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?

Empty nesting

Last week I visited Manchester University with our 17 year old daughter, MIa.
While Mia went to a " student-life," talk, I went to a " help for soon-to-be-bereft parents," lecture.
 After we had been told about applying for loans, setting up bank accounts, filling in forms, teaching our chilldren how to cook, turn on washing-machines and do-all-thosa-other-things-we-never-actually-make-them-do-at-home lessons, a picture of an empty bird's nest was flashed up on the screen in front of us.

Lowering her voice to one that was calming and soothing, rather  than chatty and informative, the speaker gave us  empathetically meaningful looks and said:
" Last of all,  I want to talk about, empty nest syndrome."
Around me parents shifted uncomfortably in their seats as though their secret had been discovered.
Next to me a mum turned and stared wistfully out of the grey-sky filled window.
And for the first time in the hypnotically tedious talk ( and mostly due to the words "last of all,") I woke up.
Empty nest syndrome is not something that  I"ve ever seriously considered.
I've dreamt of a day when our house is not scattered with teenage clutter - used make-up wipes, discarded clothes, half-drunk smoothies, unattached phone chargers, sweaty socks
I've imagined a house that is as tidy when I get home from work in the evening as it was when I left for work in the morning.
I've fantasised about not being constantly asked what's for dinner or why there is never anything good to eat in our house.
I've let my mind wander to a time when I can  go a whole day without someone demanding where their T-shirt, new jeans, PE kit, lip stainer,  homework or anything-else-that-belongs-to-them, is.
But I've never actually thought about how I will feel when the house is teenagerless and empty.t
For years, my husband Ninesh and I, have been making plans about what we will do when we are free.
How we will spend our time when our days are no longer shaped around parenthood,.
 What we would do with the days when the hours belong to us...
We are already thinking about which camper van we will buy.
Ninesh has already started pouring over maps, planning the route of our carefree future.
But as I sat in that university lecture room in Manchester, I began to worry.
Not so much at the sense of emptiness I would obviously soon be feeling, but at the thought that I might not feel empty enough.
From the moment our children take their first steps, they are walking away from us.
As a parent, it's hard  to watch them fall and even harder to watch them struggling to pull themselves up again.
With every bone in your body, you are aching to do it for them, to pick them up, give them a comforting hug and set them back on their feet,  heading in the right direction.
But deep down inside, we know we have to let them do it by themselves.
Being a parent is never easy.
You never stop feeling guilty, never stop believing you're doing it wrong, never stop wishing you had more  
patience, more time, more energy, more understanding of text speak.
The best gifts we can give our children are a sense of self-worth and self-belief and help them to become independent thinkers.
Washing and cleaning they can learn the hard way, knowing they can manage without you is not so easy.
Life is full of false-starts and obstacles that trip us up and holes that we fall down.
As a parent we can't make sure that the path to our children's future is completely smooth, we won' always be there to pick them up and it's not our job to make their decisions for them.
All we can do is be the safety net that is always there to catch them when they fall and give them the courage to keep on trying.
All we can do is be there when they need us and step back when they don't.

" It's strange," said one of my friends whose son is just finishing his second year at university, " I've only just realised that he has his own life now, that we are no longer the centre of his life, that when he plans his Summer, his holidays, his future, we are not what he thinks about.. It's odd not knowing what he' s doing. But when I think about it, once I left home, I never told my parents anything."
And I think, maybe, more than an empty nest,,a tidy house (in my dreams!), that's what I will find strange.
Up until now it's always felt like Ninesh and I are the roots and our children are the shoots.
It's hard to think of them growing completely separate from us with shoots of their own, hard to imagine completely disentangled lives.
Of course my kids don't tell me everything, probably they mostly tell me nothing, but I know where they are, how they  spend their time, what's important to them.
It's hard to think of them out in the world on their own with friends we've never met, with people who are more important to them than us,dreams we might not understand, living in worlds that are part of a different universe.
It's hard to imagine.
But it's life.
And we have to let them go.
Even if it's not quite far enough away for them.
Because even if they are inhabiting other universes, escape is almost impossible in this modern hyper-connected world.
There's  Facebook and Snapchat and Instant Messenger and Instagram and sos and lol and tybtw
Sometimes I feel almost sorry for today's teenagers. 
Where can they hide?

"Being Facebook "unfriended" by both your children: it's like the 21st century equivalent of empty nest syndrome."
wrote my friend Cath the other day.
And she's right. 
Empty cyber-space is beginning to feel more like an empty nest than an unused bedroom.

But truthfully, I don't think it's knowing that social media is making the world a smaller place or that mobile phones mean that our children are hardly ever out of contactable reach, that's is stopping me from feeling sad.
Life is a big adventure and  standing on it's very edge, our children are just beginning to spread their wings.
I'm excited and happy ( and just a little bit jealous) that they have it all before them.
And our job is not to clip their wings but to help them fly.
And whether they like it or not, a little piece of my heart will always be flying with them! 

So while our kids get ready to pack their bags and flee the nest,  Ninesh and I are off to look at camper vans because I can't help feeling that the future's just about to catch up with us ...and it's always best to be prepared.