There’s a photo I treasure, of my mum, in a simple cotton dress, in front of a monster of a 70s TV, holding me, her brand new, first born child.
I have a massive head.
She looks so happy.
Yet, it struck me recently - I’m not sure why I treasure it.
It’s a photo of two strangers.
Two humans I couldn’t have known. The baby is me yes, but it’s hard to relate to yourself in that way isn’t it?
And my mum is my mum. I didn’t know her then.
I still know very little of who she was then, what her hopes and dreams were and what her life was like. How did she feel when she closed her eyes at night and when she opened them again in the morning.
I don’t think I paid much attention to any of those things about her as I was growing up. I expected her to simply be my mum. To only care about what was going on in my life. That’s just the way kids are, most of the time, isn’t it.
Now, I’m finding ways to ask the questions.
And, I suppose, now that I’m a mum too, I see her.
I can separate who she is as my mum and who she is as a woman, a human.
We’ve started to talk as two women, at times, rather than always as mum and daughter.
I think talking to our mums like that, if we can, is important. Like they’re any other woman we care about knowing. Ask them the things we ask other women in our life. How else will we get to know who they really are?
I’ve been thinking about this because, in my fiction, I feel drawn to explore the fragility of that bond, to write the joy and the pain, of motherhood. Parenthood. How it shapes us.
But I feel strongly about laying bare the whole of motherhood.
Because mums are simply women who happen to have had children.
Yet there’s so often a rigidity of ideas or expectations around who and what a mum should be. I think that can be problematic.
I’m not saying that motherhood doesn’t have parameters. It is a role, there’s a functionality to it, some basics and wonderful privilege - take that as read in what I am saying. And that my role as a mum has shaped me beyond anything else.
But mothers are women who had childhoods. Women who had a journey before motherhood. Who’ve known pain. Known love. Known a lack of love. All in the kinds of ways we feel weird knowing about. They’ve been let down, they’ve messed up, they’ve been marked by life, for good and for bad. All that impacts the way they mother.
Mums have traits or ways that can get under our skin like nobody else’s. And we can find it hard to overlook them. But those traits have roots. Sometimes those roots are in pain. And we don’t know that unless we ask the questions. Or, unless we start to have a bigger picture of who they are, outside the lines of motherhood.
I annoy my children because I have an intolerance for loud noise. That’s tricky when you have kids. But screaming or (playful) shouting can make me really snappy. And that’s because I’ve spent years in pain from it, not knowing why I can’t tolerate it. So now I try to tell my kids that. I tell them my snappiness has roots (I don’t use those words, they would eye roll me.) And I tell them that I’m sorry, I can’t be one of those mums that ‘just loves to hear the house filled with screaming noise’ because I don’t. And I’m not perfect. How can I be? But at least this way they’re getting to know me and to know that my imperfect actions are about me, not them.
I want them to think I’m the best mum in the world. I try to be that. But when I miss the mark - now or when they’re grown up - I want them to understand enough about being human, to forgive me.
But I want them to have a good idea of me as a woman too. To know that I have hopes and dreams. And to know that they can ask me about them. That they can know me.
I hope I can give them a pretty good example of what it is to be a mum - complete with fiery imperfections.
But more than anything I want them to see what it is to be a woman. To be human. To understand, or at least try.
It may have taken the best part of four decades and two kids of my own, but I am starting to see my own mum in full colour now.
Maybe that’s why I treasure that old photo of us. Because I can look at it and see how far we’ve come.
*(I do know that many parent and child relationships are hard by the way and so many events and actions can’t be forgiven. I’m not attempting to dissect all of that here, or make a case for any and all relationship scenarios. I write with love and with all ‘mum and child’ relationships in mind).
Caption: Me and my boy, in Cornwall, 12 years ago!
A NOTE ON SOMETHING ELSE…..
Substack is quite a personal space and my writing has a tendency to get pretty personal. I can’t write about life and get close the the subjects that will resonate, without being vulnerable here. We all know there is so much vulnerability in writing, that’s why it takes so many of us years to get going.
To that end - I have decided it’s time to ‘go paid’ as they say, on Substack. This will mean I can write more open, personal articles for a more closed audience, who feel there’s value in these here ponderings.
It will also put a value on my fiction, as in some cases, once published here, my stories can’t be used elsewhere.
Not all of my work here will be paywalled - just some. So please stick around if you’d like to stay as a free subscriber. But if you want to buy me a coffee now and then by pledging, I’m grateful (I have a bad sleep pattern and a very expensive coffee habit).
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