How Not to Be a Good Mum

Something I have realised over this warm and sometimes sunny summer, is that I am stupendously good at not being a "good mum."

I think this was finally confirmed as I lay, nursing the worst hangover in the world,  curled  up in a taxi and then on a plane seat, on a 15 hour flight back to London  from our holiday in Singapore 
Probably not the best role model for our two teenage children, Mia and Joss,sitting in the row in front of us on the plane.
And it wasn't so much the hangover or the fact that I couldn't open my eyes without feeling as though pins were being stuck into them or that I was clutching a makeshift 'vomit,' bag, that left me pondering my parenting inadequacies. 
It was more the way my last words to Mia and Joss from the night before, kept swirling around my alcohol infused brain.

The night before had been our son, Joss's, birthday and luckily for him and our daughter, our friends in Singapore just happened to know the owner of a nightclub. 
Since night clubs in Singapore don't even open their doors before midnight (obviously) we arranged to meet our friends and the nightclub owner in one of his bars at 10.30 pm.  
"10.30!" says our (like me 50 plus friend,) " that's quite late."  
Mia and Joss say nothing, just give an almost imperceptible roll of the eyes.
"We don't mind how late you get back,," I say, the  epitomy (I believe)  of  laid-back good-mumness, " but remember we have to leave for the airport by 7.30 tomorrow morning. So make sure you're back by then and whatever you do don't drink too much. You definitely don't want to fly with a hangover."
Feeling extremely proud of our young-at-heartedness, we arrive at the bar at 10.30.and are greeted by the pony-tailed night club owner.  
And of course we have to buy some drinks to say thank you to him. 
" What you need," he says, grinning widely "is one of these."
And he points at a waitress carrying a tray of very blue cocktails 
"What are they?" I ask and he points at the menu
ADIOS YOU MOTHERFUCKER it says in writing so big that even someone as old as me can read it without having to hold the menu at the other end of the table.
And so it was, that while Mia and Joss were eventually whisked off to experience the wildness of Singaporean nightlife, we stayed and drank bright blue and extremely alcoholic AYMFs
Which is why, at 6 the next morning, I woke up in bed, fully dressed, with a head throbbing like a time-bomb just before it explodes.
And Mia and Joss.....they came home at 4 am, slept for a few hours, woke cheerfully and and stared suspiciously at my pale, sun-glassed face..

"What's wrong with mum?" asks Joss.
And I find myself wondering the same thing.

As I try to ignore my throbbing head and churning stomach, I think back on all the times when our kids could have asked me that.
All the times when I definitely was not being a good mum.

It starts with the times you arrange those "play-dates", for the kids which are really "coffee and sanity dates" for the parents.
While you sit munching the snacks you prepared for the kids, putting the kettle on for "just one more cup" discussing how hard it is being a mum, how constantly exhausting and demanding motherhood is, the children destroy the living room, paint the spare-room carpet red, tip out all their toys, fight over the one toy from the huge pile that they all want and start hitting each other.
Bravely we sip our coffee and ignore them.
Not being a good mum is exhausting.
It  involves so much clearing up, so much biscuit-eating, so much coffee drinking that it's lucky we manage to make it through to bedtime and falling asleep next to our toddlers when we're meant to be reading them a story.

Then there are those daily manically stressful 10-minutes-before-school-moments, spent shouting at the kids because you've forgotten to wash their PE kit, still covered in mud from last week or lost the note that was meant to have been signed 2 weeks ago to give permission for a school trip that is happening today.
" You never gave it to me," I shout at our ( then)  6 year old son ( even though I know it was me who took it out of the book bag ). Immediately he starts to cry and now I not only feel cross but also guilty.

Or those themed dressing-up days at school when our kids arrive wrapped in a sheet with a hole in it for their heads or a safety-pinned towel, while everyone else is in beautifully sewn princess dresses or amazing superhero costumes.
I catch Mia and Joss looking longingly at the costumes of their friends and run away before I have to chat with the "perfect mums," about how they have stayed up all night adding the finishing touches to their creations while I have stayed up drinking wine and watching the re-runs of "Friends."

And then there's those arguments that you just can't let your 6 and 7 year olds win.  Those times when, to avoid them having the last word, you wait until they are almost  asleep before saying: "and it wasn't my fault about your PE kit. You should have reminded me shouldn't you?" and creeping out I shut the bedroom door with a quietly victorious click.


"Those are nothing," says our now 18 year old daughter when I ask her views on my (lack of) good mum qualities,"what you do now is much, much worse".
" Really?" I ask disappointedly,  biscuit half-way to my mouth. "Really?" 
  Because secretly I've  always thought I was doing better as a mum of teenagers than I did as a mum of toddlers and young children. 
Deep down inside, I had believed that I had somehow managed to find  that "cool laid-backness but caring-when-it-matters," attitude.
" Yea," says Mia reflectively,
" What do I do that's so bad?" I ask, 
 " Like when I go out clubbing and you say you'll make up the bed in the shed just in case!  That's horrible ...Or all the advice you give me about what to say to boys which is completely wrong and makes everything worse.  Or when you try to use LOL in a message or talk to the parents of our friends.  And you're always telling Joss and I to have parties when you and dad are away for the weekend. You need to stop doing that.  It's embarrassing."
"I'll try," I say plaintively, " it's not easy being a mum you know."
Mia shrugs.
"Your choice," she says and wanders off into the living room.

