Blowing Out The Candles

Birthdays make you think don’t they? Beyond the arbitrary marking of time passing, the little traditions we observe of gift giving, messages penned in cards and making a wish as you cut your cake, all lend themselves to kick starting thoughts about the past, changes that have taken place since previous birthdays and aspirations  for where you might be heading in the future. With both my birthday and a milestone birthday for my daughter being celebrated within the space of a week, there have been a lot of thoughts floating around my head this weekend. 

A year on since my ‘fabulous fifty’ celebrations and I find myself writing this 50^th blog piece and thinking of all that has happened since I began blogging last July. What began as an anonymously safe space to log my thoughts like little diary entries of my midlife musings, now has taken its own shape and direction, openly as me for all to see. The content of a great deal of the posts formed the basis of my book and to have written and published a book would have been something that I saw as unobtainable a year ago. With many negatives that I could have dwelt upon, writing has somehow become my lifeline, my positive action and escape. It has often been my nostalgic route too, dredging up glimmering moments from the past to give them a fresh opportunity to shine again.

Such thoughts are quite apt this evening as I think about the significance of the next few days. Tomorrow we are going out for a family celebration of my daughter’s 18^th birthday and then two days later will be joining her in all that she has planned for her special day, as she officially joins the adult population. No longer my little girl in a pink tutu dress, running around the garden. No longer the Rainbow, the Brownie, the Guide, full of ideas and keen to help in the running of activities. Now instead, she is a grown woman with opinions and a drive to complete tasks that she sets for herself.

I find myself welling up as I write this. I have blogged before about the role of parents when your children are adults and how that is often hard to define. Much of who I have become over the last twenty-something years has been inextricably linked to being a mother. Choices I have made within my career to fit around childcare arrangements and the way that I tried to accommodate both home and work demands. Choices I made with my husband through the years about purchases, holidays, moving house and redesigning our current home, to provide what we felt would work best for the good of all of the family within the financial parameters that we had. Often quick to help out my children, to facilitate their hobbies, to provide transport to and from their social engagements, it is easy to become the ‘yes person’ to their requests.

Then, initially unnoticed, they begin to need you less and less as they become more independent. Then the day comes along when it hits you that you are no longer the central figure in their lives, no longer run ragged by the daily to and fro of school, clubs, appointments, work, dinner, bedtime and starting all over again the next morning. Some days this revelation feels like the positive success story that it is – you brought up your children well enough for them to be functioning independently within the world. Some days though it can leave you feeling without a purpose and yearning for those times when you held their hands to cross the road and you stamped your feet to keep warm as you stood in the park, pushing them back and forth on the swings for just a few minutes more.

It is all about adjustments. I have had a lot of adjustments to make at different points throughout my five decades. Some have taken longer than others and some have needed more support than others. I worried about my children the first time I left them with a childminder and on their first day at school. I cried when they went off for their first residential school trip, out of their sight of course, but nevertheless I cried. I panicked that they would not be okay the first time they walked to the shops or went to play with friends in the park on their own. I was both proud and a little sad on their first day at High School, dressed in such a grown-up uniform. I wished I could have had all of the pain of injections and X-rays and illnesses as they came along, so that they would not have to endure it. I hoped all would be okay and their nerves would hold whenever they had exams or tests at school or for their hobbies.

I had no control over any of those things and at the end of the day, I have no control over what will come next for them through their adult lives. So I have to adjust to that and accept the truth of it. Yet, whatever age they are, they will forever be my children and I will always want the best for them and worrying about that just goes with the territory. It is part of the job description of a mother and that’s fine by me. There are 18 candles to blow out on the cake this week and there may well be a few tears to wipe away at the same time, but I shall be proud to do so as we all sing ‘Happy Birthday.’

Millennium Mother

I had an early morning doctor’s appointment this week and so I shared my walk along the pavement with the pre-school traffic. Not the type in cars but those walking or shuffling along, mostly it seemed to be mother and child partnerships making their respective journeys. I’m guessing to school and on to their jobs or various ‘Mum’ duties of the day ahead.

Just as I was thinking back to my own walks to school many years ago, a vision of Millennium Motherhood sped past me. A sleek, silver scooter with the child stood on it grasping tight to the handle bars and - I presume - the mother behind, one foot balanced upon the scooter as the other pedalled gracefully along. The mother wore a rucksack on her back with a water bottle in the pocket, the sort of bottle with a central space for a piece of fruit or cucumber to sit dispersing its flavour throughout the working day. She was also carrying the daughter’s school bag, nonchalantly slung over her shoulder. 

