Ruby Red Tuesday: Mothers' Day

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For the whole of this week, I have been preparing my kids for Mothers' day. We shared the attributes of mum and what they did for us. In my adult class today, most of them mums themselves, we had a lively discussion. Mums are great, cool, nice, ok, beautiful inside and outside, cheerful, kind, generous, patient, and the list goes on.

I asked if they remember a Chinese Children's song, "Mum is the best person in the whole wide world." aka SHI SAM ZHI YU MA MA HOU. We sang it aloud and shared our experiences.

Deborah made me a mother almost 26 years ago. I was in my private room and I suddenly felt like singing the song. With tears in my eyes, I sang as I held her to my bosom. A nurse came in and said, Yes, that a good thing to do."

Today, is my second daughter's birthday. Every time I am made a mum, I should be happy. But that's not to be, the third time I was made a mum, I became a bereaved mum. I was told that day that Andrew was dying. Thank God, when I became mum the fourth time, it was a joyous one.

With all the mum emotions, I was very happy to read in my newspaper the following, NZ is ranked 6th. Australia is ranked second. Sam said "No wonder Aunty Karen, Audrey and Helen are such good mums." These ladies are his aunties in Australia.

New Zealand ranked sixth best place to be a mother
By Simon Collins

New Zealand is still one of the best places in the world to be a mother, says a new report.

Save the Children's annual Mother's Day report says the average Kiwi woman will have 20 years of formal education and live to age 82, with almost all having health professionals present when they give birth.

By contrast in the worst place in the world for mothers, Afghanistan, a typical woman will have only four years of formal schooling and die by age 44, and only one in seven has a health professional present in childbirth.

But the report places Australia and four Nordic countries ahead of us on key measures such as maternal deaths in childbirth.

New Zealand's overall ranking is also dragged down by a high death rate of six out of every 1000 children before the age of 5 - the same as in Australia but roughly twice the death rates of three or four in 1000 in Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.

The rankings are based on a weighted average of children's wellbeing and women's status in health, education, income and politics.

An Auckland obstetrician and gynaecologist who chairs an official committee on maternal and infant mortality, Professor Cindy Farquhar, said her committee found that our perinatal child death rate, between 20 weeks of pregnancy and one week after childbirth, was comparable with Australia and Britain, which was rated overall 14th-best place for mothers.

Our maternal death rate of 17 women for every 100,000 giving birth is quoted in the report as more than twice Australia's rate of 7.5 and higher than in all but 11 out of 43 developed countries.

But Professor Farquhar said these figures were based on a very small number of actual maternal deaths - just 11 at last count in 2007.
TOP 10 Places for mothers, 2009 rank in brackets:
1 Norway (2)
2 Australia (3)
3= Iceland (4)
3= Sweden (1)
5 Denmark (5)
6 New Zealand (6)
7 Finland (7)
8 Netherlands (10)
9= Belgium (17)
9= Germany (9)
Source: Save the Children.

I went specially to Western Springs to take these photos. I knew there will be mums there. In facts mums are there rain or shine, winter or summer. Mums love their kids. One woman is pregnant.