“The quality of a mother’s life is the key to the quality of society.” ReedMarkham
Are You Leading Your Life, or Just Following Along?
This week, I’ve been sitting with the idea of leadership—specifically, whether we’re leading our own lives or following the scripts handed to us.
Since it’s Mother’s Day, it feels only right to start with the leadership of women. And not just the corporate kind. I mean the kind that shows up day after day: feeding, raising, loving, caring. Often unseen, always essential.
I’m not a mother in the traditional, two-legged sense. That wasn’t my path in this lifetime. But I mother my dogs. I mother my blog. I mother this life I’m still giving birth to.
Where Are the Women in Leadership?
Recently, I watched a solemn procession of cardinals—men robed in crimson—enter the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope. A ritual steeped in tradition, ceremony, and power. But something felt off. It wasn’t the pageantry—it was the absence. Not a single woman among them.
In a world where women are the heartbeat of homes, communities, and even faith traditions, their exclusion from positions of spiritual authority felt like a gaping omission. And while I’m not here to bash age-old institutions, I can’t ignore the imbalance. Because when we silence the wisdom of half the world, we lead with only half a heart. Women offer a perspective shaped by care, community, and lived experience. Their leadership is not just valuable—it is vital. And yet, how often is it overlooked, dismissed, or politely applauded before being ushered back into the shadows?
I’m not here to tear down institutions. I’m here to celebrate women.
A Tribute to My Mother—My First Teacher
So today, I honour the woman who shaped me—my mother.
She was a paradox I never quite understood. Fiercely private, she kept her thoughts close. Only on long car drives did she share flashes of her past—stories of a childhood on a farm, swinging her legs between the rails of a verandah as her mother worked the fields.
She was always ready for a road trip, especially when I drove cross-country. She loved the open road and buttered every sandwich—yes, even for the homeless—to the very edge. She told us not to marry before 30 (I took that to mean 50), and dressed my sister and me impeccably.
When I spoke at an international surgical nursing conference about sexual harassment in the operating room, she was appalled. “You’re not!,” she gasped. But I realise now—her discomfort was fear disguised as disapproval. Her way of protecting me.
She never spoke of grief when Dad died, or of love, periods, or menopause. That was left to Dolly magazine. She had been raised in a world where such things weren’t spoken of. I envied friends with chatty, close relationships with their mums. Ours was different—more service than sentiment.
Still, she taught me how to begin again. After Dad passed, she had to learn how to fill up the car, manage the money, carry on. And she did. Quietly. Powerfully. The way so many women do.
What I Learned From Her
She taught me:
- Respect for everyone.
- That it’s never too late to start again.
- That adversity can be overcome.
- And that even if she didn’t say it to me, she told everyone else how proud she was.
- That a flat top mountain is a Mesa (circa 2003 roadtrip Alice Springs)
She had grace, humour, and high standards. She thought I was too loud, too fat, too everything—but I know now that she loved me deeply. Her disappointment when I failed religion in Year 11 said more about her faith than it did about me.
She was a woman of service, a woman of strength.
She was a leader.
To All the Quiet Leaders
So here’s to the mothers—the ones who gave birth to us, and the ones we’ve become through our work, our words, our care.
To the women in kitchens, classrooms, boardrooms, and behind steering wheels.
To the women who butter the bread to the edge.
To the women who shape the world quietly.
