International Women’s Day brings lots of feelings up.

Last year, a school friend of mine birthed her gorgeous baby into the world; and though we’ve never gone deep into the story of her birth, I know beyond words she was phenomenal. This year, it was one of my first thoughts – her baby turned 1. What an absolute honour to know women raising women, strong, capable, loved.

What an honour to be surrounded by women, breaking cycles, healing themselves, and birthing their own girls into a world with less to carry forward.

I thought of my friend and her baby. I thought of my own pregnancy and how much carrying a girl forced me to confront fears about raising one.

I thought about how raising a girl has changed me; pushed me to advocate for myself, and to heal – so that she (and my boys) have less to work through; less to weigh them down, and less to pass on again.

I looked at my daughter; awake and asking for breakfast and I thought, today is going to be a good one.

We played and chat, and her brothers woke up; each in their own little world.

I watched her write and thought about International Women’s Day, and what it means to me, and what it might mean to us as a family unit. Should I mark the occasion? I had nothing prepared.

In the end, we didn’t celebrate specifically. We didn’t do any special crafts or read anything because of the day; which I have tried in previous years and have learned, as I dive deeper into the knowing of myself as a mother, that these things (though joyful and purposeful in part) bring stress and discomfort to our group. Instead, we talked; about bodies and women, and how we are most powerful when we can do both what we want, and what is right for the world.

Well behaved women rarely make history

Eleanor Roosevelt

The other day, she asked me about my current read; Burning Woman by Lucy H Pearce, and together with Theo, we spoke about how women (and men in smaller numbers) were burned for magick. They were horrified, without any extra detail – but they asked for more.

Why?

What could I tell them? At ages 5 and 3, how could I explain the privilege they sit on, through the place they live in the world, the tonality of their skin, the reality of job security that their dad has, and the choices we make as a family – they are so damn lucky. And they know it, in part; but at the ages of 5 and 3, I am not going to burden them with the weight of it being so vastly different for so many.

That said, I won’t shy from it either.

Instead, I told them, that the people in power (a little like in Frozen II with Elsa’s grandfather) were – and are – scared of magick. They feared people who knew nature, and who could find food and medicine in plants. They were scared of women who didn’t listen to them, because they wanted to be in charge; and when they weren’t listened to, they got angry. When they couldn’t control the magick people, they decided to call them witches; and hunt and burn them.

But why did they not listen mummy? Why did they want to control them? Who was in charge?

“They didn’t listen because they didn’t want to – a little like when you don’t want to stop playing for dinner; you don’t until you’re ready, and I can’t make you. The difference is, in our family, we respect your bodies, and we try and listen to what you want and need as much as we can. It hasn’t always been like that – and it still isn’t for everyone. Every family has it’s own rules – but now, we don’t burn people for not listening.”

“They wanted to control them because … well why do you think?” – “To be super powerful… like the baddies do, except, were there any superheroes to come save the people?”

Breathe… my 5 year old got me. He may push my limits but he just gets things, and says them in ways that make me need to hit pause.

We carried on talking… about baddies and superheroes, and how in real life it isn’t so simple. Again referencing things they understand; like the Bluey episode where Bandit pretends to be the best in the world, and then admits he’s good at some stuff, not everything. We aren’t bad or good all the time; like when we get angry and hit a sibling, it doesn’t mean we are baddies forever, but it does mean we need to repair.

By the end of our walk and talk; they had a basic idea that people were burned because they weren’t understood; and because the people in charge (who are kind of a mystery and “shouldn’t get to decide for everyone”) were scared of them. It wasn’t something I’d anticipated, so navigating it like this felt enough without too much.

I’m glad we’ve begun to raise our daughters more like our sons, but it will never work until we raise out sons more like our daughters.

Gloria Steinem

Today, I didn’t bring up the burning woman conversation from last week. I could have to anchor in points but I don’t think I need to, they’ll show me what they remember and need in time. We settled on talking about how we can support girls and women to listen to our bodies by doing it ourselves and making healthy choices – and about consent and body boundaries for everyone. We chat about how when we do what we want, but that is also right / good for the world, we are celebrating people, and the earth.

And we talked about how boys and men need support to; but that sometimes they need it for different reasons – so they have a different celebration day.

It’s a day that is so important to facilitate conversations; it’s a day that we speak truths that often get hidden otherwise; it’s a day where there is a little less fear about being burned, because we are all shouting ‘smash the patriarchy’ together.

But it’s a day.

This work is lifetime. This day is a drop – and we need lots of drops to make the ocean.

Raising humans is political, and nothing hits home harder than this on days where we discuss equity – because in raising them; we set the standard. Our standard here, in our slow, intentional, play filled life, is to dismantle the power of patriarchy and capitalism that links women’s’ worth to her productivity or reproductive capacity. It is to remind my sons and daughter that every single feeling is to be felt; every part of them is important, and every minute they are loved – because if we have a generation of kids who know their power; they will raise more kids who know their power – and systems that do not serve for good will collapse.

As always, thanks for reading

Rohana x