I was asked earlier this week if my youngest son (aged 12) would talk about what his mum means to him at church on Sunday (Mother’s Day). Being well aware of my deficiencies as a parent, this was a decision fraught with danger.
I said yes. People who know me are aware I have difficulty with the alternative response.
On Wednesday, he got into trouble for being late to his piano lesson because he wouldn’t get off the computer.
On Thursday, I sent him to school in his school uniform, forgetting that it was Colonial Era dress-up day.
On Friday, I forgot to go to assembly and his class was performing “Everything Is Awesome”. (No, I did not do it on purpose!)
On Saturday, I was grumpy with him because his Fruit Company piece of technology (which I abhor) wouldn’t charge and he wanted it fixed. With a million and one other things I needed to get done, the last thing I wanted was to run around town trying to work out how to get it repaired.
Supervision of the task of what he was actually going to say at church was given to his father. He reported that it was like pulling teeth.
It did not bode well.
So, naturally, when he stood up in church to speak, I was nervous.
Here’s what he said:
My mum is really caring. She cares for me, my brothers and my friends when they come over to play.
She is good at cooking and makes sure we eat lots of good things and not junk food.
When I am sick, she always knows what to do and helps me get better.
She helps me with my homework and helps me to prepare and make things when I need them for school.
She supports me when I do things at school like coming to watch me do Cross Country.
She helps me to make good decisions when I buy things to make sure I don’t waste my money.
She takes me to swimming and piano and helps me when I get stuck doing practice.
She is a really good example to me because she cares for other people, particularly those less fortunate.
She is cool because she likes things like Doctor Who and other shows we watch.
She does a lot of things for other people and always says yes when they ask her.
I am lucky to have a really good mum.
Yes, yes I did cry. Just a little bit.
Maybe it’s okay to be a ‘good enough’ mum after all.
Master of Something I'm Yet To Discover 
It was very easy to recognise you in what Kieran said. However: as a general principle, I’m not certain we should place too much credence in the our children’s – in anyone’s -portraits of their parents. I recall writing a short piece about my mother, when I was in Grade 1, in which I claimed my mother had been do astonished by the sight of me riding up to our house ON HORSEBACK that she’d run out into the street WITH A ROLLING PIN. This document was illustrated, in colour crayons. My mother, a feminist academic with lousy culinary skills (at that point), was dumbfounded.
I suspect my more recent portraits of my parents are equally, um, suspect.
That said, you have raised your boys with the Inner Seeds of truth and integrity xxx
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Maybe, but as a parent, I’ll take what I can get! 😉
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Oh, I just love this!! It made me ready and I am not even his mom. What a sweet boy you have. Good job mom!
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He is a sweet boy, just with a stubborn disposition. 🙂
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being a ‘jack of all trades’ is very handy as a mother! Still – I hope you were listening and take some credit, to my mind – and yes Elly, we all have our own perceptions – Kieran’s words hold a lot of truth.
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Lovely! Isn’t it nice, even just once, when they actually do give us credit? You can keep running on that for a long time to come, I’m sure. (Should also keep copy of words, of course, to have ready to remind said son of in the midst of any upcoming teenage angst!) 🙂
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That’s a good idea! But I think I might stick it on the fridge now and maybe pre-empt the teenage angst. 😉
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Impossible not to like this, H. But there’s one mistake in it, according to me: the fruit company never repairs anything – they simply take it from you, give you another one and charge you the cost of the battery. Well, that’s what they do Downunder, and I do not jest !
P.S. Will you please tell me how you add a hyperlink to a word/phrase within a comment ? – I’m still at the point of putting the link in brackets … 😦
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Oh, what good environmental management… (In this case it turned out to be the cord so he had to buy a new one – and they’re not cheap, unlike everyday micro usb ones. I still abhor it…)
Type your comment in a new post (via the Dashboard). Put in the hyperlink as you would in a post. Click on the ‘Text’ tab at the top, copy all the text and paste it into the comment box. It will turn into a link when you post the comment. Voilà!
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OEUF COURSE !!! – I do that with text widgets; but I am a very limited thinker, so it didn’t occur to me that I could do it with comments as well.
Thanks from the heart, H ! – you are very kind !
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Un plaisir, mon ami. 🙂
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I call these Mommie moments. Those moments when you look at your kids & think, “Wow, I had some small part in making this remarkable human being” Take every one you can get!
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Oh I do. They are the moments that keep me going through the “I’ve really stuffed this up” moments.
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Haha, yes, there are definitely lots of those as well!
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I know this is quite an old post but I’ll bet the occasion still brings a lump to your throat when you remember it.
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It’s so weird that you should comment on this post as I just re-read it today. I was thinking how glad I was I’d put it in a post so I had it there to read again. And yes, it still makes me emotional.
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I feel the same way every time I think about my kids remembering my birthday. One of these years they’ll do it, I know.
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