The Block's Georgia Caceres: 'Motherhood really grounded me'
Motherhood is such a grounding experience and has provided me a complete sense of purpose. It’s helped me truly understand who I really am and in turn, provided me with this crazy sense of confidence, something that was actually missing prior to having kids.
Life before kids…a very, very distant and faint memory.
LISTEN: On the new Honey Mums podcast, Deborah Knight and Jo Abi discuss the niggling fear all mothers have. (Post continues.)
https://omny.fm/shows/9honey-super-mums/honeymumsseason2ep1/embed
Ronnie and I always reminisce about the good old pre-kids days!
On the weekends when we didn’t have Ronnie’s son Giordano, now 17, we were so ridiculously selfish. We slept in (I’m talking past 7:30am), watched movies in bed all day, and spent Sunday afternoons at the pub with friends.
My biggest problem was choosing what to wear out on a Saturday night.
Our reality now looks very different.
Weekends consist of 8am footy training (often in the rain), tennis lessons, birthday parties (sometimes two in one day #nojoke), a couple loads of washing and ironing school uniforms.
A big night out for us now requires a marathon effort to secure a babysitter, an 11pm self-imposed curfew because we’re so bloody tired, followed up with a tortuous day of parenting kids while hungover.
From as young as I can remember, I’ve always envisaged myself being a mum. In my teenage years, I set myself this ridiculous timeline.
I was going to marry the man of my dreams -- a Robert Downey Jr lookalike -- at the age of 26, and have my first child, a beautiful daughter named Violet at 28.
Bizarrely enough, I wasn’t too far off fulfilling that teenage dream.
I met Ronnie when I was 21, we were married at 28 and we had our first child at 29.
We have two children - Leo, five, and Charlotte, three.
And Ronnie looks just like Richard Greico.
Whilst I sometimes find the responsibility of raising a well-balanced human completely overwhelming, I also love the fact that as parents we have this wonderful opportunity to encourage our children to be kind, compassionate, motivated members of society.
It was only the other day that my son -- who, by the way, only has one volume (loud and only has one speed) -- was in the playground with some mates from school. They were playing 'Chasey' and Leo was on a mission not to get caught. (Competitive like his mum much!?).
So off he was, running as fast as the wind, when he suddenly bumped into his mate, who fell to the ground.
My immediate reaction was to step in to ensure everyone was okay and to encourage Leo to apologise, however to my surprise, Leo stopped, helped his friend up and with a genuinely compassionate heart said, “I’m sorry, that was an accident, are you okay?'
It’s moments like these, however far and few between they may be, that make this parenting gig totally worth it.
That night I slept really well knowing that not only am I doing the best that I can do as a mum but that I’m also raising really awesome, compassionate, and kind children.
I learned the same from my mum. She is an incredible role model, in fact the best a girl could ever have asked for.
I envy my mum’s kindness, I admire her selflessness, and I cherish her love.
Growing up she was a super-mum and it’s really only now that I’m a parent, that I can honestly appreciate everything that she ever did for our family.
Parenting is relentless. It’s day in, day out, kind of stuff, so if I can stay as focused and as committed as my mum was to us, then I’m definitely doing something right.
When it comes to any kind of advice, especially good mum advice, my nan is my number one lady.
At the age of 90 she personifies the meaning of wisdom.
Having raised five children as a single mother, she knows first-hand how hard parenting can be. Her practical, no-nonsense mum advice is invaluable.
In today's society, we have a tendency to over-complicate everything, so it is really grounding to sit down over a well brewed cup of English breakfast tea and just get back to good old fashioned basics.
