Tough Mother

I’m not sure when I learned to drive our farm bike.

I had to be tall enough that I could change gears on the foot pedal, so 8 or 9 maybe? 

It was a big day when I didn’t have to walk the kilometre to get the mail and the milk and then back again, which was worse given the steep hill home. Or being allowed to go check the sheep by myself. 

I didn’t really think that much about it. 

I just did it because I’d been watching my dad and brothers for years and it was the next step in becoming “responsible” and “grown up”. 

However, mum later said it was watching us girls learn how to drive that gave her the courage to have a go. 

This came to mind recently when I decided to learn to row. 

Water sport options weren’t really a thing where I grew up. But watching the kids learn to row and then compete opened up a whole new world. 

A bit like when you become a parent and you realise that there is a whole world of terms, brands and equipment that you’ve just never needed to know…

I’m not going to lie, there was also part of me that thought if they can do it so can I…

Four weeks in, I can also hear echos of myself when my daughter tells me I’m ‘overthinking it’.

I wonder if mum found it as helpful as I did?

Most of the time, I’ve an awareness of my mum, a general appreciation in an-always-there, life-constant kind of way.

However, there have been a few times where there’s been more dramatic realisations about how different my life is compared to my mum’s experience.

For example, sitting on an open air London bus in the middle of winter waiting for the Tower Bridge to close as part of my 25th birthday trip. 

In the quiet and cold moment while I was waiting, I realised by the same age mum had been married, had my oldest brother, been widowed, had my second brother a few months later, lost her mum, met and fairly rapidly married my dad, and had my next brother. 

Or, when having just picked up my kids (then 2.5 years and 7 months) from their carer after work, in the middle of a nappy change for each of them in the back of the car, and realising that mum had done this SIX more times.

And, most recently waving goodbye to my son (now 15) and my husband for five months while my son experiences New Zealand school life, and realising that it’s pretty different being the one staying at home, rather than heading off on an adventure.

Each time has deepened my understanding and appreciation of mum, and now also makes me wonder what might prompt the kids to pause and reflect…

A few years back, I remember walking to primary school with my daughter when she observed quite loudly how short the “big girls” wore their skirts. 

Of course, she was never going to do that. 

She is now 13 and I found myself musing about how I used to roll up my skirt in the vague hope that reverse psychology might mean she took hers down a roll or two. 

I obviously wasn’t the only one. The parent WhatsApp group blew up one day after a teacher handed out a number of detentions for “infringing the uniform policy”.

I was merrily ignoring this when I got a message from my daughter asking about the iron and scissors. 

While she’d been off that day, the bush telegraph was working well. As I walked in the door, she proudly held up her skirt and the two inches of material that she’d cut off it telling me not to worry – it was still closer to her knees than her hips (phew!?!).

To be fair, she stopped ironing when “only a little bit” had gone shiny and also had a go at hemming it with almost the right coloured thread. 

There was no way that sucker would have been coming undone on its own. I know, because I then took an hour to unpick it. She’d forgotten to hide the raw edge and I’m not quite sure what the stitch was that she looked up on YouTube but it wasn’t subtle. 

On the bright side, she made dinner during the great unpick, and I managed to sneak an extra centimetre closer to her knees!

Now the kids are older, they keep surprising me with changes in taste or wider life views. 

Yet some things remain reassuringly or is that frustratingly similar.

This was perfectly highlighted recently in their preparations for going on different trips.

One had a lot of advance notice, and as a planner, it meant that preparations were broken down into many stages: thinking about planning, thinking about purchases, making said purchases thinking about packing…

The other was really more focused on how to get the PlayStation in the bag at the last possible moment.

And yet, both had the same net result of not actually packing until the last possible moment. 

As a last minute person, I have some sympathy for this, but I realised that my technique has been honed over many years. 

I never appreciated how excruciating it was for the not-so-casual bystander watching the honing in practice. 

