I am the luckiest person in the world to have a mum like you. When I was growing up, you were the perfect mother. Our family was a safe, loving place full of laughter and fun, creativity and adventure. As a teacher you were well placed to inspire me to want to learn, explore and grow, always encouraging and supporting. You always put me first – you are so incredibly nurturing, so selfless. You have consistently made me feel so loved, as if I was your reason for being. What a wonderful, beautiful thing.
Now I am an adult, you are my very best friend. When I had my own babies, you were my unstinting support – cleaning my house, filling my fridge with meals for my family, walking my newborn baby round and round in the sunshine and playing with my toddler so that I could catch up on sleep. We still laugh together, read the same books, watch the same TV. I can tell you anything. Except this: I can never measure up to the example you set for me.
Since having children, I constantly compare myself with you, and always find myself wanting. I remember my perfect childhood, and it makes me horribly aware of all my failures as a parent. I love my children, I really do. But while you found parenthood joyful and precious – you have always told me that having young children was the happiest time of your life – I find it hard and exhausting, and often tedious.
I lose patience with my toddler, who has limitless energy but never listens. When I complain about him to you, you tell me that I was the same. But you have a smile on your face, and I know that you coped much better with my precociousness than I do with his. Once when I was changing a nappy, you were reminiscing that you would line my toys up along the side of my changing mat so that I could watch them while you changed me. You didn’t mean it as a criticism, but I feel like a terrible mother for not bothering to do things like that.
I remember being very young, and sitting on your lap wrapped in a towel after my bath. You would sing me songs you made up just for me, and I felt like I was wrapped in love. When I get my young children out of the bath, I have to fight to get them dried and dressed and to brush their teeth while they wriggle and shout and drive me mad. How am I getting this so wrong? You are my shining example of motherhood, but I doubt my children will think of me that way. They will remember that I was cross, and a bit useless.
I am tired, so very tired, all the time. I know if I rang you and told you how tired I was you would jump on a train and come up to help, because that’s the wonderful person you are. But you didn’t have a mother to help you out when you were raising your family. My need for you is just one more way in which I am less of a mother than you are.
I know if I told you any of this you would be heartbroken, so I never will. I never want to cause you pain, because you have spent my whole life protecting me from pain. I will never feel less than lucky to have had you as my mum. You are the best person I know. I am just aware that I can never, ever live up to that.
Anonymous
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