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Last September, I sat with my mum as we lightly amused ourselves over some gin and tonic. My sister and her boyfriend had just bought a dog that was unusually large for a pup. Due to his size they had spent the better part of the week scavenging for appropriately sized training gear. It was fascinating, the lengths they went to for something as trivial as a harness, and in the humour of it all I commented how the pup was their first child. ‘They’re nesting’, my mum replied in a straight forward tone that surprised me.

Up until that very moment, I’d honestly never made that connection. Not seriously at least. Since they were still young and they had not been dating that long (surely) and a myriad of excuses. But those words have been seared into my head.

They’re nesting.

A few weeks after the conversation with my mum I was taken aback again at a friend’s birthday picnic. It was a warm spring day in October, as Sydney emerged out of our second lockdown. We sat harbourside on bright tartan blankets, as small talk graduated to mingling. Soon the topic of everyone’s future plans began swirling around. ‘I want to have my first kid at 26’, said an acquaintance, ‘28 at the latest’. I almost did a spit take with my cider to the news. But we are still so young and you have not even been dating that long and… I was 23, and still had not been in a serious relationship before.

But here was someone ready to settle down.

In that moment I became keenly aware that most people present were coupled up and had been for years. But not me, not I, not now.

They’re nesting.

Sometime over the summer, my mum beckoned me into her room to show me something. She was enthusiastically participating in a late spring cleaning of her wardrobe. She handed me a box of envelopes filled with photographs of our family in Europe. Images of my grandparents when they were still middle aged standing proudly next to a 1970s buggy. Or the younger versions of my mother’s siblings posing on ruins in vast green fields.

But from of all the envelopes, I was drawn to a specific one.

Faded into a strange yellow, the envelope contained tender images of a trip my mum had taken to Greece. She would’ve been in her early 20s and had gone with a gang of university friends. They were sweet and gentle depictions of youthful friendships. Of days lazing on armchairs, drinking beers on a rooftop bar, of pale women laid out on pebbled beaches overlooking the Aegean. I stared at the photos intensely and saw my mum in such an unrecognisable attitude. I had a hard time grappling with who the person was. Like everyone has pondered at least once, I became keenly aware about how my presence had changed her.

How being a mother had changed her. The clock had just ticked over to November 1st as I sat in a friend’s Surry Hills share house, unconvincingly pleading to a separate sober friend to drive me home. We had known each other since high school, which is how the other two present had met. We were a quartet, two guys, two woman. Two straights had since coupled while us two queers remain single. The couple sat next to each other on the sofa, as I haggled over a free ride and the host was dancing like Stevie Nicks to an EDM rendition of a traditional Hebrew song.

After the music was turned down and some combination of segue conversations I do not remember, we arrived at the subject of baby names. The couple, of course, had a list. A thorough list, which we debated the pros and cons of. There was a mention of marriage as the two cuddled up next to one another.

They’re nesting, I thought to myself but this time with less urgency or dread.

I was accepting a new normal.

It was a late February night when my phone buzzed with a notification from ‘the girls’ group chat.

‘Guess who in our year is now pregnant.’

You could imagine the collective gasps through the phone. Within moments this expectant mother’s Instagram was stampeded by a group of five women who had vaguely known her in high school, and their gay male friend just trying to feel included. Collectively we perused through her page like pretentious art critics with pursed lips, analysing her photos. At one time we would be congratulating her, sending handwritten letters or maybe even banal ‘Congrats!’ Facebook messages. Instead, we flicked through the self-published catalogue of this woman’s last few years, tracing a line from the first time she posted her current partner, to the day old announcement. There was a sense, I was seeing her final years as a free woman. Witnessing the countdown till the day her life would change. Her nesting period was over, she’d accepted her new normal.

She’d nested.

I often think about that girl in the photographs. The one on the Greek holiday relaxing on the beach, her film camera pointed at her smiling friends. I wonder what she thought. Had she always planned on having children? Did she always want her first child at 30 or had her timeline been pushed back? Was she worried she would not be good enough of a mother? Is she happy with where she ended up? Or am I just projecting?

