Hello World,
I am doing my best to “produce” although having said this, it rather sounds as though I have problems in the bathroom, which I don’t by the way. But although I have been told that one can, and should, write constantly whether one feels like it or not, I have come to realise that anything of worth that I have ever written has been “produced” under a spurt of inspiration. The font of this particular inspiration is my divorce, which in itself could be promising material as Italian divorce law is about as slow and frustrating as trying to climb a sand dune about the size of Everest, and if you go judicial, you may be trying to climb up for the rest of your days. But as it happens, the crux of my matter isn’t the divorce itself as much as how much am I worth as a mother?
The Value of Being a Mother
I have always wanted children and in this respect I take after my own mother as for all the rest I am my father’s daughter. I remember trying to secretly suckle my own sister, upstairs in my parents room although my small, pig snout, thirteen year old breasts were firmly spat out of her mouth in disgust as she had been reared on a bottle ever since her entry into this world.
The family and house and home have always been my ideal life, even though I had to pretend that I wanted something else from it otherwise I would have been labelled as boring or as someone with no ambition and certainly not as a Modern Independent Woman.
If it had been for me I would have made a baby on my wedding night and when a close friend of mine fell pregnant herself, I remember sobbing miserably, horribly jealous of her and wanting a baby myself so badly. My (ex) husband did try to placate me and by bribing me with a holiday in the Maldives got us to wait another four months for our baby making. My eldest son was born just over two years after we were married. Not a moment too soon in my opinion. A week after I fell pregnant I already knew, and I will swear to that, unbelievable as it may seem.
I bloom in pregnancy and for my first one, well, you know how it is with first babies, you read all the books, look at baby pictures, count the days, look at yourself constantly in the mirror, impatient for that bump to “show”. As it ripens your hands caress its roundness, waiting for that first kick, waiting to feel the contour of a fist or a heel, or even that slight feeling of alarm when, once space inside gets cramped, the baby decides to do a somersault and your tummy rises in a huge hump at one end and goes concave at the other, looking nothing like a tummy and more like something out of X Files. Talking to your baby, thinking about him constantly, dreaming about when you will be finally able to hold him in your arms and say to yourself, “he’s MINE”. My pregnancies were almost identical, barring the fact that I only weighed about 16 kilos more at the end of the second one. I was one very large woman.
As for the having of the babies.
Painful.
Labour is excruciating but the actual birth is a moment of miracle. When my babies were placed on my tummy, still attached to me, grey as little mice, their eyes tightly shut, so small and so perfect, I think that those moments have to be the most precious and most beautiful of my entire Life. Of any woman’s Life. A child is part of us, is made up of what we are and is our immortality. We continue through our children and our children reflect who and what we are.
That is why a child is such a responsibility. Not only do we have to feed and clothe his physical self, to keep his body alive, but we have to Love him. The easy part of loving is the kissing and cuddling. When the boys were little, I don’t think I ever passed by them without kissing their chubby cheeks, or giving their bottoms a squeeze, it was impossible to resist. Give them a glass of water…..with a kiss, give them a toy…with a kiss, put food on their plate…..with a kiss, put their seatbelts on in the car…..with a kiss. Spending time on the sofa watching a video all cuddled together, discussing the film together, maybe even dozing off together. I know that nowadays it is said that it is the quality of time that you spend with your kids that counts, not the amount of time. I don’t know if I am going to get heaps of criticism for what I am about to say but in my opinion, lots of time with your kids is best, if you can, naturally. My not working allowed me all the time in the world with my boys, allowed me to take my time with my boys, to dawdle and not have to rush. We were more often then not at home, enjoying the simple fact of being at home, without having to go anywhere. I kept their lives easy: school, a twice weekly sporting activity and home. Books, lego, colouring pencils for drawing, out in the garden and yes, too much telly probably. I have enjoyed every single second spent with them. I have not lost a second of their life and by my being so close, so always there, I know them. They don’t need to say a word for me to know if something is wrong. One look into their eyes, at the expression on their face and my sixth sense comes into action. Which is why I often shake my head in complete mystification when I hear of youngsters having done something dreadful and their parents saying how they would never have imagined their child capable of such a thing, that they did not know that there was even a problem. Although, hang on, I am not out of the bushes yet, they are teenagers now and could still spring some unpleasantness onto me, but for the moment, I know my chickens. And them having been with me allows me to take the merits and obviously to the same extent, the blame of how they will come out as grown men.
