3:21p.m. 4th August 2008

| By Janine Hill

Jodie Hedley-Ward has written a book for mums who want to reclaim their lives. Photo: Contributed

Jodie Hedley-Ward looked in the mirror one day but did not see herself in the reflection.

“I thought, ‘My God, where have I gone?’ I’d lost all sense of myself. I didn’t feel good about myself,” she said.

The accomplished business graduate who had carved out a marketing career overseas in the fashion industry had disappeared after the birth of her first child into a suburban haze of feeding, cleaning, washing and ironing.

When she followed her research instincts and looked for a book to help her get more out of life as a stay-at-home mum, and found nothing, she did something about it, and wrote one.

You Sexy Mother, to be released this month, was designed to help mums get as much joy and passion out of their life, post children, as they did before children, Jodie, who lives at Buderim with her husband and children, Lili, 4, and Josh, 1, said.

“I just wanted something to help me find that sense of self and go on to feel good about myself and be a parent who enjoyed being with my children.”

Although the title, You Sexy Mother, might conjure up images of Posh Spice, Angelina Jolie and the rest of the “yummy mummy” brigade, Jodie said the book was not about super mums or how to look good in lingerie.

“It’s nothing to do with being sexy. It’s about having a sexy, vibrant life that you feel excited about and good about,” she said.

The pressure on women to be perfect has been of concern to Jodie since she completed a thesis for a masters in business, about 10 years ago, on how the fashion industry was failing to meet the needs of plus-sized women who were often left feeling inadequate by the poor choice of clothes available to them.

An Oprah Winfrey survey of more than 15,000 women found more than half felt like they were failing daily and 85% did not believe stay-at-home mums got the respect they deserved.

This reinforced her belief many women did not feel like they lived up to the expectations of themselves of others, and it helped drive her to complete the book.

“There’s no such thing as perfect parents. We’re all just doing the best we can with the knowledge we’ve got at the time,” she said.

Her book includes 10 tips for mothers to make an immediate turnaround in their lives.

Her top three are:

* Look after yourself – “Good food and good exercise. It’s so clichéd but there’s no getting past if. If you don’t top up the tank and look after yourself, everyone else suffers.”

* Time management – “I’ve had two children and moved countries in the course of this book so I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve all got the same 24-7 in the week and it’s really up to us how we use it.

* Dream big and pursue your passions – “You’ve got to still keep something for yourself that you like, that makes you feel like the same ‘you’ before kids. It might be drawing, it might be study, even if you have to do it by correspondence and it takes twice as long.”

Jodie, who wrote much of her book whenever she could grab a spare 30 minutes, said anything was possible if one simply put one’s mind to it.

“When I had all the time in the world, before I had children, I couldn’t find the time to write something like this. When I had my children, I felt that life was passing me by if I didn’t use any spare half-an-hour time slot. Instead of sitting down and watching TV for three hours, I had to use that time.”

You Sexy Mother, rrp $29.99, is available from bookstores or at www.exislepublishing.com. More information will be available from www.yousexymother.com.au which is expected to be operational within a week.