I harbour all these fears for the future, but I am also totally absolved of them. I can never bear children and as a gay man I have made peace with the idea of being the fun uncle. But I look at my friends, at their partners and my sister, and wonder the burden they may carry. The personal, societal or structural pressures they must be under, to make a choice. To make the choice. And not decide too late. A few weeks ago I found myself again in the living room of my friends’ shared house. This time loudly explaining what I like to call the Marly & Me effect. The phenomena of straight couples adopting a dog as both a surrogate baby but also as a pre-proposal proposal.

A way to broadcast to the world ‘We want to get married and start a family’.

I was with the same group as before, minus my high school friend. Both listened to me rattle on, one sat on the sofa eyebrows cocked, the other descended the stair fiddling with her dress’ strap. ‘Does this have anything to do with your sister?’ My sofa sat friend asked and partially yes.

In January, my sister’s boyfriend had become her fiancé and I genuinely couldn’t be happier for them. But they are only the most recent example of a trend if I look back I began noticing in 2009.

‘I just think if you want to get married and have kids, don’t bring a dog into it’,I said to no one in particular. My friends shared a curious glance, and the one still fiddling with her dress replied, ‘Well dogs are a much more of a commitment than a family, you can’t share custody of a dog’.

I changed the topic and we left soon after for cocktails.

by Nial Herron

The Power of CHOICE

Please note that all names in this article have been changed for privacy.

The ‘Zoom’ profiles of seven pregnant women clutter my laptop screen like the Brady Bunch. This little social group, from the Inner West of Sydney, could not be more diverse. Some cup mugs in their hands while others scroll through their phones – Natalie*, a woman in her first trimester, unmutes and asks the group about their birthing plans. If there was no pandemic, the answers may have been more unexpected. But as Covid-19 continues to scorch the nation, many of the women in the group lean towards a homebirth.

A doula, in my own bed, in a position of my choice, with the people who love me the most.

The history of birth goes a long way back of course, to the very beginning you could say. The history of a woman’s choice for how she wishes to give birth has changed throughout the ages and been influenced too.

In the 17th century, a special reclining bed for childbearing women was designed. The bed was in no way created for the comfort of women. Instead, it provided physicians a convenient way to deliver a baby. French doctor, François Mariceau, claimed in his book that women birthing on their hands and knees, kneeling, or standing made the job for physicians harder. And since then, lying down on backs has become one of the most popular positions for childbirth. However, the trend was mostly rooted in Western ideologies like England, the US, and Australia. In Western Africa, the most common practice in history involved squatting or sitting on a birth stool. In China, women gave birth vertically.

The pandemic is not the only reason why women are choosing to give birth at home. Losing the freedom of choosing how one gives birth is something that many women fear, and is why those in the social group were turned off by the idea of giving birth in a hospital environment. I spoke to a midwife, Anna*; she recounted to me an encounter she had at the train station after a long shift. “I think my biggest fear of giving birth at the hospital is that I won’t get to stand up or move around. I’ll be confined to a bed,” a woman nearby Anna said.

But this is not the case anymore, and Anna could not help but correct her.

According to Anna, the way in which maternity wards operate has changed dramatically in the last decade. In the past, the norm involved the woman coming in, being sent to a room to lie in a white-dressed cot and then, once the time to give birth got closer, have an epidural administered. But now, women can customise their birth plans in a way that works for them. That means, choosing things like a position that is most comfortable for them, who is in the room, what they wear, and what kind of pain relief they are given.

Birth is a feminist issue. Despite these ground-breaking changes, birth is still not always a positive experience. Many women report that they felt abused and violated at a time when they were most vulnerable. They felt objectified and made to feel like an incubator.

I want to have the power to control what happens to my body when I give birth. I feel like that’s the bare minimum.

‘Power’ was a common theme discussed within the social group. However, the conversation did not only revolve around being in control during birth. Despite the meeting happening in a virtual space, ‘power’ was a feeling that resonated through the room. Jane*, who led the session, explained that everyone in the group supported each other’s decisions to choose their own journey into motherhood. She went on to clarify that previously, she experienced judgement from other mothers about her own decisions about her body. Jane started this group through reaching out to mutual friends as she wanted a place where she could openly discuss her wins, qualms, and queries without feeling isolated.

“Everyone experiences things differently. Everyone experiences birth differently.”

As the group wraps up, the women discuss whether the new The Batman is age appropriate for a ten-year-old. I expected a heated debate to ensue. But the ‘you do you’ fashion of the group remains.

