Good Enough

Good Enough
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday October 18, 2014

Everyone I know tells lies about motherhood. On bad days, we lie about how rewarding it is. On good days, we lie about how burdensome it is. We lie to ourselves that we know what we’re doing. We lie to each other because we don’t want to be judged as second-rate. And we constantly compare ourselves with other mothers, praying we measure up.

When my first son was a baby, I couldn’t reconcile my zen-mother fantasies with the shambolic woman I faced in the mirror at 5am. That first year, I existed in a Neverland of wakefulness. I would slump on the floor beside his cot, my right arm wedged between the slats, trying to lull him to sleep. I patted my baby’s rear through a mound of nappy until my shoulder ached and my shins were numb from kneeling on the floorboards.

At last, my baby’s eyelids would droop closed. My euphoria would quickly invert to dread as I prepared to exit. Nervously, I slackened my patting rhythm, ears pricked for any change in his breathy sighs. My eyes, tuned to the darkness, were fixed on his face, alert for any flicker of wakefulness.

One last pat and I’d rest the full weight of my hand on his little bottom and count to ten. Lifting my fingers one at a time, I’d retract my arm from his cot in slow motion. My weary limb would be reunited with rightful owner. Many a time I crawled out of that room on my hands and knees, desperate for my freedom. That first baby upended my world. But how quickly the maternal brain forgets.

Baby number 3 slept even less than Baby number 1. My confidence evaporated. Four-month-old daughter was a constant and demanding appendage. I stayed in my nightie and socks until lunchtime. But at school, when the competitive mums at school sidled over to see how I was coping, I tried to look composed, cheery even. “Oh! I’m fine. Really! She hardly ever cries!” When my friends rang to check on me, I’d burst into tears and plead to be rescued from this sleepless insanity. (The last great taboo for women is admitting that motherhood might not be the ultimate fulfilment).

The tracksuit years, as a girlfriend dubbed them, are well behind me now. I’m less tired but just as uncertain. I lurch from one parenting quandary to the next. Should I allow my 7-year-old son walk the 100 metres to school alone? (Not yet, I’ve decided, despite his wails of protest). Does four-year-old daughter need speech therapy for her lisp? (Not unless her pre-primary teacher next year is Mith Thimpthon).

I’m constantly filtering the parental do’s and don’ts proffered by others. One afternoon last week at the swings, another mum looked on as I cut up a sticky bun I’d bought at Bakers Delight: “How’ll they go when the sugar kicks in?!”

“Oh fine!” I said. “We’re here for a while. They’ll run it off.”

“Good luck!” she said with a smirk, lifting the lid on her artfully arranged platter of fruit. Outgunned, I considered launching a defence. But it was pointless. She wanted to feel superior. So I let her.

Why do we perpetuate the myth of the perfect mother? She doesn’t exist. In public she brags about how her three-year-old counts to 100 but fails to mention the same child won’t sleep without a dummy in each hand. Perhaps we need the lies of motherhood for our sanity – to excuse our failings.

I’m writing now from a coffee shop where a toddler is shrieking for his mother’s attention. His wails are jolting customers from their conversations. I can’t concentrate. The youngster’s mother is oblivious. She’s fixated on her phone, thumbs darting over the keypad. Pinned by his stroller straps, small boy kicks wildly and upends the sugar bowl, raining a shower of crystals onto to the floor. The manager emerges with a strained smile and a dustpan.

If my mother was here, a doyenne of society politesse, she’d make her annoyance felt with a huff or a meaningful stare. (Grandmothers are the self-appointed vigilantes of cafe etiquette). But I can only imagine how many times a child of mine has squawked in a cafe, and I’ve been too withered by tiredness to notice my detractors.

The best ally a mother can have is another mum who’ll make her a cup of tea at a kitchen bench scattered with crumbs. A mum whose floor is shiny with spilled glitter and sticky with glue, whose family room is festooned with washing still too damp to put away. I want to hug mothers who confess to ranting about missing sneakers and forgotten homework, who screech about festering sandwiches discovered in sweaty schoolbags. Because they’re the mothers who’ve stopped worrying about being bad or good, who’ve recognized that they’re both, and neither.