So it was that this pairing wove between the walking school traffic, zipped across the road and deftly bounced up the kerb and on their way. I don’t know if this was their everyday mode of transport for the school run, I don’t know anything about them but this snapshot kick started my writing engine - an inner monologue scattering sentences and questions around my head. I thought about how passive the child was in all of this - a passenger perched on the scooter, facing away from the parent, no dialogue between them, no exchange of observations about the world around them as they travelled, no exertion on the child’s part. Then I thought how it was maybe a positive experience, this way to travel to school - both in close proximity, zipping around obstacles, sharing the fun of the ride without using up petrol. All that is indicative of current times: fast, green, a child balanced precariously but protected by the arms of her mother - a working mother looking sleek and well-presented, what we have termed as a ‘yummy mummy.’

The whole image screamed ‘sign of the times’ to me and made me think of my own times. That made me sad. Many times I missed out on sharing that walk to primary school with my own children. Often they would walk with my parents or the childminder as I had dropped them off as I rushed into work. Ironically getting to the classroom to be there for other people’s children, I wasn’t around for my own.

We often feel guilty as a parent. We lay blame upon our own shoulders for steps we didn’t take and for ones we did that we wish we hadn’t. We can’t remove the imprints left behind by those footsteps but we hope we learn to tread a little more carefully the next time round. I’ve had times that I have been brought back to a decision made long ago and re-evaluated it. Hindsight brings us a wisdom with which to judge directions taken but its experience can cause us to overthink the past, knock our confidence and cloud our judgement moving forward. Add the effects of the menopause into the mix and a spiral of overthinking, self-doubting thoughts can take hold which will only lead to a distorted picture of your past decisions.

We have always made a conscious effort to treat both of our children the same. If one was given a treat for a certain event or achievement, then so would the other when their time came around. Yet there is always that nagging feeling that you did some things for your firstborn that you were unable to replicate the second time around, merely due to the fact that this time you had two children demanding your care and attention. I suppose you could argue that you perhaps had the time and space to mess things up with the first and so get it right more quickly with second or subsequent children. What I do know though, is that none of it was by design.

I am sure that if I was parenting a baby or toddler now, it might have many aspects that look quite different to when I was doing it with births in 1997 and 2001. Straddling the dawn of this new millennium as a novice parent, I set out to do the best that I could. Much has advanced at a rapid pace since then and the world currently feels like an uncertain and often hostile place. I cannot imagine being a new parent now and I struggle still to be a good parent, to take those positive steps, to be supportive to my children now. The parent-child dynamic certainly changes over the years but I still remain the Mum. Often now, they tell me how to do things but they still seek advice, confirmation, someone to listen, to praise and support them. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself if they’re still turning to me for those things. I currently feel far removed from that yummy mummy image, that sleek scootering career mother, but perhaps I did get something right in this business of being a Mum.

Just Keep Swimming

To be a parent is at times akin to taking on the properties of a length of elastic. Often being pulled simultaneously in different directions there can be days when you feel that one end or the other is going to reach the point when it all snaps or at the very least, is stretched incredibly thin. Mostly we reform ourselves each day, back into working order, like a durable elastic waistband holding everything up. But what about the odd days when we have frayed too much, snapped and all falls down to reveal your metaphorical undies?

This week a friend reached out to me for advice during one such time when the demands of parenthood felt all too overwhelming for her, asking me what you should do when all you can give did not seem enough. It made me think. Being a parent is a permanent thing and more often than not it is the best job in the world. Yet at our lowest points, when we can feel that all around us might be judging our decisions, it can be a thankless and lonely task.

I have often got it wrong and continue to do so. I in no way have all the answers but I suppose I at least have a track record. With over twenty years of being a parent, you gain some perspective and at least a bank of experiences to draw upon – be they good or bad in the results that they achieved.

Growing up is a complex adventure and making adjustments as a parent to the relationship that you have with your children as they grow up, is also complicated. The phrase ‘they will always be your babies’ may well hold a truth in that you will always feel the need to be reassured that they are safe, happy and supported in their lives. Adjusting how you do this takes some effort, so that their independence and identity is not stifled but that your own well-being is not compromised by being taken for granted or by always playing second fiddle to the tune that they call.

