A while back I wrote a blog post and shared the fact of its existence through Facebook, as is my custom. One of the comments left in response was made by a friend from way back in theatre school, and it went something like this:

You’re amazing, I’m lucky to get the laundry flipped and dinner started during nap time…I aspire to throw in a couple of sun salutations! Seriously I don’t get how you have time to create these wonderful ideas…and then share them so professionally with the rest of us?!! I hear of moms whom have raised three small kids while getting masters degrees and the likes and I couldn’t even imagine. What am I missing here? A super mom gene? You don’t sleep is that the trick?? Xo

It’s human nature to wish to celebrate and take pride in our achievements, not shout our shortcomings from the mountaintops, and this is no different in the online arena. Content that people share online is carefully curated with words chosen carefully, giving an illusion of perfection that doesn’t come close to telling the full story. It’s an incomplete picture that we present to our readership when we only show this idealised side of our story, and from time to time it can be beneficial to show the other, less perfect-seeming side. The part that shows our struggles, our mistakes, our regrets; and then shines a light on the insights we have made about what to do differently next time.

I wanted to write this post to share the structures I’ve put in place recently that make life easier for me as a mum, so that I have fewer days where I feel like I am swimming upstream and more days where I feel proud of my achievements.

It is my hope that perhaps in sharing these, I might help another mother to simplify her own life and free herself up for more moments of ease with her children. In the interest of transparency, let it be said that I still have many, many days where I feel like I am losing some sort of battle, where I want to lock myself in a room and cry, where I beat myself up for everything I am doing that is lacking. This mummy blogger does not have any supermom gene.
I wish.

Being a mum (or dad, for that matter) is hard work. Rewarding, definitely: but hard work even at the best of times. It is tiring, relentless and full-on. I expect parenthood has always been this way, but there is something that makes the task even more of a challenge in today’s modern life, and that is the diminished value our society generally places on extended family and the greater community. It used to be the norm, and still is in many parts of the world, for children to be reared not only by the immediate family but also by a large collective of elders and peers from within the greater community. Our present day style of parenting almost exclusively through the nuclear family places a huge amount of stress and pressure upon the mother and father. Most of us have heard the term “it takes a village to raise a child”, but for those of us seeking a return to this, how can we make a start at building community, sisterhood, support and connection with a wider circle? I found something that has given me all this and more via that life sustaining thing that we all need: food, glorious food.

About a year ago I became aware of a local chapter of MamaBake that covers my end of Melbourne. But what on earth is MamaBake, I hear you ask? My friends, I am honoured to introduce you to its ingenuity.

MamaBake is a movement, for lack of a better word, that Aussie mum Michelle Shearer dreamed up in 2008 where mamas meet to big batch cook or bake together and then divvy up the fruits of their labour.

The result is a fridge (or freezer) full of meals to choose from, more free time in the early evenings to do other things that matter to you and – hooray! – the beginnings of building the kind of community that mothers truly need.

I didn’t waste any time in setting up a MamaBake straight away. Delving in to the scene a bit closer I learned that there are typically two kinds of MamaBakes:

1. A group cookup where all mamas assist one another with the prep, cooking and cleanup of one another’s dishes, embracing all the chaos this would bring; or
2. A swap meet with interested mamas where you divvy up your offerings that have been prepared earlier in your own kitchen.

Not being much of a fan of chaos, I went for the latter option. I created an open invitation to all members of my MamaBake chapter, inviting them to a Vegetarian meal swap hosted at my house. A few weeks later, 5 other women I had never met before in my life turned up at my house at the agreed time with very large pots of food to share amongst us, and an hour later my freezer was stocked with obscene amounts of pasta primavera, dahl, veggie frittata, chilli and lentil soup. For my contribution, I made this sweet curry below:

I discovered there were a few basic principals to executing a successful MamaBake:

1. Keep numbers of participants manageable – between 4-6 mamas is perfect;
2. Establish an agreement about dietary restrictions and portion sizes (remembering that if 4 mamas are in the swap, this means you are preparing meals for 4 FAMILIES, not individuals);
3. Determine whether things like rice or pasta will be provided if, for example, someone is contributing a curry or spaghetti bolonaise;
4. If you are hosting, ask participants to bring their own serving spoons and storage containers;
5. Ensure you yourself have enough storage containers and fridge or freezer space to accommodate the massive pile of food you are about to acquire.

