Before you have kids, you're convinced you're going to be the perfect mother earth. You shake your head at your mum and think 'I'll never make that mistake with my kids.'
Basically, you spent a fair bit of time thinking something along the lines of ‘I’m going to do it better.’
But then suddenly, you started cutting mum a LOT of slack. The reason? You had kids, and realised that motherhood is way, way harder than you ever anticipated!
With Mother’s Day around the corner, we’ve rounded up five ways in which motherhood has made us much more understanding of our good old mums.
Mum, we forgive you for...
…not dropping everything when we had to talk to you 'right here, right now!'
We used to think you were fobbing us off when you said you’d ‘talk about it later.’ But now we know you really were just too busy…like, really busy. Besides, kids have really bad timing. Did we tell you about the time ours told us they’d failed their maths test, been caught mitching AND got detention just as we were about to take up the dinner?....Oh…we did that too, huh…
…not treating our sister and I equally
We know, we’d scream the house down whenever she was allowed do something and we weren’t, but we get it now. Just like adults, all kids are different, and sometimes that means treating them differently. Yes, when you let our street-wise sister into town on her own and not us, that really stung, especially since we were born first, but you know what? You were right. We were too naïve and trusting. We'd probably have thought that white stuff in the druggie's hand was a Dip-Dab…
…not letting us do what ‘everyone else’ does
Oh, how it irked us that we weren’t allowed as far as the park, while the boy next door was let run amok wherever he liked. Now? Well, we still think you might have been a bit overprotective with us, but you know what? You have to trust your instincts as a mum, and your instinct told you that we weren’t ready for the big, bad world just then. Oh, and you’ll be pleased to hear, the boy next door turned into a right little sh*t…
....not forcing us to learn the violin/ piano/ accordion/ banjo
This is a funny one. When we were very young, we loved you for not forcing us to do violin lessons after school. But once we got to secondary school, we were green with envy watching the instrumental kids get straight A’s every time we had a music test - and they didn’t even have to study! Now we realise you were right not to. Forcing your kids to do something they don’t want to do will have the exact opposite effect, and you knew that. Besides, who has the energy to fight with their kids about this?!
…being kinda awkward telling us about sex
We swore to ourselves that when our little one reached puberty, we’d be so nonchalant telling them about the birds and the bees, they’d be astounded by our coolness. Pah! We don’t like to admit this but we think we may have surpassed your awkwardness, mum. It’s hard talking about intimate, grown-up things like sex with our child - because that’s what they’ll always be, to us. Our child…
SHARE if motherhood has made you more understanding of your own mum’s choices.
