When I was young I always dreamed of being a mum.
Where some girls fantasise about their big white wedding my fantasies were of days filled with glitter and pritt-sticks, adventures in the woods, picnics of homemade delights and fun filled days educating them with in castles and museums. My reading out the signboards, their eyes glued to me, mesmerised as they learned the secrets of the world.
Long before they appeared I had a draw full of soft cuddly clothes and tiny shoes. I knew no matter what it took in life I was going to be a mum and when that time came I was going to be the best mum ever!
The first couple of years after my daughter came into the world it was everything I’d dreamt it would be. This clammy little creature, her nose against my breast, depending only on me at 3am after I’d woken to her cries for food. Hours spent sitting watching her sleep whilst I thought up different wholesome purées to feed her and help her grow and an amazing little community of mums supporting me that I’d met at the local mother and baby groups.
It wasn’t 100% perfect, her dad was working 200 miles away Sunday night to Friday evening, but you know what? It kinda suited me. And I loved it!
My evenings were spent preparing crafts, writing her and her friends bedtime storybooks and days of painty foot prints and hands pressed in clay.
After 10 months of having this funny little lady in my life things changed. Her dad was working closer to home and I had to share my girl.
Days of revolving purely round her routine had ended and trying to smile let alone juggling crafts, cleaning the house and cook a meal were unheard of, but I learnt that’s housework could wait and I could get my fix and still craft at the baby group and it could be just as satisfying as it was a lot less stressful than using glitter in the house.
By the time the boy child arrived my life felt like a living hell.
Their dad had been in a serious accident and required round the clock care. The end of my pregnancy and my boys birth was dominated by how dad was managing.
My little mans first 2 years were almost ignored as I spent my time juggling trips to physio and hospital appointments, battling the system to put enough food on the table and cover the bills and meeting the basic needs of the 3 people in my life. Their dad had sunk into a deep depression and everything was left to me.
It was at this time I started the seeds of setting up my business determined not to spend another day of my life dependant on benefits and the hand outs of others. Juggling so many plates and trying to keep them all in the air changed me. I turned into a dictator, an ogre and a control freak. Now the thought of doing any crafts with my kids bought me out in hives, and quite frankly it would just be quicker to do it myself.
It turned into the kind of mum I’d despised. And I had every excuse in the book of why I couldn’t do these things. I had customers to serve, a house to keep on top of and staff depending on me. I didn’t even have their dad around to share the burden as the relationship had broken down and I had asked him to leave.
It was one less stress to try to juggle.
I did make the odd exception, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience for anyone involved! I helped my daughter paint a dress for her school disco and I taught my boy to cook and to grow vegetables, but it took my every last wit not to snatch the things out their little hands, screaming like a banshee that it was wrong, wrong, wrong and do the damn thing myself!
I wasn’t who I thought I was, I wasn’t the mum I thought I’d be. I had no patience and I had no time.
Looking back I wasn’t being a very good mum, but I was being the best I could be to try and give them the future I felt they deserved.
It was the sacrifice I had chosen to make.
Do I regret it? Ye probably.
They are days and hours I’ll never get back. They’ll never be that young again and they will never have the memories that I had promised I would give my babies.
But I was trying as hard as I could with the cards I’d been dealt.
Despite all that my little darlings seem to have turned out quite well adjusted and are quite independent in doing things for themselves. Heck they even Hoover and make the dinner when the mood takes them.
But times they have changed, it would appear time is something I have plenty of and the only one stopping me from being the mum I dreamed of is me. Yes grumpy, bad tempered, pain riddled me.
So today I made the first big step at changing. Today I did crafts with my daughter. I taught her how to use the sewing machine and she made herself a dress. There were still times I caught myself taking over, but even worse were the times I caught the sound of fear in her voice, a fear that she was doing it all wrong and that she would be letting me down. So now I’m filled with both pride of her achievement and a guilt of what a crap mum I’ve been to make her feel like that.
And next weekend I will do it all again, this time it’s the boys turn to come up with something he wants to learn and will have my undivided attention.
Another chance for me to make up the missed years I’d promised them and build his confidence back up.
