How time flies, my first blog post was 2017 and ideas for blogging still somersault around in my head. On this calm Sunday in May 2025 it is Mother’s Day in Australia.
I am a mother and thoughts of my own dear mother and that of my aunts and women I know flash through my mind. I recall their varied roles in my life, and women who shape the lives of others in millions of families and societies around the world. It is possible to write about the wealth, poverty, injustices and generally low standing of women in most countries including Australia, but what is their true status? What is their role in the history of the universe?
In my opinion, one of the most powerful roles for women, in the world as we know it, is the eternal internal creation. While not ignoring the biodiversity of Mother Nature, without human females, women who give birth, there would be no world. There would be no evolution, there would be nothing ahead. Of course men play a role but generally stand back when events are underway.
Perhaps this creates jealousy? Why bigoted, misogynistic, cruel, political, rule-making men of our current world order put women and mothers at risk by keeping them out of sight, in second place, give them menial tasks, overlook females for promotion, make derogatory comments, portray them on television, in movies and books as the trivial second character, the support, the one answering phones, at home doing the laundry, tidying up or cooking dinner. You can add more diverse roles to the list but usually not a complete reversal although caring sharing life partners do exist.
In 1971 a childless Germaine Greer is quoted as saying: “Bringing up children is not a real occupation, because children come up just the same, brought up or not.” A rather shallow look at the future, I think.
With or without conception, the women of Mother Earth are versatile people. Today there are strong female roles and powerful women in all walks of life who do rise above. When they do, it’s a novelty in the press, on social media, and invariably a TV chat show host asks “How do you cope with a family and work?” A man’s world not an equal world yet.
Today I shout out Thanks Mum, Happy Mothers Day because without mothers there would be no living breathing humans in the world today. Including you and me.
💓 Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025
NOTE: My opinion piece acknowledges birth mothers, first mothers, adoption, surrogacy, LGBTQIA, IVF, child reunification. Parenting is precious. 🌼
OLD SCOTTISH NURSERY RHYME. MY PARENTS QUOTED THIS POEM TO ME WHEN I WAS A CHILD BUT IT DID NOT HELP ME SLEEP…
Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs, in his nightgown;
Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,
“Are the children in their beds?
It’s past eight o’clock.”
Penned by Glaswegian poet William Miller, it originally appeared as a fiveverse rhyme written in the Glasgow UK vernacular in 1842.
Perhaps you know it. Over the years the wording and ending has varied, for example the original poem is longer and specified ten o’clock. See Quora for information:
Here’s the beginning of the extended version – “Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toon, Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-goon, Tirling at the window, cryin’ at the lock, Are the weans in their bed, for it’s now ten o’clock?”
Thoughts Become Words 