The Parent Gap

The Parent Gap
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday March 15, 2014

It was the day before council rubbish collection. Clapped out washing machines and ruptured armchairs squatted on the edge of the road, homeless. Broken cots and grubby playpens joined the exodus, outgrown. I felt obliged to take part in the neighbourhood cleanse. I dragged the rusty skeletons of two tricycles from the verandah and dumped them on the verge.

Those trikes were once the pride of our fleet. As a toddler, my six-year-old son would choose between his mounts and we’d trek to the shops, his little feet pedalling frantically to keep up with my strides. When his legs gave out, I’d hitch his wagon to my waist with a rope. I’d wrap the free end several times around my wrist, take up the slack and tow him home. We went everywhere tethered together, he and I, with his trio of plastic wheels grinding noisily along the footpath.

And then my rose-coloured reminiscing came to a crashing halt. My memory served up a sudden and embarrassing reminder of parental neglectfulness… Somewhere between giving birth to his baby sister and showing him how to tie his shoelaces, I’d forgotten to teach my middle child how to ride a bike.

He didn’t even have a proper bike. He’d leapt straight onto his big brother’s cast-off scooter. We’d missed the two-wheeled stage altogether. I felt a jolt of mother-guilt.

That afternoon at the park, I got chatting to another mum as our tribes tore up and down the path on their scooters. “This’d be just the spot to learn to ride a bike!” I said. “Your little girl?” she asked. “’Fraid not!” I laughed, “my six-year-old.”

“Oh dear!” she said. “You’re a bit late! We just got our four-year-old a BMX.  We took off his trainer wheels when he was two. People would stop to ask us how old he was!”

I felt belittled, but clucked admiringly so this stranger could puff up with pride over her two-wheeled wunderkind.

On the walk home, I wondered if she realised how smug she sounded. Was her gloating a leg-up for her or a put-down for me? Parental one-upmanship, I decided. But that raised another uncertainty: Why aren’t all mothers on the same side?

I’ve spent many an hour agonising over my child-rearing. Am I too strict, or not strict enough? Should I stop trying to be my teenager’s friend and concentrate on being his parent? Will my children remember me as the  affectionate mum who served up crepes for breakfast and drove them to school when it rained? Or will they be scarred by my shrieks about unmade beds, misplaced shoes and wet towels staining the carpet?

It’s humiliating enough when their father pulls me aside to deliver a biting reproof: “Settle down, Blossom, shouting at them won’t get you out the door any faster.” But I’d like to think I could rely on the sisterhood for reassurance and a measure of compassion.

Perhaps being a kind and devoted mother is not enough any more. Parenting has become a competitive sport. Successful mothers must demand perfection of themselves and their children. I see mums who are exhausted from dragging children from piano lessons to acrobatics, from jazz ballet and swimming training to soccer practice and chess club. Forget trying to keep up with the Joneses – try keeping up with the Joneses’ kids!  

Motherhood is now a profession: over-scheduled, manic, stressful – much like the television job I put on hold to have some longed-for time-out with my children.

Twice now I’ve been asked why my pony-tailed three-year-old isn’t doing ballet or gymnastics. I try to look nonchalant: “Oh, you know, we’re just happy mucking about at home.” But right there, I’ve pegged myself as a non-competitive mum. Or worse – as a uninterested mum indifferent to her daughter’s potential stage career.

Here’s my quandary: What happens when our baby Einsteins and Shirley Temples grow too big to be coddled and coached? What if we’ve invested so much of ourselves in our children that their failures become our failures? How will our kids learn from their mistakes if we’ve engineered their childhoods so there aren’t any?  

As far as I can tell, my children are not gifted. Not one of the blighters has rewarded me by becoming a child prodigy. But they display all the genius required to dodge their mother’s requests to clean up their rooms, finish their homework and unpack the dishwasher. Who knows when they’ll discover their worthwhile talents?

In the meantime, I’ve committed myself to the park for the entire afternoon. I’m now determined to teach our six-year-old to ride a bike – because it’s fun. I don’t need a Cadel Evans in the family but I hope my youngster takes to cycling with gusto. I could do with something to brag about.