I’ll tell you what: I was in love with this concept. I ran off excitedly to share my enthusiasm with the Mother’s Group I had been part of for 2 years, and despite the fact that I am vegetarian and they are not, 3 of these awesome women stepped forward keen to give Mamabake a go. We had our very first meal swap in October of last year (2013) and we have been meeting each Tuesday at 5PM over a bottle of wine ever since. It has been amazing. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays dinner is taken care of for each of us. The benefits of this are hard to over emphasize. Life is easier, food bills are cheaper, dinner ruts are broken, new recipes are shared and friendships are strengthened. Food is experienced as it was intended: a way of bringing people and families together, and enjoying life. This mutually beneficial group effort is what sisterhood is all about.

So are you excited to do something like this with other mamas in your local neighbourhood? Let’s look at how you can make a start of it.

1. Check on Facebook or through Mamabake.com to see if there is already a local Mamabake chapter somewhere nearby you that you can join.
2. If there is nothing like this in your area, you can be the trailblazer. Do you have a group of women already in your inner circle who might be keen to participate in a Mamabake meal swap or group cookup? Set a date, set your parameters and go for it! After the first swap, assuming everybody is happy, consider meeting on a regular basis to do more swaps. I can’t recommend a weekly swap highly enough.
3. If you can’t find enough interested or likeminded (ie. Vegetarian, Paleo or GF) parties within your own social circle, consider creating a Facebook group and being the founder of your local MamaBake chapter. Post up a short description of MamaBake on any local online community forums you are aware of and invite people in your neighbourhood to join your Facebook MamaBake group. Create an event and see what happens.
4. For more advice about MamaBake check out these FAQs from the MamaBake website.

The women in my weekly MamaBake have become like family in many ways. I am fortunate to live in a community with many other women who are also home with their young children. We are all in the same boat, all with similar challenges and most of us with very little outside support. Aside from food, we pool our resources in many other ways too. Suddenly lost a filling and need to see a dentist stat? No worries, Mel can mind the kids for an hour. Have debilitating morning sickness and just need the morning to yourself to lie in bed? Bronagh can take your toddler with her brood to the local playcentre. No family nearby and you need someone to stay with your firstborn when you go into labour with your second? Kirsty will be there. This is what it looks like to build a village brick by brick.

Aside from meal swap, there are a few other small measures I have put in place in an effort to take the pressure off myself as mother and therefore predictor of our family’s overall mood and emotional wellbeing. I know that I am a MUCH better mum on the days when I am calm, organized and unhurried. I have a big ugly white board in my kitchen that keeps me organized for the week, specifying which activity/craft/task I am undertaking each day with the kids, what snacks we will have and which meals that we will eat. I have plans to make this board less ugly and more Waldorfy in the near future (watch this space).  But despite it’s ugly, it is really very helpful to me.  A bit OCD? Perhaps.  But, hey, it works for us.

Another big help is when you don’t need to go to the shops as often. For years we have been customers of CERES Fair Food, receiving a weekly delivery of organic fruit and veg. Around 2 years ago we volunteered to be a Food Host for CERES, where others within our community collect their weekly orders from our home instead of opting for door to door delivery, thereby reducing food miles. Not only does our family get a discount for opening our home as a drop off/pick up location, it means that my weekly box gets delivered to my door for free, and I get to meet others in my community who are likeminded in their views surrounding natural living (mostly others with young families). We are also the drop off/pickup location for Happy Tribe Organics, a Melbourne based co-op. In both cases, my produce or pantry staples are delivered right to my home, making life infinitely easier when I don’t have to trudge down to the shops with the kids in tow, and as an added bonus I am meeting likeminded people, forging friendships and building that community that is so important to our family unit.

I hope by sharing these things here today that any mums out there reading this might be inspired to reach out and start building the community that we all so desperately need to help us shoulder our loads. In doing so you give yourself the gift of more peace, companionship, connection and energy that is better directed toward our children and family, rather than our never-ending to-do lists.

May you find your tribe, as I am finding mine.

With love,

Robyn