Still, I’m sure they both learned a valuable lesson. That’s if the text afterwards from one of them is to go by…

Let’s never do that again… 

One of the kids’ long term campaigns has been to get a pet. This has mostly focused on a dog with various techniques tested: listing out the pros and cons, cajoling, nagging, and even bribery attempts (we’ll be awesome forever type things).

One of my jobs growing up on a farm was to run, feed and water our 3-5 working dogs. That was a promotion after feeding the hens for quite a few years. 

So while I know the joy, I also know the responsibility of a dog and it’s been a consistent no.

However, the other morning, my daughter wandered in with a new proposal.

A ferret.

She didn’t quite have a PowerPoint presentation, but she’d definitely done some research and had her talking points prepared.

They’re affectionate and playful and a friend could look after them while we’re away.

They also live for 6-10 years, you need two, they sometimes need specialist vet care and they’re also a pest… in New Zealand anyway.

I have to admit we might have fobbed the question off through the classic combination of ‘we’ll think about it’ and distraction (she’s 13 but it still seems to work…).

The most interesting thing was the conversation with my husband afterwards. 

Perhaps a cat wouldn’t be so bad after all…

Currently, we’re thinking about it…

Growing up on the farm with the nearest neighbours over a mile away, we developed our paddock voice. The one for communicating with other members of the family, the dogs, and strongly encouraging the sheep or cattle in the direction you wanted to go. 

Sometimes achieving all three at the same time…

That’s not needed so much living in London, particularly as the kids are now older and, largely, head in the anticipated direction.

However, my son has instead developed his gaming voice. This seems to be very loud, at the higher pitch end of the scale, and mostly incoherent sounds emanating at obviously tense moments.

After various (unsuccessful) attempts to quieten him – closing the doors, social embarrassment (the whole street can hear you), one headphone off – my husband tried a demonstration.

Our son was sent to the kitchen to listen…

The first attempt was barely audible, so on the second try, he channelled his inner muppet (landing somewhere between Animal and Beaker). 

I just about heard it over said son’s hysterical laughter!

Not sure it was scientific enough, my daughter very enthusiastically volunteered to impersonate her brother instead, proving much more realistic.

It’s too soon to say if it has worked, but initial results are looking promising!

This year, rather than our usual UK Christmas, we thought we’d head downunder. It had been 12 years since the kids had experienced Christmas in New Zealand, so now 15 and 13, the memories were rather hazy.

So what makes up a kiwi Christmas in our family? First of all, Christmas is actually the Saturday or Sunday before. That’s because my mum realised once my brothers started bringing girlfriends that the chances of getting us all together on Christmas Day were slim to none… while I remember feeling a bit gutted at the time as it made for a quiet big day – I can now acknowledge the wisdom of the decision. 

This year, it was a bit different. We booked out a school camp site (think industrial kitchen and lots of bunk beds) for a couple of nights. That’s because it had to host:

• 2 grandparents
• 7 siblings (one couldn’t make it)
• 6 significant others
• 17 grandkids 
• 3 of their significant others, and
• 1 amazing aunt who’s always been more like a sibling.

There were also a couple of partridges (ok probably quail), and we had to settle for lots of cherries rather than pear trees. 

We even managed to hunt down a Christmas tree – think a few of the kids finding a likely looking branch to cut down and decorate up… 

With so many people, it could’ve descended into chaos, however, it seems to work like a smoothly oiled machine with minimal communication (that might cause other issues!). Everyone contributes to the main lunch, with the only certainties being the oldest two brothers bringing the ham (no turkeys here) and potatoes. 

Some years ago we also introduced the present stealing game, which spices up the interactions. This year, the frying pans seemed particularly popular! 

I think the kids loved it – we didn’t really see them for a couple of days as they caught up with their cousins and discovered the freezing swimming pool, flying fox (zip line in the UK) and bow and arrows. What could have possibly gone wrong…

My dad has dementia.

It’s one of those things that seems sudden, and not.

Living in the UK, it’s usually a while between visits. In fact, about this time six years ago, dad came over to see us. My sister had to accompany him, but he was still entertaining everyone with, admittedly, similar stories to when they met him on my son’s first day of school.