Our house has grown over the years to accommodate our needs by which I mostly mean our children’s hobbies and associated paraphernalia, but really I suppose I mean to accommodate spaces for us all. With my daughter fast approaching a milestone birthday, we will soon officially have four adults in our house – and many days when this number is added to as friends drop in frequently. We are fortunate to have a comfortably-sized house but within that it has been important to carve out spaces for us to escape. Sometimes to escape each other for a while, sometimes to escape the world, the pressures of work or the decisions to be made.

Thinking back to the call for help mentioned earlier – there was much tied up within it about the need for space. Giving yourself space as a parent to pause from juggling all the balls at once, to tell yourself that it is okay to drop the balls some days. Busy families and busy working lives can leave us drained emotionally and it is important to give ourselves the space to step back from it all, to ask for advice, or to block out an hour or two from it all to drink coffee, eat cake and giggle about random shared experiences.

None of us truly know what others are going through or what they may be coping with on a daily basis. Many take on the appearance of a graceful swan and look for all the world as if they are gliding through life majestically without a worry. Onlookers do nto see how furiously hard the feet are paddling beneath the murky pond waters just to keep on course. As parents we see those other swans and can feel like an ugly duckling in comparison but we all have our water ways to navigate.

Before pausing my life to write, my teaching career gave me many experiences to draw upon as a parent. Strategies that worked for behaviour management or in supporting a child’s needs in school could often be mirrored or adapted at home with my own children. However, it doesn’t always work that way. We all know how differently children can appear to be within the two contrasting environments of home and school. General, everyday parenting I gained confidence in. When life becomes complicated by changes, additional needs, moving on to new phases as your children grow – then I could be left floundering around looking for answers. When you feel like you’re getting it wrong with your own children, there is an incredible pressure to resolve it, a guilt that you have made a wrong decision, a need to make things right with the world just as it was when a simple baby cuddle was all that was needed.

All of that has to contribute to the pressure being put on that elastic. It’s good to know who you can rely on at such times, to remind you that you are doing a good job. Keep on paddling, swans, you’ve got this.

Motherhood Masquerade

There may be manuals, websites and blogs with advice for motherhood out there, with tips and practical advice and more increasingly with recognition of the fact that mothers need emotional support. (So do Fathers, of course, but I can only comment from the first-hand experience of being a mother, whilst recognising that much of this would be the same for either parent.) However, all the advice in the world can’t make you ready for the job and just when you think you’ve cracked the job description and are easing into some sort of auto pilot state with it, motherhood can throw up an unexpected moment or two to send you into a tail dive for a while.

Recently I have found myself talking about those days when your body clock starts ticking and telling you that you need to have a baby. That time when you decide to take the big leap and then every month becomes a waiting game to see if all has aligned to create two lines in the window of a pregnancy test. Way back when this was our aim, it seemed like someone had planted a baby at every corner to remind me that it hadn’t yet happened for us. Once you’ve been through that process, the highs and lows of pregnancy and then negotiated childbirth, the true job of motherhood begins. When thinking back to these early days I think now that I probably had some post-natal depression, especially with my first child. Having had him by emergency caesarean I had an irrational belief that I hadn’t done the job properly and so immediately set up thoughts of failure as a Mum. Throw in an inability to breastfeed too, and I really felt like I was incapable of the basic functions required of a mother. When health visitors asked questions and got me to complete forms I knew all the right answers to say. I put on the happy mother mask, because that’s what is expected. I was mostly okay but knowing what I know about depression now, I would have benefited from support with this at the time.

Over the years, I think I have worn many masks as a mother. The mask to hide your disappointment that something that was special or important to you was swept aside or forgotten. Sometimes a small thing, sometimes larger but those moments when what you were hoping for, or what you wanted to do is brushed aside for the greater good - the needs or wishes of the wider family, so you just park your thoughts to one side and move on.

The mask to hide your worries when your children are embarking on something new that you know may not work out for them. You want so much as a mother to have your children succeed and to avoid pain and disappointment that you try to protect them and feel a growing tension when you cannot guarantee an outcome to be the way you would like it to be for them. Of course, we all have to experience failure in order to learn from it and to grow and succeed in the end. Yet when things look bleak, you would willingly suffer yourself in order to see your child achieve and soar.

There is the mask you wear to effectively gag yourself from passing comment when you know that to do so would only push your child further down a negative pathway. You hold it all in and keep worries to yourself about a phase they’re going through or a relationship they’re forming, save the thoughts up so that they play out in disjointed movies in your waking moments in the early hours as sleep evades you.

