Great Mum?

So today I finally hauled my cold and hay fever ridden body up and out of the house for my first ever Peer Supporter Enrichment Session. It was pretty cool. We hashed out things like the "I formula fed, so what?" article and even one involving a wife who apparently still nurses her 13 year old daughter, her five year old son and even allows her husband regular "milky snacks". Interesting reading! Lol.

I stayed on for the regular Friday morning "Bumps & Boobs" club and enjoyed catching up with friends and meeting new ones! Whilst all this was going on, S&M (hmm, not to sure I should refer to the two older girls quite like that :P), were running amok helping themselves to countless drinks from the water dispenser and finding oh so exciting pastimes in the facility's two adjoining toilets. I was very into the conversations so despite not actively ignoring the two older girls, I wasn't keeping as good an eye on them as perhaps I "should". I do try to keep a rough idea of their whereabouts in mind but can't really claim better than that. I kept catching them wasting cups and hand towels and when one mum asked if it were my two girls in the toilets (hadn't noticed them go in there on that particular occasion - the toilets are "in" the room we facilitate), I got the impression that perhaps people had begun to notice that I wasn't really on the ball today. Most mums will at some time feel a little "under scrutiny" and I have to say that I was worried that I was headed this way.

Of course I made a mental note to pay far more attention and make sure that they didn't get up to any more mischief (kept this up for a whole three minutes - impressive huh!?!).

I got chatting to one of my friends - a really lovely lady and a fellow "insane woman with hundreds of kids" and she just dropped casually into conversation that she thought I was "a really great mum". I laughed it off and said she was only saying that because she hadn't seen me at home... I also felt a little better about my maternal performance thus far that morning lol! It did get me thinking though. What makes a "really great mum"?

I guess there isn't a direct answer to this as there are thousands of variables that mean different things to different people. As parents, we all have a picture in our minds as to what would make us great in our parenting roles and I guess the best any of us can do is try to fit that image as closely as possible.

For me, I guess being a better mother than my own was to me isn't really something to aspire to - it's a given! My sister would probably disagree, but it is what it is. It cannot be disputed that my mother would have us all line up outside her bedroom door and call us in one by one to be beaten with a hard leather soled sandal - that thing left BLISTERS! That's just one example of the many "parenting" "techniques" that my mother chose and for me, being better than that was always going to happen.

The image I have in mind of being a great mum include things like,spending time with your children doing fun activities and even the occasional "educational" activity ;-) Not getting too angry at the drop of a hat and allowing their personal development at their own pace. Letting them do some "naughty" things and to let them make mistakes, help them learn from them. Providing them with as many useful tools as possible for future life: teaching them how to eat healthily, eat in moderation, involve them in cooking and cleaning, tidying and putting away. Teaching them how to use general household utensils and to tell them you love them at every opportunity. I think it's important to teach them how to be responsible. Teach them the repercussions of their actions and that actions have consequences that have to be faced. Show them the world we live in and help them understand how best to preserve it for their own future and that of future generations. To be loving but also to set boundaries and teach them how best to follow them.

These are the things I aspire to. I'm currently falling very short in many different areas. I, like most mums have days when I feel like the best mum in the world. But then there are the days when I've snapped and spent far too much time yelling and not in complete control. I've spent nights kept awake by the sheer worry of what my behaviour has done to the children and if it's that action that they'll remember - like me standing outside my mother's bedroom door waiting to be beaten (funnily enough I really don't remember much of the actual beatings, but the anticipation of them was wicked and intense). I worry about the emotional scars that my sometimes heavy sanctions will put on the children and I worry about the times when I'm "too soft" and what that'll do for their ability to stay within boundaries set by schools and other institutions.

I guess at the end of the day, it's a mother's curse to worry and worry we shall. I guess we're all "a really great mum", to our children. We're the only one they have!