It may be
very true that I have four small boys and have been busting a gut trying to
care for them all over the past 6 years, but I have to come clean about
something; being a mother is still a slightly alien concept to me. I’m still waiting for that light bulb moment,
for the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle to fit into place, for it all makes
sense, because most days I’m feeling my way in the dark. Blundering along, hoping that today will be
the day they will eat what I cook and praying I won’t say or do anything awful
that might threaten their future happiness and wellbeing. Sometimes I say over and over again to
myself, “I am a mother. I am a mother. I am a mother!”
my thinking being that if I say it often enough, it will ring true. Don’t get
me wrong, obviously I know I that I
am a mother. Who could forget when they
hear their name being called eleventeen hundred times a day? I didn’t take Mister Husbands name when we
got married. I kept my own as a last
vestige of the old me. But my name did
change. It is now “mammy” and I didn’t
have to go the deed poll route to do it as previously thought. I just had a child. Had several.
When there are three little people, and one waiting in the wings,
chorusing your name from dawn till dusk, you will begin to think “mammy” was
the name you were given at birth yourself.
So how do you know when you’re
a mother? Is it when you’re looking at
that positive result on a freshly pee’d on pregnancy test? Is it at the first scan? How about when you feel that first kick? In utero that is, and not from your
toddler! Is it when you finally get to
hold your baby? I don’t think there is
any one single thing that “makes” a mother, it’s a package deal. I open my mouth sometimes and my own mother’s
voice comes out. I catch myself coming out with expressions she used when we
were little. I dish them out on a daily
basis to confused and slightly bored stares from the Screecher Creatures. The most popular slash over used ones are: Am
I talking to myself? I’ve only got one
pair of hands and, because I said so, that’s why! She also liked to tell us that we were
getting chopped straws and buttermilk for our dinner. As far as I know we never sampled such a
delicacy. Quite often there were wigs on
the green in our house too. When I was growing up my mother was just that; my
mother. I am ashamed to admit that to
me, my mother was never really a person in her own right. And similarly I didn’t see her with any
rights of her own. She was just there to
do our biding. It was her job. I’m sure every child sees their main
caregiver like that. It’s only since my
own family came along that we have become friends. There is a definite shift in the relationship
when a mother’s daughter becomes a mother herself. For me, I saw my mother in a different
light. A brighter one. She seemed to have a halo. I have a newfound respect for everything she
did for me and indeed, continues to do.
In a way, she seems to do more for me now that she is my boys’
nana. Because she has been there herself
I suppose and knows the lie of the land.
Sometimes I find myself doing a compare and contrast between the two of
us. I definitely have a more haphazard
approach to parenting and all it entails.
The only time I ever saw my mother sit down to read a newspaper was on a
Sunday afternoon when dinner was over.
She used to manage 10 minutes before her head would fall forward onto
her chest. I could never fathom how on
earth she was able to do that – fall asleep.
Sitting up. In a chair. Now I
know. I do it myself all the time. It’s still a running joke between all of us
that she will have to be surgically removed from her sweeping brush. I have another memory of her coming to my aid
when I was in school. I had fallen and
banged my face off a door frame. As a
result, I had lips celebrities pay good money for these days. The wrong kind of lips that is to say, those
of the infamous trout pout variety.
There wasn’t a phone in our house back then and my mother doesn’t
drive. To this day I still have no idea
how she was contacted and reached the school to take me home. I was but a child then. Some years later, it was two days before my
legal birthday and she was at my side again following another accident. I have no recollection of how I came to be
knocked from my bike but I do recall being woken by an excruciating pain in my
smashed knee. Hers was the hand that was holding mine and she was crying. I know I made her cry many times before that but
hopefully not too many since. She
clattered me once. There is no doubt in
my mind I deserved it. I have another
strong and abiding memory of both my parents kicking up blue murder when my
younger sister was wrongly accused of shoplifting in front of her school
friends. My parents insisted that the
till roll be found. It was and the shop
manager was frogmarched by my parents over to the school and asked to withdraw
the accusation and apologise to my sister in front of her class. My parents are brilliant. They did and still do a hard job with, it
seems to me, ease. I hope that when the time
comes for me to stick up for my boys in whatever situation they find
themselves, I have the grace and ability to do it as well as my parents did. It might seem a little twee but I liked this
quote the moment I saw it; to be a mother
is to know your heart will forever walk outside your body. This pretty much sums it up for me. Mother love, there is nothing like it.
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