“All mothers experience motherhood differently,” chuckles Jane, as she ends the meeting.

by Ashleigh Ho

CAT DAUGHTER

We drove out of the Yagoona RSPCA empty handed. I was devastated. I had fallen in love with a little ginger kitten but Mum wouldn’t let us adopt him because he had the cat flu and “we are not adopting a sick cat.” I remember crying angry tears, almost giving up completely on the idea of having a cat of my own. Mum, however, was not giving up.

We were heading over to the Rouse Hill RSPCA to try our luck again. On our way there, the car in front of us had stickers of cats and cat paws all up the back window.

Mum excitedly pointed, “Look, it’s a sign.”

When we got to the next RSPCA, I was immediately intrigued by the ball of black, orange, and white fur curled up in the corner of her cage. When I pushed my face up close to the bars, she simply got up, stretched, and turned her back to me. Mum ushered me along to look at some of the other cats. I sat in a small room with three more mature cats. They walked all over my lap and dug their claws into my thighs. None of them were the one.

When the aloof calico was brought out for me to meet, I held her tight in my arms, supporting her back legs and bottom. She placed her two front paws crossed over one another on my shoulder. She was poised and elegant and she had to be mine.

The 6 month old calico, Layla, was coming home with us. We changed her name when we adopted her to ‘Toula’ - like Toula from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, because I’m a good Greek girl. However, when we brought her home, Toula just did not seem right. Mum suggested ‘Loula’. She has been my lovely Loula lady ever since.

Being fourteen at the time, I did not realise the importance of the name Loula. Loula was my Mum’s mum who died when Mum was just ten years old. My Loula in my eyes was the embodiment of a woman; she was my woman. I would like to think that Mum’s Loula would be proud of the three women that honour her memory.

As my mother has raised me to be a strong independent woman, that is how I have raised my cat daughter Loula. I give her space to explore the garden and turn her white tummy up to the sky to be warmed by the sun. She is very talkative and we often have conversations before her dinner. She will meow at the front door until she is let

“Meow meow meow.”

“Coming Loula.”

“Meow.”

“How was your day honey?”

“Meow.”

My favourite thing to do is meow back to her and talk in meows for a while.

Just like any mother, I worry about my girl if she goes out at night for too long. There have been many times where I have stood on the front porch of our home and called her name, wondering where on Earth she is. She is usually really good - sometimes all it takes is a few pspspspsps for her to come running back to me. Other nights, I am out in the driveway yelling her name like a lunatic.

“Loula.”

“Loooouuuula.”

“Lou Lous.”

“Miss Loula.”

“LOULA!”

I would come back inside defeated and complain to Mum. “Honestly, does she know how late it is? I have been calling and calling.”

After some time of worrying, a quiet meow would slip under the front door, and I would rush over to let her in and get her ready for bed. Loula would rub against my legs as a thank you.

My cat is the love of my life and I am hers. I am able to bury my whole face in her tummy, and kiss her all over with little to no protest - just the occasional little squeak with every kiss. I do know when I’m giving her too much love, because she’ll give me a loud meow with this tone, as if to say, “Okay Mum, that’s enough.”

The mother-daughter relationship is always a complex one and that is no different to the one Loula and I share. I have been woken up in the middle of the night with incessant meows by her to be fed a midnight snack. I have been heartbroken when she does not want to spend time with me. I have been pleasantly surprised when she hops up on the couch next to me, curls up by my side. My mum brought us together and if it was not for her always wanting the best for me, Loula and I might never have happened.

by Anthea Wilson

MUM OF PUPS

How Adopting Dogs Changed My Life

If I am being totally honest, I did not think I had a maternal bone in my body until two years ago, when this little guy unexpectedly came into my life.

Meet Dexter – a half Maltese Shih Tzu and half Poodle dreamboat that completely melted my heart. The craziest part is, I did not even want him at first.

Long story short, in 2019, my brother brought him to our mum’s place when he was just ten weeks old. A few months down the track, his life got pretty hectic. Suddenly, Dexter was at my doorstep.

I was annoyed. My life was pretty hectic, too, and I had no idea how to take care of a pup. At the time, I was barely even managing to take care of myself. Little did I know, what felt like an unwanted responsibility would turn into one of the greatest love stories of my life.

