Woman in the Mirror
It is 2006, and I have just become a mother. I am enveloped by the primal power of childbirth, of doing what no man can ever do. After a difficult 17-hour labour and birth, I ask my husband Warren what it was like for him. He says he felt like a spectator. Helpless. I, in turn, felt like a warrior. Every moment of the pain had purpose. I took the deepest cuts and survived. Like billions of other women through time, I possess life-giving Power with a capital P.
And yet the narrative around motherhood does not fully acknowledge this. I wonder why women don’t organise to mandate universal childcare, but I don’t have time to go deeper into this question because my baby is in serious trouble. He has seizures that can’t be controlled. Doctors ask me and not my husband—am I an alcoholic? Am I on drugs? Do I have herpes and didn’t tell anybody? All the answers are “no” but make me ask myself the crippling question—is this
