Having kids doesn’t mean giving up the waves
There was one thing that Aoife O’Sullivan loved to do when she was pregnant with her first child, and that was to surf. “I surfed the whole way up until I was about seven months pregnant and I was just like, ‘there’ll be no more fun after you have this baby, no going out in the water’.’”
Then she saw a poster for Surfing Mums, a group which meets up at the beach, and in pairs they take turns surfing while the other parent supervises the children. “I thought, ‘okay, I can do parenthood now!’”
The moment she got the all-clear from her obstetrician after having her son Fionn, Aoife signed up to the Manly/ Freshwater Surfing Mums group and was out in the waves. “It was wonderful, amazing,” she says of her first surf as a new mum.
Six years on and Aoife, who now lives in Avalon and has a second child, Fiadh, is a coordinator for Surfing Mums. The groups meet at three locations: Palm Beach on Thursdays; Avalon on Mondays and Fridays; and Mona Vale on Wednesdays.
The movement was started by two Byron Bay mums in 2006 and now there are 40 groups around Australia.
“The idea is that you buddy up with somebody and swap your childcare duties with that person. So you would hand over your child for an hour and then come back and then you look after their kids,” Aoife says.
Participants are required to register as members of Surfing Mums and pay an annual fee before they join, which covers public liability insurance. From there the group sends out messages on where they will meet each week.
“We tend to move just based on the conditions,” Aoife says. “We always try to make sure that we find somewhere that’s going to be safe for everybody in the group. So we get an idea about people’s confidence and competency and make a decision where to go based on the safety of everybody.”
Currently they have around 50 members, but they are looking for more people to join.
“It’s definitely life-changing,” Aoife says of the group. While she admits it was very hard at first to have her baby cared for while she surfed, admitting it felt like ‘missing that limb’, she found that the freedom of being back in the water, doing something ‘completely joyous’ was precious.
Surfing mum Aoife O’Sullivan
“It’s also about the community of mothers and parents. On the Northern Beaches particularly, there isn’t a whole lot of people who have extended family,” she says. “So you kind of make that tribe around you with Surfing Mums.”
The group often organises other events outside of surfing, like family camping trips and nights out.
Aoife says they have a few dad members, and that ‘anybody who cares for a child is welcome to come’, including carers and grandparents.
“It’s the best thing you can do for yourself and your kids,” she says.
For more information, visit surfingmums.com