From our first day together as Mum and Pup, I was surprisingly hooked. Sure, there were moments I didn’t appreciate. Like when the shoelaces on my Vans disappeared, or that one time he peed on my treadmill... but no matter what, I loved him. He became my son, and after all, he still is.

Flash-forward to the start of 2022, I went from not even wanting one dog, to wanting two – a little brother for Dexter. So came Simba, the newest addition to our family. My little half Japanese Spitz and half Pomeranian prince, who recently turned one.

Unlike Dexter, who was adopted from one loving home into another, Simba was a bit of a rescue mission. He was being treated, let’s just say, not-so-nicely at his former home. This broke my heart, because he was genuinely the sweetest, most loving pooch ever. It took a little adjusting, but he and Dexter are now the best of friends.

Growing up, I always felt a little strange compared to my friends. If someone told my younger self that one day, I would be a proud dog mum, I honestly would not have believed them. I never saw myself having kids, and I was not too keen on pets either.

Before Dexter, I could not recall a single time I gushed at the sight of a cute puppy walking down the street, or melted over a picture of a newborn baby. As some people would say, I was “missing the mum gene”. Now, my feelings have changed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to imply that raising dogs is synonymous with raising children. That being said, being responsible for these two incredible creatures has unleashed a side of me that I did not even know existed – a side that is more patient, more selfless, more affectionate, more... dare I say... maternal.

As for what the future holds, I can still declare with confidence that there are no babies on the horizon... but more dogs? Absolutely.

by Amy Davidson

PARENTING THE WESTERN WAY

There is a formidable, solid image of the Western family. Little children dream of it residing in their sprawling, multi-storeyed dollhouses: a married couple and 2 to 4 children.

There is a lot of room in the dollhouse for a variety of movements, perhaps the mother and father smoosh faces in the master bedroom, and the tallest child raids the fridge in the kitchen. On and on like this, there are always more rooms than people. More space than needed. The mother is in front of the television and the toddler is in the attic and the father is in the bathroom and the tallest child is in the laundry. And in between, exists the vacant yet junk filled rooms with dust as the only residence. So much empty space and distance between lives. What a dream.

The structure of the nuclear family is fostered as a goal of Western parenting, propelled by the middle to upper-class economy. In this proverbial dollhouse, there is a lot of empty space, but it is there to remain empty: it cannot be filled by smoking uncles or wisecrack grandmothers or rattling cousins. Perhaps a dog will do, if not in a room then at least on the carpet yard.

Western parents strive to isolate their children in the name of independence and authenticity. They pride themselves in letting their kids revel in their own sense of control, offer freedom in the form of late – or even nonexistent! – curfews and customised meals. In many ways, the kids are treated as adults. Of course, independence is an invaluable skill to impart to your child – but when does a child’s independence become a corruption of childhood?

In the community I grew up in on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, my teenage friends were initially granted notes and coins of money from their parents for a school lunch or Saturday mall trip until, gradually, they all got part-time jobs. Once the parents in my community saw their fourteen-year-old children blitzing milkshakes at the local cafe, that was it for them – job done! Parenthood: achieved. No more handouts, no more pockets of rattling coins.

The kids soared into the workplace and valiantly announced they were saving for a car. They paid for their own school lunches and Saturday mall trips, their own haircuts and school uniforms. They eventually bought their cars and drove themselves from one suburb to the next, rushing against the wind with their profound freedom. When seventeen became eighteen, a couple of kids in my class even had to begin paying rent to their parents for living in their house. A hundred bucks a week for sleeping in your childhood bedroom. The nuclear heirloom was inevitably passed on: the shame of being associated with your own parents.

While I cannot begin to imagine the responsibilities, burdens, and joys of parenting, I cannot help but think that parenting a child into independence can quickly become parenting them into isolation.

With a Latin American father, I grew up with different family values to my predominantly Western community. Unlike my friends, I was not trained to reach independence. I was taught to prioritise family time; family – the collective – is everyday life. Many families in Latin America live in their extended, interconnected forms, all living under the same roof or on the same street. Children are not expected to go to sleep before the adults – family time in the evening is critical.