My first trip home after Covid, he was still on his mission to distribute apples that couldn’t be exported around the local community, organising a “grandad’s army” to pick the rejects – as he’d say, they’re still tasty though. We started cleaning out the garage, while he cracked on with his soduku and was adamant he’d never leave that house.

Four trips ago, there was sneaking out to give an ‘urgent’ message to mum when he knew he wasn’t supposed to. At that point, I didn’t have teenagers but that’s what he reminded me of – with the heightened blood pressure (mine) to go with it. 

Then we made it back for my parents’ 55th wedding anniversary and to help move them into a new home. We weren’t sure he’d make it after cancer several years before, and it was touch and go that trip when he landed in a hospital a few times in short order.

Then, he told me loops of stories, mostly from when he was at school. Some I hadn’t heard before… But he was focused on celebrating their wedding milestone. And, within days, moved on to recovering from emergency surgery and reaching 60 years.

This last trip though there were no stories. 

While he was always an oasis of calm in the midst of mum’s busyness, he also always had plenty to say. 

So the quiet was pronounced. 

There were moments where I could see his spark, where the dad who used to find any opportunity to sneak up to surprise you, would stand on the sideline in his farm gear and pompom hat, who ran a half marathon with me when he was 60, or who took his pocketknife to Buckingham palace (and surprisingly got it back afterwards), was still there.

But the usual stories, the ones I moaned about more than once, have gone. 

We’re going back soon for Christmas and I worry about how the kids will find him. But he is a tough old bugger, with a bit of stubborn on the side, and a few more years until their 60th anniversary so I hope we find more spark over soduku.

I recently spent some time in New Zealand and had the opportunity to join my friend and her 15 year old kids during some water skiing practice, along with some others who were also visiting the irrigation pond/water ski lake (not often these go in the same sentence!).

This was a new experience for me and I had nothing more taxing than enjoying being in the boat during practice, while my friend drove. We were also joined by another guy, who it soon became clear knew a lot about the sport.

It didn’t take long to realise I was observing a master class in coaching. 

I’ve been reflecting on what made it so effective and I think it came down to three things:

• seeking input. He watched what was happening and asked curious questions of my friend and the kids – which he listened to. This was very relaxed, which prompted very open and unselfconscious critique.
• focusing on one or two things and not moving on until they were both happy that they got it. This was broken down into simple instructions which were multi-sensory – tell, show, as well as how it should feel.
• stopping on a win. This wasn’t waiting for mastery or perfection, it was gauging when something clicked, and importantly, before the student got tired, frustrated or hungry. A fine line when dealing with my teenagers at least!

As a parent, every day is a learning opportunity, however it can feel like it’s more of a slow burn feedback loop (I hope they get it by the time they’re 25!), so there might be a fourth and probably most important thing… it was my friend spotting an opportunity to have someone else coach the kids!

When I was younger, I used to think that running an ice cream shop must be a way to bring joy to people every day (this might have also been when I was a few hours into tractor work, flat batteries in my Walkman, warming water, not enough sunscreen, and several more hours to go).

Now I’m (a bit) older I can see the queues + heat + impatient kids and grown ups might detract somewhat from this sprinkling of joy.

However, out of the blue early this summer, my son tried a couple of times to make ice cream. It was a bit of a failure frankly. More crystals, less creaminess. 

We were then very lucky to have a gelato master stay with us for a few days, who was very happy to share his passion. This was after very clearly (and with more passion) expressing the shortcomings of our “ice cream maker”.  In fairness, it might have been older than my son and clearly technology has moved on…

So, for his birthday, my son had researched possible alternative machines that were acceptable, and also within mum’s budget.

Since then we’ve been benefiting from the experimentation as he develops his business plan to take over the world via ice cream.

Chocolate, coffee, mint chocolate, cookie dough (although this requires a profit share with his sister to help with the dough apparently), and even a foray into mango and raspberry sorbets.

While he still needs to work out some of the finer details, perhaps we’ll be able to keep the summer vibes over winter after all!