Which is purely and simply what parenting is all about. Transforming a fragile, unformed defenceless human being into an intelligent, friendly, socially respectful and loving young adult, which is what our society needs and sadly lacks. Our children are tomorrow’s adults, tomorrow’s politicians, tomorrow’s administrators, tomorrow’s doctors and teachers, tomorrow’s parents. But there are so many pitfalls, our world has become so dangerous, especially to the naïve, to the gullible, to the kind, to the young. We can’t wait for our children to grow before telling them what dangers they face. We have to start when they are very young, using language that won’t scare them but will make them aware. We start when they are very young, and we carry on repeating our warning, our language maturing along with their years, cautioning them as each occasion arises.
Communication as always is the secret to any relationship, mother and child included. Talking and body language are so important. There is no topic that is off limits. Why should there be? We have to teach them to think, and I have often said to mine that they have to do as I say because I am Mamma but they don’t have to necessarily agree. We have to teach them to want to be independent in order for them to strike out on their own with confidence and guts. We have to teach them to dream, to have a thousand dreams, because if out of a thousand only one becomes reality it is still one more than none. We have to show them a good and beautiful world, to teach them to look always for that goodness and that beauty, because it is there to be found. And if they are able to see this, they themselves will bring goodness and beauty to it and perhaps lessen by a fraction the ugliness and the evil that surrounds us too. We have to teach them to be happy. Because there are ways to be happy, tricks to be learned that help us get through this life of ours with a smile. And it is through our words and by our actions we convey the meaning of Life to these wondrous children of ours.
Just as my mother’s arms will always be there to protect and to comfort, no matter how old my children are. Just as my children will always know that they can come to those arms, can always call “Mamma” and know that I will be there for them.
This is all the lovey dovey stuff. How about the flip side of the coin now?
We have to have authority over our children. Oh yea, oh yea, parents around the world, have you ever heard of the word NO? What is this fad that has overtaken us that we can’t spank our kids any more? That we don’t have to deny them anything anymore? I was spanked as a child and I haven’t come out cowed and with existential problems. We are not talking about beating here, we are talking about spanking. And boy, have I spanked. With two sons, what do you think? I have chased them around the dining room table wacking away with a wooden spoon, I have yelled the roof off, I have numbed their brains with endless, furious monologues.
And I have also apologised when I was wrong.
Rarely.
And be honest, mums, how can we keep sane if we don’t get mad with them? Children can drive you up the wall and after having tried to explain, tried to be patient, having threatened and given due warning, once we have delivered a slap, a wack and hysterical diatribe, tell me, how good does that feel? We are better mums than ever after having let off steam. We are flesh and blood mothers, not nut and bolted programmed robots. And we have to say no.
A lot of the time.
NO to teach respect, NO because wrong is wrong, NO because it is dangerous, NO because life isn’t easy, money doesn’t grow on trees and we have to respect those that go out and earn it. Society begins in the home. And educating a child is hard, round the clock work.
There is so much of it. So many different facets of it. And we still have the rest of our daily chores to complete too. And if we feel sick? Who cares, our duty calls.
Cooking, cleaning, school runs, P.T.A. meetings, sports activities, chocolate cake for tea, friends over, bed time stories, praise for when they are good, ticking off for when they are naughty, a reward for when they do right, a punishment for when they do wrong and if I may say so, punishing your child is actually harder than it may seem. But it is a lesson and if we want them to learn, sometimes we only have the hard way.