I have a memory, which often bewilders me with concern for my twelve-year-old self, of my family taking my sister and me to a bar in São Paulo around midnight. This would almost be impossible in Sydney, as nighttime is reserved for independent, free adult time. In Brazil, there is no such distinction: nighttime is for a reunion after a day of work, for everyone. While this Latin American value of family is often labelled as “loyalty,” it can much more simply be described as “connection.”

In Western families, the extended family is an accessory at worst, a holiday at best. For the lucky few, the extended family is a next-door neighbour. The nuclear family is a private, convenient space that disqualifies the responsibility of familial obligation. What capitalism has so fabulously advertised as the nuclear family is, if we take a step back to see the bigger picture, actually a fragmented family. It is unsupported by the web of generations that many families in Latin America and elsewhere proudly lean on. In retaliation to capitalism’s insistence on hyper-individualism and its perpetuation of hustle culture and productivity, we as a society need to allow Western parents to feel a sense of pride in building a supportive web of people around them. We should not be obliged to live harmoniously with our blood relatives – lineage is often an archaic and colonial ideology, especially in the way of pedigree and political inter-marriage – but there are certainly people we can choose to be in our family, to re-centralise the idea of connection and collective in our daily lives.

The structure of Western parenting is almost always not a design of the parents themselves, but a financial, cultural, and social ideal. The architecture of Western parenting – the dollhouse – does not have to be demolished, just simply re-purposed.

Fill the rooms with multiple barbie dolls. Keep the doors open at night.

If we consider an atom, it is incomplete if it is to be only represented by its nucleus. Us atoms need our electrons, our relatives, our people.

It is what gives us electricity, magnetism, chemistry.

It is what brings us to life.

by Bruna Gomes

PARENTING THE EAST ASIAN WAY

Parenting in East Asia is not only about how parents raise their children but also about the expectation of returning the favour. In different regions and societies with different religions, the traditional belief creates a close dependence between parents and children; thus, creating a life cycle.

A life cycle in taking care of each other through generation.

Parents raise their children in order to let their children take care of them when they are older and even in the afterlife.

In traditional Vietnamese society, Confucianism deeply influenced family relationships. It has been rooted in Vietnamese society with other Chinese ideologies since the beginning of establishment of the country.

Confucianism blended into daily life and formed the traditional connection in majorities of Vietnamese families based on its original description about relationships between husband-wife and father-son with “loyalty”, “patriarchy”, and “filial piety”. This belief system had grown deep into Vietnam throughout history until modern revolutions exposed and swiftly changed the Vietnamese antiquated belief, culture, and society.

AN ANTIQUATED BELIEF

Parenting in Confucianism is not only about building up order in the family relationship but also about the responsibility of everyone in the family. Although influenced by Confucianism, many archaic customs and beliefs of Confucianism were subdued by modern society due to the concern of humanity.

The patriarchal system in Confucianism is one of the most criticised in modern Vietnam society. It constructed the order in the family for all members to fulfil their duty for the family but created an unfairness and stressful relationships in modern families.

In this system, the head man of the family has the power to make all decisions and expects other family members, especially children, to obey anything they decide. It places immense pressure on the man to be successful in being able to support their family. Meanwhile, it also puts the woman into carrying an enormous burden of all the housework and other responsibilities in raising their children, but their contributions are always not recognised and disregarded. The children have to obediently praise their parents as the ultimate truth. In this kind of relationship, docility becomes a toxic trait.

THE MOBERN FAMILY

How I admire my mum is that she presents completely as a modern mother. Working a full-time job, taking care of children, doing most of the housework, and also cooking for everyone. Carrying all this responsibility, my mum and other Vietnamese women have created a great impact and more influences in building up the Vietnamese modern family. And, how I admire my father is about the way he willingly helps with all the houseworks and even cooking.

That, is how my parents do parenting: being a modern example for their children to repudiate any outmodel beliefs.

Only throughout the revolution in society and culture throughout the 20th century, new Vietnamese generations have rejected many antiquated Confucianism beliefs and started to build up modern families. Through the development into a modern country, a new contemporary family in Vietnam has evolved into a mixture between tradition and modernity. The responsibility has been shared more equivalent to the whole family, not only focused on any particular single member. It gives the family relationship more emphasis on growing with a natural bonding, rather than purely following an ancient belief.

by Nam Do