There comes a point in your time as a mother when a switch goes off in your brain. Suddenly, there’s more to be thought about than plotting creative ways to get your next caffeine fix or calculating the bare minimum of sleep you’re going to need to get you through the following day.
And it’s not just that your previously tiny, helpless little one loses their ‘baby’ look forever and turns into a little man. Seemingly overnight. You sort through the too small onesies and bibs and put some aside for remembrance (and number two, perhaps. You can’t quite believe you’re even thinking those thoughts…) before bagging up the rest to give away. Trousers, jeans and sweaters that wouldn’t look out of place in his father’s wardrobe now take their place. Shoes are actually worth the ten minute wrestle it takes to get them on.
As you listen to the babble that’s so close to real speech and the watch the pre crawling that demonstrates planning and persistence, it comes to you what that switch going off was all about. Your role as a mother is no longer just about cuddles, feeds, baths and nappies. You’re also your son’s first teacher and role model.
The other day, Merowyn at Blithely Unaware wrote a thought provoking and inspiring post about body image and how she plans to navigate the thorny issue with her son as he grows up. Merowyn’s introspection made me sit down and think about what matters most to me. There’s the obvious: love, respect, gratitude, good manners and honesty but are there any unique lessons from my life that I could share with him? Things that he could look back upon one day and remember his mother by. Preferably with a smile and a glass of good wine at his elbow at the end of a day lived well in a life built on making the best of whatever fate threw his way.
I think that last sentence probably encapsulates everything I’m going to try and write in the next few paragraphs but I’m on a roll. It’s a beautiful day for writing and thinking and I’m going to make the most of it.
Being alone at times in his life is something I would like to teach Baby SSG never to fear or try to avoid. There’s a lot to be said for occasional periods of solitude. They give you a chance to learn who you are independent of people and activity that may cloud the picture. Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, quirks (annoying or otherwise) and life philosophy sets you up to be a better friend, partner and colleague.
Following on from this is the ability to rail against boredom and the need to be constantly entertained (or distracted) by the rest of the world. It’s a permanently switched on, hyperstimulated world we live in right now that’s powered by all things electrical and computer generated. It’s all set up to never give your mind a chance to either rest of think without intrusions encouraging you to be more, buy more, be ready for more. Happiness and contentment in life doesn’t come from owning everything featured in the slick ad campaigns that target every aspect of life. It comes from within and bears no relationship to the number of things you own. I’m a shopper and lover of things, I can’t possibly say with conviction that the ‘things’ in life don’t matter….
When Baby SSG goes to school, I’d like him to remember his days there as a time of happiness. Where he made friends for life (Facebook has made it possible for our generation, what will it be for our children?) and started a life long passion for learning. About things in general. To not stop wanting to find out the how and the why the day he’s sat his last exam and taken off for schoolies (because there’s no way Mr SSG is going to let me talk him out of a week of bad food and uncomfortable beds).
I also hope that he’ll leave school with a loving relationship to reading and the English language in general. I hope he’ll be able to turn the pages of a book in times of emergency like when his e-reader, smart phone, lap top and desk top all manage to lose everything that’s been downloaded to them.
I react to the news in a different way to how I did before I became a mother. The accounts of violence and despicable acts against children fill me with a fear and revulsion I never knew before this year. I know that my son’s life won’t be lived in a hermetically sealed bubble free of pain, rejection and disappointment. But I hope that what he experiences is within the realms of a ‘normal’ person and that I can teach him about resilience and seeing the silver lining by example and not as a case of ‘as I say and not what I do’.