I read some great tributes to mothers over the weekend, not all of them one hundred percent glowing but all of them written with love and understanding of the woman who was their mother and what she had done for them.
I suppose as we get older we understand our mothers more. Sure we see their faults and failings but we also see our own. We realise life is not always easy for anyone but especially mothers. They are human beings with the same kind of pressures, faults, good points as anyone else.
I also wonder about the physical toll. There’s a lot of hard physical work associated with motherhood. You carry the baby for nine months, you give birth and that’s not always (or ever) a whoopee, this is fun, why don’t I do this more often, kind of affair, is it.
Then there’s the physical carrying, lifting, bathing, cleaning and those damned sieved vegetables. I hated even the look of sieved vegetables. Looking at a little dish of sieved vegetables was to me akin to looking at a bowl of sieved sick. So there was a lot of bracing commands to myself along the lines of ‘You’re not going to throw up, you are not going to throw up.’
I never feel I made a really good job of being a mother. Its not like learning to spell or learning to write. Mothers don’t get ticks for doing well or crosses for doing badly. In any case you don’t need anyone else to do that; you’re perfectly capable of handing them out to yourself. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
I can think of lots of times when I was harried, worried about money, anxious about getting things done in a certain time, when I was probably too pushed to be as patient as I should be. I hope I wasn’t actively unkind but who knows how it appears to a kid?
I can think of times when I had lines to learn, dinner to cook, kids to be bathed, stories to tell, ironing to do, and my mind was scurrying on things that had to be done the next day, appointments, making a cake, sorting clothes for the jumble, and my attention on what they wanted was only partial.
The leadup to Christmas in those days was like running a marathon. In fact I’d like to see some of those marathon winners accomplish what I did in the time and with the money I had and arrive at the finish line with Christmas organised, all presents wrapped, a small beer under the tree for Father Christmas (and Laurie didn’t drink and I didn’t like beer, so it got poured down the sink once the kids were asleep), the cake made, a large leg of roasted lamb – (couldn’t afford ham at that stage) –salads, roast vegetables, trifle, jellies, fruit salad (pavlovas came later), and still be able to smile. Possibly easier to go to the starting blocks, wait for the signal, and run until you’re told to stop?
And if there were a few snappy moments or a couple of shouted orders, its probably understandable. And at least I didn’t have to do the dishes. And yes perhaps half of this was over the top and a total waste of time.
But ah, here’s the rub. I’m not the judge. Its a bit like sitting an exam you have no hope of winning but in my case anyway, I (mostly) enjoyed the ride through these unmapped waters. I sure as hell learned from it and that, in my book, is a lovely thing.
