Almost on cue, every year, a feeling of malaise comes over me. School returns and Poss turns another year older. She is getting further and further away from that tiny baby she used to be. I get that it’s the way of the world. She will get older.
I am proud of her, yet at the same time, there is a slight regret there that every milestone that slips past, is one we will never see again. It’s the curse of an only. We only get to do this once.
I read an article recently, that suggested that you aren’t a ‘real mum‘ until you have more than one child. I try not to read articles like that, it makes me stabby and comes under the title ‘things I can avoid to make me stabby‘. But read it I did.
According to the story, because being a parent to one child is so easy (if someone can tell me when it gets easy, that would be great), I don’t get to call myself a ‘real mum’. Apparently I haven’t earned the title.
I know in comparison to a mother with five kids, for example, our life is probably significantly less busy. The logistics of getting any more than my one child anywhere makes my head spin, let alone everything else that goes along with being a parent to kids, plural.
But does that make me less? Does it make me fake? At what point do you become a ‘real mum’?
The joys are no different. The overwhelming love we feel for her no different. The pain as she grows up and knowing we only get one shot at this, maybe harder. I don’t know. I can’t compare.
She didn’t want me to walk her into school yesterday. Insisted she was a big girl, insisted she go by herself. A new step mastered for her, a step we have been working towards now for almost three years. I was so proud of her, she nailed it. But it’s bittersweet. It’s one less thing I am needed for.
A sooky, self-absorbed part of myself wants her to stay small, wants to feel needed. Because once she has mastered all these things, once she is big and grown, and our only makes her way out into the world, am I still a real mum then?
I’m all grown up now, and at 23 I’m pretty sure I’ve mastered all the things I ever needed my mum to do for me. But I still need her to be my mum! Otherwise who else would I ring on a Sunday afternoon and tell all about the things I’ve done this week that should make her feel proud? Not to mention make me cake for my birthday and bring me a book to read when I’m sick and send me a card to say have a nice day on random occasions. I’d be totally lost without my grown up mum.
People are stupid. It seems to me that all these ‘better mums’ out there could use there energy better than to put down other mums who they don’t know and who did not ask them for further attacks on their self-esteem. I read that tagline too, and it almost made me laugh if it wasn’t so sad.
Picture this. I am standing with my 1yo in the stroller in a busy pedestrian zone in Australia.
I am having a think, and I am having a cigarette. Doesn’t take long to notice how people, especially women, look at me – oh the BAD mum!! Here is the thing though: They had no clue what I had just been through. That day, that year and the preceding decade. The very few friends that know my story tell me it’s almost superhuman what I did FOR MY CHILD. I sometimes doubt myself, like many other mothers. Now this child also is on the spectrum. And I am dealing with that, as good as I can.
Women who compare themselves to total strangers, or pick one random isolated fact about them, be it the breastfeeding, the single child, and yes, even the smoking, need to have a long look at themselves AND also wait how their, obviously privileged in whatever way, offspring will actually turn out in the end.
In the meantime, they can just leave me alone, because I am busy with MY parenting, MY life.
xx
nikki recently posted..Yo, the ipad does not cure autism. Now, it looks like I will have to get one anyway…
You’re a good Mum! We all are doing the best we can; well most of us are. I don’t think it matters if we have one child or many. I wish we could just all stop and just leave others to mother and support each other Wouldn’t that just be much more helpful?
Bronnie recently posted..Does your face lie?
sure my life was easiler when I had one, compared to now, didn’t make me any less a mum. Plus it’s relative, it was all I knew and it had it’s challenges.
The minute a woman gives birth to a child she is a mother. No if’s or buts.
I’m one of these mum’s that can’t wait for the next phase, maybe in another year or two when my almost three year old is a bit bigger. But I’m sure when the time comes it will sting a little.
Maybe you need to remind yourself what’s on your ‘stabby’ list and stick to that, lol, it’s clearly there for a reason.
Mandy recently posted..Sunday Favourite Finds #5
I have 4 kids, between 4 and 8, and the moment it became hard was when my son was diagnosed with anxiety. The quantity of kids hasn’t earned me my stripes (aka wrinkles, grey hair and extra kgs!). Every kid is different so to bring it down to just a number is ridiculous.
Ass anyone who had lost their first child knows, you become a mum moment you are pregnant and it is what you want.
If anyone said to me I wasn’t a “mum” because I only had one child who happened to have died at 4 days old, I would go through them for a shortcut.
You think rallying 2 or 3 or more to activities and school is hard? Try a weekly visit to the cemetery to sit with your bub.
I am not posting this to elicit sympathy but rather to how inane the mum against mum fight / discussion has become.