just hope that I will raise her to the best of my efforts. I admire each and every mum out there. Before I had a child, I never realised what a lot of work is involved everyday and I never knew this feeling of warmth in my heart when your child smiles at you, when they starts talking and starts interacting in the cutest of ways. Of course, they yell and cry and do all sorts of drama and some mums have more problems than others.

Online Voices

When some of us are brave enough to tell their story, it opens the doors for other women to do the same. With every voice invited to these conversations, it gets a little more real — more honest, more raw, more informative, more realistic and more alive. Thank you mummies (and involved daddies) for this!

With that free for all responsability though also comes an unspoken call for persons who but into conversations without positively contributing and that makes me irritated and I immediately detract from following these conversations.

In a world where many of us are raising our children in our own way, where the lines between work and home life are confusing, where raising kids is getting more expensive and more challenging — we need, more than ever, to support each other as women and as mothers and not become negative persons to mothers who were previously your friends. Be good to eachother. We are ALL in the same boat, a boat with different sections and power engines maybe but the AIM of our transport system is the SAME – we are all MUMS to children who need us to set the right examples.

I was brought up by a loving mum, a very traditional Maltese mum who raised me and my two brothers unconditionally. She did not work as she was always a full time mum and I don’t need to wait for Mother’s Day to appreciate what she has always done for me and my brothers. She is my rock and it is from her that I learnt the power of unconditional love -giving without expecting anything in return, hiding pain behind a smile and fighting against all odds to keep the peace – all in good faith and with good intentions.

On Mother’s Day, I raise a glass to all MUMS and I’d like to just raise awareness about the Power of our Voice or the Silence of our Voice Online.

So please — for the sake of all of you who have joined this blog today to read what I have spent time writing from my heart, please help to contribute our understanding of each other and our love for our children — strive to speak a language of reliability, development and love.

If your need to be heard is more important than the message you are conveying, you might be doing it wrong.

If you notice a differing opinion as a personal attack on you or your beliefs, you might be doing it wrong.

If you think you can be cruel because you are hiding behind a screen, you may be doing it wrong.

If you feel the urge to shame another mother because she’s doing something better than you, you may also be doing it wrong.

Let’s make a few changes online if we have not done them already.

It extends beyond us in the women whose newfound voices are giving them the courage to petition for improved maternity leave policies, accessible and affordable postpartum care, and child care in the workplace.

The sooner we stop hurting and silencing each other, the sooner we will step forward together. When we hold ourselves to a commitment of mutual respect and a heartfelt obligation to pull each other up out of the trenches, the conversation gets richer and more full of promise for both us and our daughters.