Blog

Are There Societal Silver Linings To Lockdown?

anna c 2
🤔I’ve often wondered what the effect is of sectioning off age groups is.

In families where intergenerational living and few siblings are common, we spend a great deal of our lifetimes with people our own age:

👶🏽At day care and preschool with other under 5s

👧🏻Primary school with other kids

🧒🏼High school as a teen with teens

👩🏾‍🦱Study/early work/travel with other young adults

👱🏼‍♀️Work with other adults

🤔 Then we hit mat leave, caring (largely alone) for someone i…

Read more…

Do Your Own Research?

anna c
Without a doubt the two most utterly stupid phrases trotted out in the past 18 months are

1. “It’s not a race.” Righto ScoMo, how about you go tell that to the people of Wilcannia and all the other communities you and the state Libs have right royally let down.

And

2. “Do your own research.”

Having marked hundreds of “research skills” assessment papers from uni students, I can assure you that without specific training, very few people can access, understand and apply the …

Read more…

Research Update: Pregnancy and COVID-19 Vaccination

Below is the transcript of the video and audio research update I recorded on 10th Sept 2021 on the topic of pregnancy and vaccination against COVID-19. This information is information only, and does not take the place of individualised advice and consultation with your medical team. I hope you find this useful, and please feel free to share this resource with anyone you think might be interested.

***

Hello my name is Anna Cusack, I am an author, a doula, Certified Motherhood Studies Practition…

Read more…

The answers you seek aren’t in your feed

worst case anna

We talked through that scene over and over.

✈️ The plane crashing through the doors of the hanger, John Travolta in black hunting down Nicolas Cage in red, bullets flying everywhere.

Miss Two had seen some of the 90s movie Face/Off accidentally, and told me it was “scary”, yet still she asked to watch it again. Instead we talked about it as nauseam, role played, and I cuddled her as we went through it for the fifteenth time.

🤔 When we see or experience something at odds with our reality we want to und…

Read more…

Meet Me By The Fountain

photo-1616251675964-8d3d42d76e0a

I woke early, grabbed my coat and closed the door quietly behind me. I wound my way down the stairs and crossed the bar-doubling-as-breakfast room, my boots sticking to the floor.

Busting the hostel doors open, the freezing Scottish winter air hit me in the face. Hands stuffed in pockets I made my way to the Royal Mile, the long cobbled street that rises all the way to Edinburgh Castle at its peak.

The world was still waking up, and I had the tourist zone to myself. I stepped on well worn ston…

Read more…

Research Update: Breastfeeding and COVID-19 Vaccination

Below is a transcript of the video research update I recorded on the 1st September 2021 and loaded to my social media channels on 2nd Sept 2021 regarding breastfeeding and vaccination against COVID-19. As per the disclaimers made in the text below, this is for information purposes only and does not replace discussions with your medical team regarding your personal vaccination choices. If you wish to clarify your understanding of the information I've provided here or ask any questions you are wel…

Read more…

White Privilege and My Empowered Home Birth

annacusackpostpartum my empowered home birth white privilege

My empowered home birth was a reflection of my inner work and outer advocacy, but also relied upon my white privilege.

To access a publicly-funded homebirth service is rare in Australia.

You need to be located within striking distance to hospital. ABS data from 2019 tells us that only 10% of non-Indigenous people live outside major city and inner regional areas, while 39% of Indigenous people live outside these zones.

You need to be a “low risk pregnancy”. Because I am a white Australian, I haven’t…

Read more…

How I "Get So Much Done"

Screen Shot 2021-07-10 at 11.12.33 AM

“How do you get so much done?”

I give answers like “well my house just stays filthy” and “I get my ideas in order while mothering then smash them out when I get time”, but really what I want to say is this:

  1. A lifetime of white, middle class, cis-gender, heterosexual, generally mentally well, neurotypical, sans-physical disability, local family, partnered, non-traumatic life experience-related privilege; and
  2. My partner parents.

If the first point sounds like you, and you have a partner an…

Read more…

Birth Rights are Human Rights

anna birth rights
Maternity services across NSW lockdown zones are applying different rules to birthing people and their access to support during labour and postnatal stays.

These are changing, so check with your own service provider what the situation is. From what I can ascertain, the current best-case scenario is 2 support people are allowed during labour and beyond, at worst it is 1 for the duration.

If you had planned for your partner to be your only support person and visitor, you're good to…

Read more…