I taught my boys to ride their bikes, I took them to their swimming classes and taught them to lie down on the bottom of the pool at the deep end when they were five years old, I taught them to ski, I taught them sex education and bought my eldest his first pack of condoms, my first pack of condoms come to think of it! I talked to them about God and whether he exists or not, about the Universe, about good and bad, about wrong and right. If I were to have recorded all that I have ever said to them I think that there would be enough spools of tape to fill up all the shelves in every single registration studio on this planet.
Now that they are young men, I don’t so much talk to them as with them. The balance between us is beginning to change, as well it should. I don’t want them to be me, to think like me. I want them to have their own identity, their own thought processes and come to their own conclusions. I really feel as though I have done all that had to be done in preparing them for their adult life. Now my role is more that of monitoring, a bit like controlling the tiller now and then to put them back on course when they start to veer off at a tangent, when the wind gusts from an unexpected direction.
Of course, our role as mothers will never end. My sons will probably always remain my “babies” even when they will be in their fifties and I in my seventies. They are my children, they came out of me, biblically described as “in suffering and in pain”, and I have earned the right, therefore, to see through those sturdy, virile figures, back to the little boys who ran to their mummy with a grazed knee, into whose bed I got when they had nightmares thus waking up with a broken back, who I had to console when big bullies on the beach purposely harpooned a crab they had lovingly cared for in their big, green plastic box only waiting to release it back into the rock pools when it was time to go home. I would inhale the pungent, “wild animal” smell of their damp, sweaty necks as they slept, revelling in it, I would feast my eyes on their bodies, noticing every detail, as I would give them their shower, and if they fell asleep in my arms I wouldn’t move for the sheer, physical pleasure of having their dead weight upon me.
My eldest son never learnt how to walk, he went from crawling to running. He has also always been an eccentric, even now interested in anything but the usual teenage trends. He lives somewhere up in the clouds and never stops talking.
My youngest son had a lisp until he was nearly seven.
He has been practical and competent ever since I can remember and usually takes charge of his elder brother. He’d like to live on the back of a motorbike.
They are as like as chalk and cheese, but my greatest satisfaction is that, barring the usual mental deficient sparring , both verbal and physical, that unfortunately for me takes place on a daily basis, my sons, these brothers, love each other, look out for each other and have even got as far as being friends now and again.
Being a mother is the woman’s experience by definition. It overwhelms us, exhausts us, gratifies us, satisfies us, gives us a purpose, a reason to exist and makes us complete. Being a mother is all about giving, nurturing and protecting. And is, or should be instinctive.
I am immensely happy to be a mother, I am proud to be a mother and I am a good mother.
But what is being a mother worth? Does it have a value? Can it be evaluated or is it something priceless?
The value of being a mother is most probably best calculated by an analysis of the end product. On how our children have turned out, on our relationship with our children, on how happy our children are and maybe, but not always, on how few grey hairs our children give us. Some of us may be lucky enough to have children who actually realise that they have been the recipients of a lifetime of dedication, of sacrifice and of so, so, much love.
And when my son says that the most beautiful word in the world is “Mamma”…well, what more can be said and how much richer can I get and whatever more could I want?
------------------------------------
I am doing my best to “produce” although having said this, it rather sounds as though I have problems in the bathroom, which I don’t by the way. But although I have been told that one can, and should, write constantly whether one feels like it or not, I have come to realise that anything of worth that I have ever written has been “produced” under a spurt of inspiration. The font of this particular inspiration is my divorce, which in itself could be promising material as Italian divorce law is about as slow and frustrating as trying to climb a sand dune about the size of Everest, and if you go judicial, you may be trying to climb up for the rest of your days. But as it happens, the crux of my matter isn’t the divorce itself as much as how much am I worth as a mother?
