I am currently on the train home from BritMums Live, a two
day conference with amazing speakers, activities and sponsors. It has been a
fantastic, albeit slightly overwhelming two days which have been so jam packed,
it is hard to know where to start.
Ruby Wax opened the
conference and it was refreshing to hear her candid personal experience of
mental health. Having suffered from depression in my late teens and, more
recently I worked in a mental health ward, I have experience of both sides of
mental illness and the stigmas which are attached. The journey from shame and denial that
people experience on hearing a diagnosis, to the confident person they can
become during and after treatment is astounding. I would urge anyone who is affected by any form of mental illness to log on to Black Dog Tribe.
I attended five of the six workshops, taking a break from
one purely to sit and have a cup of tea and take some time out to process all
the information. Nickie O’Hara’s group
on ‘taking your blog to the next level’ was highly informative, and it was
really interesting as the panel had completely different angles.
Sarah Brown opened the day on Saturday, encouraging us all
that we need to figure out who we are and what we want to say. She also said
that blogging is almost like leading a double identity, you are ‘the person in
your life and the person reporting on your life’. So when you go to an event,
outing, conference, you enjoy the experience but at the same time you wonder
how you are going to get across what you have experienced. This resonated with me as I often feel that I
lead many different lives, as wife, mother, student and me and I find they
rarely converge. I had a great time down at the Piggy Bank Kids stall making my
jubilee/Olympics pig, or ‘Olympig’ as it was suggested I call her. Being able
to be creative for half an hour without a small child enhancing ruining
my work was refreshing!
Google+ has hopefully become less of a mystery and I am
going to sit down and really spend some time putting in the hard work now,
before I am back at university in September. The legal and SEO talk was also
very informative although unfortunately there was very little time left to ask
questions.
Inspiring, confident, passionate women were in abundance and
I am honoured to have met so many of you. I think I was a little bit in awe
initially when I saw people’s name badges, but hearing the speakers reiterates
that, ultimately, they have all been in the same position the rest of us and they are 'normal' people. Whilst so many of
the speakers have had blogs for a long time and are very experienced, they have
also, at some point, had a one year old blog. When they did, there was probably
far less of a vast supportive community than there is now.
My only disappointment with the weekend was on Friday night
at the BiB awards party. When I first saw that there were half naked men serving alcohol, my first instinct was to leave the room. I am not a
prude, but I believe in equality and I do not see how anyone in the room was on
an even keel with the waiters. I wonder why it was necessary, how we would feel
if our husband or partner had gone to a
conference and been served by scantily clad women? Also, what kind of a message
does that send to our children? In my mind, it is not OK to encourage
inequality on any level and the idea that these men and women were there for
our titillation unnerves me. Yes, they get paid, it is their job and they
probably enjoy it, but this is my personal opinion and it really isn’t
something that I felt at all comfortable with on a moral level. Next year you’ve
got my vote for waiters in tuxedoes.
All in all, I have had such a fantastic weekend and I
would like to thank BritMums for organising the conference and drawing together
such a huge pool of blogging talent. It has been a truly inspirational experience
and I can’t wait for next year!