What about the mask that can become so well worn that it’s hard to take off sometimes? The “I’ve got this all under control” mask. To many, that appears as your real face: capable mother, professional and competent career woman, loving wife and adept homemaker - wow, you’ve got it all in that multitasking mask. Pity the friend that dares to peek beneath that mask with a well-timed question or comment that reveals what’s really going on under there.

As I began to write this I started to wonder how it was for my own mother. As a child I cannot recall any obvious problems being in evidence with her doing the job of a mother. Well, more precisely the many jobs of a mother. It all seemed so effortless and without issues. Once you’re in the position yourself you wonder what cues you didn’t pick up on, how difficult was it for your parents as you happily and obliviously got on with the important business of being a child? From my point of view I always had clothes that were clean and ready to wear, a hot meal on the table after school, support with homework or hobbies, like accompanying me to about six dance classes a week! All the mundane routine stuff was taken care of in a smooth fashion so I was left to focus on my own things - toys, TV, records and 80s pin-ups - so I guess I had no need to notice what else might be going on around me, for my parents. Unless all that is breaking down in front of you, I imagine that children just perceive everything to be okay. Perhaps my parents too had a series of masks they chose from to wear?

What is going on now then? How many masks am I wearing lately? I close my eyes and imagine myself at the centre of a masquerade ball where all the participants have their true identity hidden and for one moment, one night of sheer decadence in truly magnificent surroundings, we can all be anyone and do anything we would like. Immediately my poetic and dramatic self, commands my thoughts and paints a picture of the colours and feathers and glitter and I find it hard to move myself beyond this. Is that my subconscious grappling with my ongoing unease about my current position? A writer waiting for the next inspiration, for peer or external approval, for the drive to complete a project and see it succeed at some level, and all the while feeling that it’s all just a mask I have put on to disguise the fact that I am without work, without direction, without purpose?

Whilst this mask may be the most complex one I have worn to date, at this point in time it is simultaneously allowing me the luxury of time and space to devote energies to the finer details of still being a mum. I have had more opportunities to spend time with my daughter and to talk in some depth about the really important stuff of life. Moments like that should be treasured. All too soon, she will follow the example of my eldest and they will both be completely absorbed in adult life with little opportunity or motivation to pause and interact with their parents. We will still be here, on hand should they need us, but I don’t know what we’ll be doing or wearing by then. I hope it will still have a feather or two.

The Rule Book

Someone asked me today whether I ever had any rules for being a Mum. It was in the context of a discussion about how the rules change as your children grow up and also how I feel myself at present - away from the confines of a regular day job - a bit like the rule book has been thrown out of the window. His question made me pause to think and I wonder what rules I did have as a Mum and what rules any of us really follow?

Thinking back the golden rule in those manic initial months - the baptism of fire into motherhood - is of course to grab any rest you can as soon as you have an opportunity to do so. That pearl of wisdom from an older, seen-it-all-before relative "When baby sleeps, you sleep." In practical terms it doesn't work out that way as I remember trying to keep on top of the rest of life when baby slept, but the theory is sound. An image of scraping together something that vaguely resembles lunch from the previous night's dinner and hastily grabbing a moment in the shower, without baby in the bathroom with you, is the sort of thing I did in a dazed stupor at baby's nap time.

I am finding it hard to remember specific rules for managing as a parent, though I guess if you were to ask my children they would probably reel off several. I think we had more of a set of expectations rather than hard and fast rules. We expected our children to listen to others and in turn, we would listen to them. My dear friend and Godmother to both of my children has noted in the past that my eldest always expected to be included in the conversation and saw no distinction between himself and the adults in the room, taking his turn to speak alongside them. My daughter then followed suit from the example set. We expected that our children would sit down for mealtime, particularly if in a public place - no crawling or running around restaurants, no 'helicopter grazing' at home, picking at bits as they fancied rather than joining a mealtime. I guess then that social etiquette was taught by that example.  As for other rules, they would have centred around personal safety and respect for each other. That umbrella covers all of the daily necessities like "Don't touch the hob, wait at the kerb, put your toys back in the box when you've finished playing with them" and a whole host of similar statements. 

What rules do you have for your children? If you're not a parent, what rules do you remember from your own childhood? I wonder if you think they were fair or if with hindsight, you would change them. Keeping up with today's fast-paced life we probably need a fast-paced rule book, one that changes and adapts as issues arise. There's a lot that we needed to think about rules for that didn't exist when we were children. Screen time, internet access, gaming restrictions are just a few that come to mind. I still feel like I am playing catch-up in these areas and actually I have now run out of scope to be setting rules, as both of my children are now adults (well - the youngest is only six months away from being so.) Four adults, one dog, two guinea-pigs and a hamster all living in one space - there may not be rules but there needs to be a respect for each other's space and wishes. It won't be of any surprise to you to learn that it doesn't always work.

