Edwina Bartholomew: Motherhood makes separating personal from professional difficult

No matter what separates us as parents, what unites us all is the fierce love we have for our children, says Edwina Bartholomew.

My mother always says you never stop being a mum. Even as your kids grow, move out, move back in, you are always a mum, first and foremost. That love continues even after the untimely and tragic death of a child.

This week we heard from Hannah Clarke’s beautiful parents as an inquest into her death was announced for March. They have been thrust into a situation no parent should have to endure. It was February 2019 when Hannah and her children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4, and Trey, 3, were doused in petrol and set alight by her estranged husband Rowan Baxter. Further details released this week added another layer of heartbreak to the already devastating story.

The court heard Hannah was “a warm, caring, fun loving mother” and her death an act of “unimaginable cruelty”. She made a final plea to first responders when she realised her children had been killed, telling them she didn’t want to survive.

Hannah’s parents Sue and Lloyd hope the inquest will “fill in a few missing pieces” and said: “If we can save one more life through things that are found out that’ll be great.”

Bruce Morcombe, father of murdered schoolboy Daniel Morcombe, at the offices of the Daniel Morcombe Foundation on the Sunshine Coast. Picture: Dan Peled

We marked another tragic anniversary for another mum this week. Denise Morcombe lost her son Daniel 18 years ago. For all of that time, she has been the stoic face of a campaign to protect our children from stranger danger in person and now online.

Bruce and Denise, like Sue and Lloyd, have turned the devastation of losing a child into a nationwide mission to help others.

We cover stories like this in the news all the time. Since becoming a mum, I find it increasingly difficult to separate the personal from the professional.

What would you do if it happened to you? Would you be as selfless as the Morcombes and Clarkes? I don’t know the answers.

What I do know is that no matter what separates us as parents — the superficial decisions on school, sugar, screen time — what unites us all is the fierce love we have for our children.

The reality is there will be another mum like Hannah and there could be another kid like Daniel. We can only learn from the lessons of the past, protect our kids as much as humanly possible and surround our families with the never-ending love that only a mother and father can know.

Originally published as Edwina Bartholomew: Motherhood makes separating personal from professional difficult