Happy Mother’s Day To You…. And To ME!

I have written a few little love letters to my mother for mother’s day over the years of blogging here, and I stand behind all of them. I have written a sympathetic post for those of you who have suffered the loss of your mother, and acknowledged my fortune in still being blessed with my own in my life. And I have written a post for the mothers amongst you who have sadly lost your children or been unsuccessful to date in creating life.

I write from a place of privilege. I try to be aware of this, however at times I am sure it is only obvious to those readers without. So I would like to take this moment to again acknowledge that I am blessed with a lovely and loving mother. I fell pregnant easily with 2 beautiful healthy babies who have grown into well balanced teens, and I was fortunate enough to get the coveted pigeon pair of one boy and one girl. (Who, so far, both identify as such.)

I am also lucky enough that my husband earns enough money to afford me the stay at home mum lifestyle. I have much to be thankful for, and I am. However, that doesn’t mean my life has been perfect, or that I haven’t faced any struggles along the way. I have.

While I consider it to be very much his own loss, my son’s biological father exited stage left after standing me up for the birthing partner classes. He has never met the beautiful boy we created together. That beautiful boy was diagnosed at 6 months old with special needs, in the same appointment that I was diagnosed with postnatal depression, and told that my beautiful baby was failing to thrive on my breast milk.

I’m not too sure if it was then, or before then, that I began to feel like a failure as a mother. I am willing to guess this is a secret fear, or insecurity at least of all of us thrust into the first forays of motherhood. But the feeling was heavy, and persistent. It was my fault his father had walked away, because I didn’t choose well for my son, and because I couldn’t be more loveable. It was my fault he was failing to thrive on my milk, I must’ve been failing to ingest the correct ingredients for him to thrive. It was my fault he had special needs, perhaps my depression prevented me from being the mother he deserved. It was my fault I was depressed, why couldn’t I cope as the other mothers at mother’s group seemed to? Why was I the only one who was finding this hard? I must be too selfish for motherhood.

As he grew up, and our lives revolved around speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychology and rheumatologists, along with countless other doctors, specialists, pediatricians and cousellors, any improvements were attributed to my son’s determination and curiosity. Any failures or set backs were attributed to me and I was sent on parenting courses, inundated with literature to read and given endless amounts of homework to help me help him.

When he did well at school it was attributed to good teachers and when he lagged behind, it was me who was dragged in to parent teacher meetings to discuss what more I could do for him. When his attention improved it was attributed to the medication and when his attention was off I was questioned about whether I remembered to medicate. When I medicated on school holidays I was judged for trying to make my own life easier, and when I didn’t medicate on school holidays I was accused of neglecting his needs.

When I brought in a tutor to help with his studies, that was the reason for his improvements and was because I had failed to help him enough myself. I admit the tutor has far more patience, and knowledge than me, and I willingly give credit where credit is due. But I made that decision after years of struggling to do it all myself and having it negatively impact my relationship with my special boy. Which was always the most important thing to me.

As I am not in paid employment, I am judged and harshly criticized for being lazy and a lady of leisure. While this may be closer to the truth today, for many years, my special needs son, was my full time job. And I gave it everything in me. I was not paid, I was not acknowledged and it would have been easier to return to work and have someone else deal with the meltdowns and the endless repetitive tasks and never ending list of extra curricular activities on the list.

This is not a criticism of working mothers. Although my own worked, and I do feel it impacted me as a child, I enjoyed, and continue to enjoy the fruits of that labour and wanted for nothing. And my own mother, as do all of you who are working mothers, did most of the things I am doing, potentially with a less supportive spouse and a 9-5 job. I respect it and the choice. I see the pros and cons to each. I am constantly bewildered at how you do it all and am aware that the schools give almost no notice when they request your attendance for an award, or cancel and reschedule sports day because of weather when all the working parents already took the day off work. I admire you and I don’t think your children are any less loved or cared for than my own. I have a very close friend with a special needs child who works full time and does an arguably better job than me at mothering! I cannot describe my admiration for her enough!

This is true regardless of your employment status.

However, what spurs me on to write this post is my son. Who is in his final year of school, and his final official year of childhood. He just passed his driver’s test the first time, which is notoriously hard in this state. He did his manual assessment which is even harder. He has a part time job he has held for over 2 years at which he is excelling, according to his manager. He is completing a pre-apprenticeship in plumbing. He passed his English and Maths standards assessment. He is passing his courses and keeping up with his assessments. He is polite and happy. He takes his grandparents out for meals regularly and thanks them for making time for him, genuinely.

I could not be prouder of the young man he has become despite the adversity and challenges he has faced and continues to face. And it dawns on me that I played a massive role in all of this. The years of advocating, of taking him to specialists, of doing the homework… the last year of letting a person who couldn’t drive chauffeur me around on busy freeways and highways to get his hours up… the years of making him my priority and my full time job, whilst also running this blog, raising my other child, maintaining the home and managing the bills and finances, travelling and participating in a fulfilling social life, has paid off. I was not, I am not a failure of a mother. This is a story of success. The proof is in the pudding.

I am a good mother and I deserve to be celebrated this mother’s day, and so do all of you. We are all doing the best we can with the cards we have been dealt. We are all making the hard choices we feel are right for our beautiful babies. This is true even if your child is still struggling, isn’t quite there yet, is making bad choices for themselves or hanging out with the wrong crowd. If they are struggling mentally or physically or emotionally. If they are rebelling etc…. but you are still there, still trying, never giving up, in the trenches everyday, doing what you can to guide and support them, you are still a good mum and I have hope the proof will be in your pudding too oneday soon.

Hang in there mums. Let’s not make it a competition or a comparison. We all love our kids and we need to support each other as best we can, without judgement and show our kids what trust and loyalty and support in friendships looks like in real life.

Happy Mother’s Day Mum. You did a good job, I raised a beautiful human we are all proud of. You helped me do that. You showed me how to love by loving me unconditionally. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums whatever stage you’re at. And most of all, happy mother’s day to me, because my children make me endlessly happy. Mothering as a job, a career, isn’t a worthless task, it’s paid nothing but worth everything!

❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx