Motherhood is messy, magical, and everything in between – the realest kind of love.
This Mother’s Day, we’re celebrating the raw, honest, and beautiful realities of motherhood.
We sat down with two inspiring mums, Tui Mārama Keenan and Shoshannah Shand, for a Q&A on the real side of mothering – the chaos, the connection, the deep love, and the unexpected lessons along the way.
Tui Mārama Keenan is a hunter, educator, and mum of five, she leads Kaiwhakangau, a platform empowering wahine to connect with the bush and learn to hunt. She also helps run a foodbank initiative in Gisborne, providing wild, free-range venison – MPI certified – to local schools and families in her community.
What’s something you wish more people understood about being a mum — not the Instagram version, but the real, messy, beautiful truth?
- The truth about being a mum is it’s 24/7 – you are always thinking about your kids when you’re not with your kids, and then when you’re with your kids you’re still thinking about them. Everything centres around them. I have 3 living at home and 2 are away, so you always think about them.
- They take up a lot of your thoughts, your life, your whole life. Your life changes when you are a mum.
- Oh, the messy, beautiful truth about being a mum: there is constantly mess, from dishes to endless washing.
Can you describe a moment where you felt like, “Yes, I’m actually doing this mother-thing OK” – even if it was total chaos around you?
One thing that comes to mind is one day picking my daughter up from kindy – it had been a hard day at mahi, a very stressful day, but when I saw her, she was so excited to see me. I had been to a fancy meeting that day so was wearing a dress, had some makeup on, and when she saw me she screamed out, “There’s my mum, look how pretty she is!” and she ran to me and gave me the biggest hug. That just washed away all the raru and stress I had been experiencing at work that day.
What’s the weirdest or most hilarious thing your child has ever said to you, that still makes you laugh?
First thing that comes to mind is my big girl – she lives in Wellington now – and when she was 2 (she’s now 25), both Comrie and I were shift workers, so we loved our sleep, and she loved waking up early. When she would wake up, she would bring her little bell into the room and ding-a-ling-a-ling and say, “The sun’s open”.
So Comrie and I have great pleasure when she comes to stay with us and she fancies a sleep-in — we’ll make a bell noise and say, “The sun’s open”. That's a quote we use quite often, and we have a giggle when we remember that.
Motherhood can change how we see ourselves — what has being a mum taught you about “you”?
I think I have always just been born to be a mum, and as women, we are naturally mothers – whether we give birth or not, or whether we own a husband or not (hehe).
I think as a wahine you are naturally a nurturer, a comforter – whether you give birth to a child or not, it still means you’re a mum.
What do you hope your child (or children) will remember most about the way you loved them?
Well, reading these notes today, it’s the unconditional love for her whānau – that’s what I want to be remembered for – and I hope that I am a fun mum.
What’s one of the most epic fail moments you had as a mum?
Okay, yep, my love for healthy food has let my girls down sometimes. When they go to a playdate or a bring-a-plate party, you know, and their friends are bringing fairy bread and sausage rolls — and these girls are either bringing steak, sausages, venison, tomatoes from the garden, fruit, or when they’re turning up to a shared lunch at school and there is all this sugar on the table, and they’re standing there with a fruit platter or something we’ve harvested from the garden. I thought it was cool, but they didn’t.
And a shout out to all our wahine out there – if you have given birth or you haven’t, you are a mum, an auntie – you provide that nurture, that care, that love that our kids need all around us.
So kia kaha to mahi wahine toa.
If you could go back and whisper something into the ear of your just-became-a-mum self, what would you say?
Stop reading those pregnancy books and mum books and stop listening to everyone else around you give you advice. Trust yourself. You’ve been designed to have babies, to nurture them, love them. You’ve been made to do that — so trust your intuition and you’ve got this, girl!
You can find out more about Tui by visiting her instagram here.