The Value of Being a Mother
I have always wanted children and in this respect I take after my own mother as for all the rest I am my father’s daughter. I remember trying to secretly suckle my own sister, upstairs in my parents room although my small, pig snout, thirteen year old breasts were firmly spat out of her mouth in disgust as she had been reared on a bottle ever since her entry into this world.
The family and house and home have always been my ideal life, even though I had to pretend that I wanted something else from it otherwise I would have been labelled as boring or as someone with no ambition and certainly not as a Modern Independent Woman.
If it had been for me I would have made a baby on my wedding night and when a close friend of mine fell pregnant herself, I remember sobbing miserably, horribly jealous of her and wanting a baby myself so badly. My (ex) husband did try to placate me and by bribing me with a holiday in the Maldives got us to wait another four months for our baby making. My eldest son was born just over two years after we were married. Not a moment too soon in my opinion. A week after I fell pregnant I already knew, and I will swear to that, unbelievable as it may seem.
I bloom in pregnancy and for my first one, well, you know how it is with first babies, you read all the books, look at baby pictures, count the days, look at yourself constantly in the mirror, impatient for that bump to “show”. As it ripens your hands caress its roundness, waiting for that first kick, waiting to feel the contour of a fist or a heel, or even that slight feeling of alarm when, once space inside gets cramped, the baby decides to do a somersault and your tummy rises in a huge hump at one end and goes concave at the other, looking nothing like a tummy and more like something out of X Files. Talking to your baby, thinking about him constantly, dreaming about when you will be finally able to hold him in your arms and say to yourself, “he’s MINE”. My pregnancies were almost identical, barring the fact that I only weighed about 16 kilos more at the end of the second one. I was one very large woman.
As for the having of the babies.
Painful.
Labour is excruciating but the actual birth is a moment of miracle. When my babies were placed on my tummy, still attached to me, grey as little mice, their eyes tightly shut, so small and so perfect, I think that those moments have to be the most precious and most beautiful of my entire Life. Of any woman’s Life. A child is part of us, is made up of what we are and is our immortality. We continue through our children and our children reflect who and what we are.
That is why a child is such a responsibility. Not only do we have to feed and clothe his physical self, to keep his body alive, but we have to Love him. The easy part of loving is the kissing and cuddling. When the boys were little, I don’t think I ever passed by them without kissing their chubby cheeks, or giving their bottoms a squeeze, it was impossible to resist. Give them a glass of water…..with a kiss, give them a toy…with a kiss, put food on their plate…..with a kiss, put their seatbelts on in the car…..with a kiss. Spending time on the sofa watching a video all cuddled together, discussing the film together, maybe even dozing off together. I know that nowadays it is said that it is the quality of time that you spend with your kids that counts, not the amount of time. I don’t know if I am going to get heaps of criticism for what I am about to say but in my opinion, lots of time with your kids is best, if you can, naturally. My not working allowed me all the time in the world with my boys, allowed me to take my time with my boys, to dawdle and not have to rush. We were more often then not at home, enjoying the simple fact of being at home, without having to go anywhere. I kept their lives easy: school, a twice weekly sporting activity and home. Books, lego, colouring pencils for drawing, out in the garden and yes, too much telly probably. I have enjoyed every single second spent with them. I have not lost a second of their life and by my being so close, so always there, I know them. They don’t need to say a word for me to know if something is wrong. One look into their eyes, at the expression on their face and my sixth sense comes into action. Which is why I often shake my head in complete mystification when I hear of youngsters having done something dreadful and their parents saying how they would never have imagined their child capable of such a thing, that they did not know that there was even a problem. Although, hang on, I am not out of the bushes yet, they are teenagers now and could still spring some unpleasantness onto me, but for the moment, I know my chickens. And them having been with me allows me to take the merits and obviously to the same extent, the blame of how they will come out as grown men.
