Great piece Cristy! I hope that you settle into the flow and enjoy a bonny healthy baby that grows up to be a credit to you and your family.

I have heard some real horror stories about very uncomfortable pregnancies where the mother absolutely struggles to keep the baby inside until its full term and I have seen some really problematic children that I would never have liked to have owned/parented. Ignoring the bad or unlucky trivialises the great strain that every pregnant woman puts her body under. Blaming the parent for throwing a wrong 'un is most unfair when can simply be just the baby's nature.

If we are serious about supporting women to have more children then we must pay decent wages, provide access decent affordable child care and affordable housing.

“I say all this as a truly lucky person. I have a scholarship that provides paid maternity leave, a wonderfully supportive husband and extended family, and the freedom to go back part-time and to work from home - and, above all, I happen to love children and to genuinely want to be a mother.”

So where’s the problem Cristy? Getting older, gaining too much responsibility, loss of appeal to opposite sex? Hormones?

“This is not the result of feminism - this is the continued impact of a patriarchal culture that remains fundamentally unchanged at its core. Workplaces are still built around the idea that there is a good women at home taking care of the household. Childcare is expensive and waiting lists are long. Maternity leave is not provided for most Australian workers, and part-time work is difficult to secure.”

Yes, that must be it. Patriarchy has made childcare too expensive for female PhD candidates and fellows alike. If only feminism would encourage more men into childcare and/or social fathering by live-in house-husbands in the home. The fact that not many women want to do it, or that men are not allowed to, couldn’t possibly be reflected in costs. Human rights huh?

TY for the compliment CJ.

Although I must confess I fail rather miserabley in the patriarchial stakes. If I am a patriach then I am a very poor imitation.

CJ, I'd like to invite you around so that you tell my kids I am the patriarch. Better do it whilst the missus is out shopping if you want to live to an old age.

It wasn't that long ago when especially for middle and upper class women, pregnancy was regarded as a delicate condition and they were not allowed to do alot of things such as psychical activity and then after delivery mothers were kept in bed for around 10 days to recuperate.

Each culture has it own rituals around motherhood. For example in some cultures this is women's business and men are kept out. Now is that matriarchial or patriarchial?

Now before I became a father, I could pack up, quit jobs and simply move house without much problem. Fly off on a holiday, go skiing or fishing whenever I want to or just simply go out for dinner and spend a couple of hundered.

Now I cant simply take a holiday from work or pack my bags and just move to perth or darwin. My choices have been limited by becoming a parent. Now that the kids are older I take them fishing, but skiing is out of the question because I am not a very wealthy patriarch.

To me the biggest joy of parenthood is watching the kids grow and develope as they learn new skills, sure sometimes it drives me batty whilst they are practising, but then that is how they learn.

Hi Cristy – interesting article. I am going through much the same situation lately. I had a baby 6 months ago, and since then, two things have hit me really hard – first, how much I love my little bundle of joy and how much I love spending time with him. Secondly, I can’t get over how much I feel like a completely different person. My body feels like it’s just a different thing to what it was before. I also worry how I’m ever going to get back to my PhD studies. Like you, I feel like my identity is being taken over by being a “mother” and I find that troubling. It’s startling to find people generally react to you as a “mother” now. In the same situations, people react and speak to me differently than they did before. When you’re a mother, almost all communication focuses on the baby. It’s depressing to be around people who no longer ask your opinion on current events, as it’s assumed I have no interest, or have no time to do anything outside mothering.

I agree that motherhood and all the sacrifices and choices surrounding it are undervalued. I have been called a “natural mother” on several occasions, and while I know people mean it as a compliment, it sits uneasily on me, and it’s an expression I really dislike. Everything I do with my baby comes not just from a deep “motherly” love, but also from sheer hard work and a conscious effort to try to do the right thing, by reading, talking, listening and finding out as much as I can about developing babies. The idea that all this comes “naturally” underestimates and undervalues how much work women put into being good mothers.

Personally, I think every mother deserves an honorary PhD. But then we’d probably be undervaluing something else.

It is interesting how motherhood changes your perspective.

Funnily enough, some of the people who have been least supportive of me since I had my child have been women who think I should just get straight back to work. You see, once I had my child, I found that I loved her so much that I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. But some women have inferred that because I want to spend time with my baby, I must be some kind of brainless idiot, and that I am a traitor to the sisterhood. So I think that the problems women face are actually more complicated than just sexism and the patriarchy. Some strands of modern feminism have some pretty inflexible adherents who don't seem to want to admit the ways in which becoming a mother might change the things you can do, or want to do. To enjoy being a mother is a "weakness". Of course, that's not all women or all strands of feminism, but it's an interesting thing to ponder.

On the other hand, I agree with you that this government's rhetoric on family values is just a lot of hogswash. I have found it very difficult balancing work, study and child, and my husband and I have struggled financially. I get very angry when Peter Costello exhorts me to "have another one for the country" - does he realise how difficult it is to bear and bring up a child? Obviously NOT.

My advice to you is to enjoy your baby as much as possible. My baby is now starting to talk ("Mum, mum", "Dad, dad", "Doggy!", "Num") and it is just adorable. The first few weeks are hard, but after that it just gets better and better (presumably, until my darling hits teenagerhood!)