As I was chatting the other week with the ever-amazing Penni, I made a confession about this blog:

I don’t know what to say anymore, how to say it, why I feel the need to say it when – Lord knows – there are a multitude of other avenues I could use to express* what – at times- is the inexpressible and unsayable.

{Actually, I don’t think I said it quite like that, but you get the drift}

I was referring specifically to the children, the oldest of which (see? I’ve started to talk abstractly) we’ve been having some trouble with lately: these troubles I’ve alluded to, but now we’re at the point of “should we talk to someone?”

I’ve often been asked to talk about the time of my eating disorder. Some days I feel Teflon-skinned and reckon it would be no problem to go to work on those memories here on miscmum, like a surgeon.

But I am no surgeon: I am no good with a needle, am more skilled at ruining things (food, friendships) than repairing them, and I sometimes become afraid of breaking the part of me that’s been able to move on and get along.

And as I am pretty sure I tend to sabotage myself, I am almost as certain that if I truly crack open my children’s secrets, that I will not do them justice. I would not serving them well.

But I want to; because there are other parent bloggers out there forging their paths, feeling the fear and talking about it anyway about their own struggles with themselves, or their children. I want to do the same.

I came back from holidays with all the best intentions, but we know the way to hell is paved with those. I was going to set out clothes the night before, I was going to roll-out all sorts of new rules and procedures. Most importantly, I was going to put up the best mothering front ever: but Monday morning came, and by 7.45am I’d already lost my patience with Keira and was hollering for all the neighbours to hear. All tension, all reserve, I thought I’d found on holidays had just been put on pause.

And ‘on pause’ isn’t a way to live. It shouldn’t even be a condition to endure.

So in a roundabout way I think I’ve said this:

Tell me, if you ever write about your kids, do you ever wonder if it will come back and bite you in the ass?

{*poetry, short story, essay etc}

karen andrews

Karen Andrews is the creator of this website, one of the most established and well-respected parenting blogs in the country. She is also an author, award-winning writer, poet, editor and publisher at Miscellaneous Press. Her latest book is Trust the Process: 101 Tips on Writing and Creativity