Which is purely and simply what parenting is all about. Transforming a fragile, unformed defenceless human being into an intelligent, friendly, socially respectful and loving young adult, which is what our society needs and sadly lacks. Our children are tomorrow’s adults, tomorrow’s politicians, tomorrow’s administrators, tomorrow’s doctors and teachers, tomorrow’s parents. But there are so many pitfalls, our world has become so dangerous, especially to the naïve, to the gullible, to the kind, to the young. We can’t wait for our children to grow before telling them what dangers they face. We have to start when they are very young, using language that won’t scare them but will make them aware. We start when they are very young, and we carry on repeating our warning, our language maturing along with their years, cautioning them as each occasion arises.
Communication as always is the secret to any relationship, mother and child included. Talking and body language are so important. There is no topic that is off limits. Why should there be? We have to teach them to think, and I have often said to mine that they have to do as I say because I am Mamma but they don’t have to necessarily agree. We have to teach them to want to be independent in order for them to strike out on their own with confidence and guts. We have to teach them to dream, to have a thousand dreams, because if out of a thousand only one becomes reality it is still one more than none. We have to show them a good and beautiful world, to teach them to look always for that goodness and that beauty, because it is there to be found. And if they are able to see this, they themselves will bring goodness and beauty to it and perhaps lessen by a fraction the ugliness and the evil that surrounds us too. We have to teach them to be happy. Because there are ways to be happy, tricks to be learned that help us get through this life of ours with a smile. And it is through our words and by our actions we convey the meaning of Life to these wondrous children of ours.
Just as my mother’s arms will always be there to protect and to comfort, no matter how old my children are. Just as my children will always know that they can come to those arms, can always call “Mamma” and know that I will be there for them.
This is all the lovey dovey stuff. How about the flip side of the coin now?
We have to have authority over our children. Oh yea, oh yea, parents around the world, have you ever heard of the word NO? What is this fad that has overtaken us that we can’t spank our kids any more? That we don’t have to deny them anything anymore? I was spanked as a child and I haven’t come out cowed and with existential problems. We are not talking about beating here, we are talking about spanking. And boy, have I spanked. With two sons, what do you think? I have chased them around the dining room table wacking away with a wooden spoon, I have yelled the roof off, I have numbed their brains with endless, furious monologues.
And I have also apologised when I was wrong.
Rarely.
And be honest, mums, how can we keep sane if we don’t get mad with them? Children can drive you up the wall and after having tried to explain, tried to be patient, having threatened and given due warning, once we have delivered a slap, a wack and hysterical diatribe, tell me, how good does that feel? We are better mums than ever after having let off steam. We are flesh and blood mothers, not nut and bolted programmed robots. And we have to say no.
A lot of the time.
NO to teach respect, NO because wrong is wrong, NO because it is dangerous, NO because life isn’t easy, money doesn’t grow on trees and we have to respect those that go out and earn it. Society begins in the home. And educating a child is hard, round the clock work.
There is so much of it. So many different facets of it. And we still have the rest of our daily chores to complete too. And if we feel sick? Who cares, our duty calls.
Cooking, cleaning, school runs, P.T.A. meetings, sports activities, chocolate cake for tea, friends over, bed time stories, praise for when they are good, ticking off for when they are naughty, a reward for when they do right, a punishment for when they do wrong and if I may say so, punishing your child is actually harder than it may seem. But it is a lesson and if we want them to learn, sometimes we only have the hard way.
I taught my boys to ride their bikes, I took them to their swimming classes and taught them to lie down on the bottom of the pool at the deep end when they were five years old, I taught them to ski, I taught them sex education and bought my eldest his first pack of condoms, my first pack of condoms come to think of it! I talked to them about God and whether he exists or not, about the Universe, about good and bad, about wrong and right. If I were to have recorded all that I have ever said to them I think that there would be enough spools of tape to fill up all the shelves in every single registration studio on this planet.
Now that they are young men, I don’t so much talk to them as with them. The balance between us is beginning to change, as well it should. I don’t want them to be me, to think like me. I want them to have their own identity, their own thought processes and come to their own conclusions. I really feel as though I have done all that had to be done in preparing them for their adult life. Now my role is more that of monitoring, a bit like controlling the tiller now and then to put them back on course when they start to veer off at a tangent, when the wind gusts from an unexpected direction.