And, as always, she's right.
I long ago gave up trying to have the last word. 
 It stops working when your kids start going to bed after you. 
It was our choice to become parents.
I think I just forgot to read the rule book.

"Welcome to Gatwick, London where the local time is 8.30," says the voice over the intercom. the weather in London is warm with 100% chance of rain. We hope you have enjoyed your flight."

I open my eyes tentatively and realise that my hangover, like our holiday, is fading.
In the row in front,  Joss and Mia are reaching for their hand luggage from the overhead lockers. 

"What's for dinner when we get home?" asks Joss." I'm starving. And all the trains are cancelled by the way. Just checked on my phone."
"Why didn't we just drive and leave the car in the car park like I said," groans Mia.

I pull my sunglasses back down over my eyes.wondering if I can plead hangover above motherhood for just a few more hours.

" One thing they never warn you about becoming a mum" said a friend of mine a long time before we had kids of our own " is that it's relentless."

And I've never forgotten that word because I've never found one that better sums up parenthood.
Relentless, guilt-ridden, exhausting and the hardest, most rewarding job you will ever do - even if you get it as badly wrong as I do so much of the time.

But just in case this is one of those truly " how not to be a good mum days," ....anyone up for for joining me in a bright blue AYMF?

Sun burnished friendship

So...we have just returned from a hot, humid and magical holiday in Singapore and Malaysia.

An escape from the Brexit trauma and the disheartening fogginess of lack-lustre leadership. 

Instead we wandered through the futuristic Marina Bay in Singapore, floated in a rooftop pool above the Kuala Lumpur skyline.

And watched the sun setting over the warn sea of Penang 

We drank the water from fresh coconuts and ate more delicious food  than most people get to eat in a lifetime 

The sun didn't stop shining and our spirits didn't stop soaring.

And that made the holiday fantastic.

We stayed with very special friends who have  a fish-filled pond in their living -room and an enormous swimming pool on its doorstep. 

And that made our holiday amazing.

But we met up too with some friends  from so long ago that it seemed almost as though I had dreamt them.

And that made our holiday truly magical.

The last time we spent a whole evening  together, whole weeks of wandering through Malaysia, was 31 years ago.  

A year after we left school.

31 years that seem to evaporate into no time at all, the moment we saw each other again.

Like treasure,  buried so long ago, its burnished beauty has almost been forgotten.

We brushed off the dust of time and found that friendship doesn't tarnish or waste away.  Instead we carried on where we had left off 31 years ago.  

Time seem to collapse into itself until we were almost sure that the things we remembered must only have happened yesterday.

Perhaps we were high on rose-tinted nostalgia.

Perhaps remembering made us feel young again.

Perhaps the glow of almost forgotten friendship made our hearts sing.

But I don't think it was just that

.

There is something about the friendships of our youth that always remain a part of us.

That have helped to form the very fabric of our being.

They are a piece of who we are and what we have become.

And finding that friendship again is like finding a part of yourself that you had thought was lost.

Suddenly the music of forgotten laughter is ringing in your ears.

You find yourself reaching out for those distant dreams  buried by the decisions you have made and the paths you followed.

And for just an instant, all things seem possible again.

While we were away, our son, Joss turned 17.

I look at him with pride and wonder at the young man he has become.

He is kind, caring, warm-hearted, determined and much wittier and more capable than I ever was.

But suddenly I remember being 17 again.

Because that's the age I was when I first met these friends.

Probably we were full of teenage angst.

Probably the future stretched before us, as full of fears and worries as glowing potential.

But all I remember, so many years on, is the pleasure we found in each other's company, and the knowledge that what we had was something special. 

I remember staying up all night talking earnestly about things that seemed so incredibly important that we could not let sleep get in the way.

I remember dancing at parties and pic-nicing in parks.

i remember laughing and crying and holding tightly onto every moment

And I remember so clearly thinking: "this is what it means to be alive."

I think perhaps you never experience again the intensity of the friendships you form as teenagers.

I see it with Joss and his friends now, the joy they find in simply being together.

The hedonistic afternoons spent on the beach or lying in the park.

They are growing up together, supporting each other as they dip their toes into the unforgiving ocean of adulthood.

" Is there more past or more future," the voice asks us over the microphone as we visit the " cloud mountain," that only Singapore could think of creating in a huge green house.

I ponder the question.

Obviously, environmentally, they are trying to show us that the future of the world is at stake unless we humans stop destroying it.

But I couldn't help taking the question more personally.

Obviously, at 50, I am most likely to have more past than future.

But somehow re-finding old friends makes the divide less clear.

Like an ever-growing patchwork quilt, our life lies all around us.

Sometimes the patches you find in front of you are bright and new and unexpected.

Sometimes they are delicate and transparent and as transient as mist.

And sometimes they are the  patches you started sewing so long ago that you are shocked at  how familiarly beautiful they are, how the patterns have not faded over time.

I look at our 17 year old son and hope that his life will be full of dreams-come-true and the music of laugher 

I hope that he finds what he is looking for and touches his dreams.

I hope that he never feels lost or alone.

But if he ever does, I hope his life has created a quilt , so bright and beautiful, that when he wraps it around himself the strength and  colour of love and never-ending friendship will keep him warm.

With an only-slightly-regretful wave, I say goodbye to my younger self.

It's time to weave old friendships into new patterns....all I need to do now, is learn how to sew.

August 1985

August 2016