Nurture21

It's been notoriously hard this last year . 'Unprecedented' is perhaps one of the most frequently used words of this time. Circumstances that none of us saw, none of us anticipated, none of us wanted. This mind blowing disruption has thrown itself at our feet like shattered glass from a car crash. We all feel bruised, we all feel weary, we have all had enough. The pull to get back to seeing people we love, doing the things we love and just being 'normal' is enormous and we all feel it, we all need it. We all grieve that which we have lost and it can be argued, 'we' will never be the same people again.  But what about our children? This generation of brilliant people who have had to adapt this year perhaps more than any other group of people. For children growing up in these times it has been a unique, challenging and difficult experience. Our children have had to learn and grow up in ways no other generation has ever had to. We have asked so much of them and...

2008 was a bitter sweet year for me. It was the year I became a Mum and it was the year I lost my own Mum. My Mum missed meeting my daughter by five and a half weeks. I think we both kind of knew that it was never meant to be, but it remained a deep unspoken truth that hurt too much to voice. It was a remarkable thing really. My whole pregnancy was littered with poignant moments that seemed to tie my mum and my daughter together before she'd even entered the world. I remember an occasion when I was four months pregnant at my parents house; I was being sick in one bathroom due to my progressing pregnancy and my Mum was in a bathroom across the landing being sick due to her progressing cancer. The circle of life never more magnified than at that moment. My nine months of pregnancy mirrored nine months of deterioration in my Mum's health. During the last few hours of my Mum's life I sat next to her bed and placed her hand on my huge pregnant tummy. I watched the colour gradual...