Of course, our role as mothers will never end. My sons will probably always remain my “babies” even when they will be in their fifties and I in my seventies. They are my children, they came out of me, biblically described as “in suffering and in pain”, and I have earned the right, therefore, to see through those sturdy, virile figures, back to the little boys who ran to their mummy with a grazed knee, into whose bed I got when they had nightmares thus waking up with a broken back, who I had to console when big bullies on the beach purposely harpooned a crab they had lovingly cared for in their big, green plastic box only waiting to release it back into the rock pools when it was time to go home. I would inhale the pungent, “wild animal” smell of their damp, sweaty necks as they slept, revelling in it, I would feast my eyes on their bodies, noticing every detail, as I would give them their shower, and if they fell asleep in my arms I wouldn’t move for the sheer, physical pleasure of having their dead weight upon me.
My eldest son never learnt how to walk, he went from crawling to running. He has also always been an eccentric, even now interested in anything but the usual teenage trends. He lives somewhere up in the clouds and never stops talking.
My youngest son had a lisp until he was nearly seven.
He has been practical and competent ever since I can remember and usually takes charge of his elder brother. He’d like to live on the back of a motorbike.
They are as like as chalk and cheese, but my greatest satisfaction is that, barring the usual mental deficient sparring , both verbal and physical, that unfortunately for me takes place on a daily basis, my sons, these brothers, love each other, look out for each other and have even got as far as being friends now and again.
Being a mother is the woman’s experience by definition. It overwhelms us, exhausts us, gratifies us, satisfies us, gives us a purpose, a reason to exist and makes us complete. Being a mother is all about giving, nurturing and protecting. And is, or should be instinctive.
I am immensely happy to be a mother, I am proud to be a mother and I am a good mother.
But what is being a mother worth? Does it have a value? Can it be evaluated or is it something priceless?
The value of being a mother is most probably best calculated by an analysis of the end product. On how our children have turned out, on our relationship with our children, on how happy our children are and maybe, but not always, on how few grey hairs our children give us. Some of us may be lucky enough to have children who actually realise that they have been the recipients of a lifetime of dedication, of sacrifice and of so, so, much love.
And when my son says that the most beautiful word in the world is “Mamma”…well, what more can be said and how much richer can I get and whatever more could I want?
------------------------------------
Gosh, aren’t I wonderful?
I am only joking, but hey, listen World, I haven’t written a single word that I don’t believe. This incredible role, this incredible job, the enormity of what a child entails, the responsibility and the sacrifice, how on earth does one quantify how much we are worth and how much our work has been and is worth?
Now, I have written about mothers, because I am one and I love being one, and fathers are welcome to write about their side of the matter. But as I said, I am in the middle of a divorce, and it has been said to me that being a good mother is only natural (one wouldn’t want to be a bad mother now, would one?) and is not therefore entitled to any monetary recompense.
So, seeing that I am divorcing and that somewhere along the line I should receive something to validate 19 years of marriage, 17 of which as a mother, I’d like to know if the mother status has any economic value and how can it be established. Would it have a scale: great mum, mediocre mum, so-so mum and have a salary accordingly? Do we need close circuit cameras in our homes to prove that we are as good as we say? Should we have a Good Mother’s Guide to follow to the letter so that our qualities and competences can be ticked off should we be put to the test?
It was my choice not to go to work. My dream had come true and I had my children. My going to work would have meant leaving my children under someone else’s responsibility. Not on your nelly! My children were mine and mine alone, I wasn’t going to have someone else bringing them up. Of course, I could afford not to go to work, but it is here that we have the question to solve: was I effectively working? Or is bringing up two young sons and running a home not classifiable as working?
