On Mother's Day, let's be grateful for many things

I know my children love me. I am grateful for that. I have been blessed with the two most perfect humans and watching them grow into adults is an amazing and, at times, heartbreaking experience. I wish they were still little. I wish I could have my time with them again and do so much differently. Be more patient, spend more time with them, shower them with more affection, do more stuff with them, rather than working so hard to put a roof over their heads.

Which brings me to one thing I'm grateful for. That in some ways I am glad we worked hard as a family to be done with the mortgage as best we could. Even if it meant we sacrificed many other things such as travel, we had a lovely home, that, even post-divorce financial split, was manageable on my one income, until it wasn't, and I decided to sell, setting myself up nicely.

So when the Reserve Bank increased the interest rate, it didn't really affect me at all. But it will affect a lot of people. An extra $99 a month is a lot of money to some people. Most people.

Mind you, my parents were of the generation that struggled through years of the interest rate being closer to 17 per cent. You can't compare. They paid $16,000 for a very modest three-bedroom home in a very modest part of a country town and I don't think it was paid off for close to 30 years.

I remember talking to some high-rollers at the casino many years ago when I was a struggling university student (I wasn't there throwing away my money, but sometimes we ended up there late at night.) Perhaps it was a line they were using on young inebriated women, but they asked me what I thought the Australian dream was. I remember shocking them by being the only woman to tell them that owning your own home is the Australian dream. I am grateful I do. There needs to be more help for those who want to. I wonder if my children will ever own their own home, I hope they do.

Another thing I'm grateful for is all the wonderful teachers my children have had over the years. Now I'm finished with the whole school thing, it's given me time to reflect, particularly this week as thousands of NSW teachers went on strike. Teachers deserve better - better pay, better conditions. Close to three-quarters of teachers believe their workload is unmanageable. There are shortages across the board.

I sometimes think I should make a career change and become a teacher. I went to university with the intention of being a teacher, switching to journalism after the first semester. Back then, you only had to do a one-year Diploma of Education after your Bachelor degree. Now it's a two-year, full-time Masters of Education, costing more than $40,000 at most universities. You'd have to be super keen. And given the current state of teaching as a profession, why would you?

I'm also grateful that I don't live in Gilead, I mean the United States. That here in Australia my reproductive rights are my own and I have access to safe and legal abortion. The news that the US Supreme Court is set to overturn Roe v Wade totally threw me this week. That now, in 2022, a woman's right to choose might be taken away. Because no one makes that choice easily. As much as the pro-lifers love to think certain women use abortion as a contraceptive, that's far from the truth.

I wonder, if it is overturned, what it means for Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison noted during the week that the US is a different country. "In Australia there are no changes to those laws." But then defended Queensland senator Amanda Stoker, his Assistant Minister for Women, who attended an anti-abortion rally last weekend, alongside LNP senator Matt Canavan and One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts. Yes, it's a free country, which was his defence of Stoker; I thought the US was the land of the free as well.

Mother's Day should be about celebrating the choices you've made as a mother and that begins with choosing to be one.