Looking back, I am sure that it didn't work for a lot of the time. There are so many parenting manuals available and a plethora of programmes to watch in the style of 'Super Nanny.'  Yet it doesn't really matter how much research you do, I still think that there are no real rules and no elusive magic way to be a parent. In danger of being called a hippy perhaps, I am not advocating having no rules for I firmly believe that children need boundaries and to know what they are. However, I think we all just do the best that we can, sometimes one day at a time, but the best that we can with the skills that we have and we keep our fingers crossed that somewhere along the line, it turns out okay.

We're Not Just Mum and Dad

Half a century I have been alive for: that’s quite a statement to make. I have been married for more time than I have been single: 28 years (to the same man - in case you’re wondering) which is almost three fifths of my life. I suppose we must be doing something right on the marriage front then. In the year when we have both reached our half century, I have found us to be reconnecting in many ways, almost as my husband said, reinventing ourselves.

We walked along a pebble beach today, just the two of us, and talked. Really talked. When you spend time with your partner on a daily basis you would think that you talk all the time wouldn’t you? Trouble is the subject matter is of daily tasks, meeting times, what the kids or the pets have been doing, all that sort of thing. You don’t touch on the big stuff - for that you need space and time.

A mini break by the sea, without the kids, gave us the context to discuss some pretty big stuff. To air how we feel about the ongoing family pressures may not solve presenting issues but it means you don’t have to hold all your thoughts and feelings about it inside your head, for you alone to be processing. This month has seen some big decisions on my part and having the time to talk about them, whilst the waves provide their calming soundtrack was a much needed therapeutic experience. There is something about the sea that touches the soul and it has almost a magical effect upon me - allowing my mind to drift into a floating state instead of its usual racing around agitation.

The phrase ‘headspace’ is heard increasingly and I was sceptical initially about it - surely it’s all just a bit hippy-like? This year, I have come to see the value of giving yourself time for some headspace, even if it was a term I would never have known or used ten years ago. As we walked and talked and sat in the November sunshine, the effects of sharing worries and taking calming measures washed over me, just like the waves would have if I had been brave enough to step into them.

Just having time together, away from the pressures of our work lives and the busy context of the family home, does in itself give you a freedom to appreciate each other and the little joys of being in each other’s company. When your parental responsibilities have lessened to a level that you can actually go out together without the kids, there is a feeling of stepping into the unknown all over again. The first time you do it, perhaps just for a meal out together, you sit there spending all evening talking about the kids and whether they’ll be okay at home. You have a feeling that actually you only function now as a parent and panic that perhaps you have nothing left to say to each other beyond how the parenting is working.

Then you repeat the freedom experience and if you’re lucky, like us, get to a point where you can trust the kids to be left at home whilst you go away for a night or two. This is where the reinventing really takes place. No longer just Mum and Dad, you find yourselves back in that couple role which has at times felt like a distant memory from our youth. Holding hands to walk along together, giggling about an amusing point of conversation, happily sharing the joys of being ‘in the moment,’ to coin the latest mindfulness mantra, is all reminiscent of a time before the weight of responsibilities pressed upon our shoulders. Work-life balance has eluded us lately. Family pressures have impacted upon us. So giving each other space and permission to talk about it all and to step away from such stresses, albeit for just a short time, has felt invaluable.

It is so easy when we all have such busy lives and demanding workloads to power on through the days and weeks and months without paying attention to the little things. It is important to press the pause button occasionally and just notice the details of your life. Somewhere along the way we got so caught up in working and making choices to suit other people that we forgot about ourselves.

Since returning from this short break, the little oasis of time and space, it’s amazing how quickly you plunge back in to the mundane and the turbulence of family crisis or work deadlines. At least, I have found that we are aware that it’s happening. We’re still talking about how we can continue to make time and space for each other. It’s a challenge that remains to be worked at and, I guess, as the Christmas frenzy cranks up, one that will prove more and more elusive for a while. We can’t make such grand gestures like booking rooms away on a regular basis but we have to look at the little things. Looking to the future, we need to give ourselves a break from it all more often. Pause, breathe, laugh or watch the sunset together. Do whatever it takes to put yourself as a couple at the top of the pile for a moment. For although, being Mum and Dad is the best job to have and a privilege to be given, we’re not defined by only that and it is time, perhaps, to be so much more.