Of course I did a lot of nothing too. I am not a fanatical Italian housewife. What I didn’t do today I could do tomorrow and if all I did was be with my boys on some days, lolling around, playing, chatting and cuddling, well, what of it? I was with them, not lolling, chatting, playing and cuddling with other people. Just as long as food was on the table at the required times and that their clothes were cleaned and ironed, anything else was extra. All this, in my opinion, is called investing. Investing in my children’s future and I am one of those lucky parents who was actually able to do so from morning until night.
But a lot of nothing isn’t really “nothing”. It is very much a “something”. In the world of today, what is perhaps lacking, even more than money, is time. We don’t have time for anything or anyone anymore. We always have to be rushing somewhere and this I have never understood. People are no longer happy to be at home. My boys used to say that their friends were never home, that we were the only ones who ever seemed to stay home. For example, kids do not want to go shopping, certainly not mine. Then who does want to be shopping? The mums of course. Nor do kids always want to be doing things. I have noticed that, here in Italy at any rate, parents seem to want SuperKids. After school they have catechism, football or ballet, private English lessons, music lessons and to round it all off the usual fashion plate shopping. Whatever happened to plain staying at home? To going for a walk in the woods (if you are lucky enough) or down to the park? To making tents in the garden or just playing in your bedroom with your toys?
Is home life boring? Yes, it can be. Household chores are the pits and having to provide meals twice a day becomes a heavyweight chain around your neck. Once I had cleaned up the kitchen from lunch I was already preparing for supper, peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables and stirring sauces at two in the afternoon. Not fun.
But being with my boys was not boring. Their security and comfort was knowing that I was in the kitchen, or in the garden, or reading a book on the sofa while they were playing in their room. Knowing I was around and that they only had to call “Mamma” and I would be there. And that is how I wanted it to be. This is the childhood that I wanted to offer my boys. This is the childhood that I gave to my boys. And it has paid off as I now have a very special, very intimate and confidential relationship with them. We discuss, we bicker, we laugh together and we still (but nobody knows!) cuddle up together.
I do not classify myself as their friend under any circumstance. We can have loads of fun together, whishing down a ski slope, ducking each other underwater and having diving competitions in a swimming pool. I let them talk their brainless nonsense to me or let them rant and rave when the need arises. They will hopefully have hundreds of friends in their lifetime but I, I am unique as I am their mother. And this role is mine and mine alone. If there is a problem they turn to me. When they are excited or have fantastic news I am the first to get a phonecall. When they are sick it is me they want.
Let it be clear, however, that my little boys are now young men and as much as I wanted to be their fulltime, henclucking (and henpecking!) mummy when they were children, I want them, and am preparing them, to become independent and enterprising adults. A good mother also has to know she has to let go, a good mother has to encourage her children to let go, a good mother will let go. Because that is still part and package of loving your children.
Fly high, fly far my darlings, just never stop loving me and remember to come back to me now and again. And be happy.
So, here we are back at where we started from. Just how much value is given to being a mother? I chose not to go to work because I wanted to bring up my boys myself and also, let me be honest, because I could not bear not to be with them. They were my little boys, I brought them into this world and I wanted to live my life with them. Because, for old fashioned me, mummies are supposed to stay at home with their children if they can. But now, encircled by the wrangling of bitter divorce I am being accused of being a mother. I am accused of not having gone out to work and earned euros and cents, seeing I was in a dodgey marriage. I am accused of having had it easy, of not having worked because being a mother is not a job, because being a good mother is something to be taken for granted and because one shouldn't have payment for being a mother.
So, guys and gals of the world, I would be curious to know some opinions on this subject. I really haven’t done much else in my life other than be a mother. It has been, and still is hard work but it has fulfilled and beyond, all my expectations of the joys of maternity. Should this joy be enough? Should I say to my ex that I don’t want his money for having been nothing more than a mother to our children? Or have I earned the right to some recompense for having carried out my role as a mother?
What am I worth?
Think about that World.
Helene
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