An Ode to Our Mums

Words by Rosa Main, Niva Chittock & Grace Clarke | She/Her

We all have expectations of our mothers. We expect them to be caring, maternal, empathetic, and always there for us. What we sometimes forget is that they also had expectations of who they were bringing into this world. They didn’t raise us just so we could ignore their texts, date people they hate, pursue acting careers they don’t approve of or write about rubbing one out in a university magazine.

Yet here we are, the (sometimes) proud owners of these aforementioned actions. Our relationships with our mothers are deeply personal, inherently flawed, and inevitably change as we all age. We’ve spent time reflecting on our relationships with our mums and our experiences growing up, with all the included turbulences. 

GROWING UP AND COMING OF AGE

Rosa 

I take after my mum in lots of ways. We both have the same irritating restless leg syndrome that never lets us stay still. We’re both manic extroverts at times, playing up to a willing audience, but love nothing more than our own company at the end of the day. I’ve learned some of my most essential advice from her—to never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Even before my parents’ marriage broke up, she took the lion’s share of raising my sister and me. I believed she always knew best, so much so that when she uprooted my life at age 7, I just smiled and went along with it. I naively thought that my relationship with my Mum was just like Rory and Lorelai in Gilmore Girls (season 1, of course) and even arrogantly felt sorry for my friends at times when they would complain about their ‘bitch’ mums. That could never be us.  

Niva 

My mother has never been a ‘Mum’ in the traditional sense. In fact, we were told not to call her mum because we “sounded like bleating sheep”. Evidently, there was never much mollycoddling. There was plenty of love, of course, just without the whirr of helicopter parent blades. Our house was great fun growing up; full of art, animals, and chaos. From tapestries painted on the kitchen floor, to talking dogs, and big personalities—there was always something going on. Still is. Over the years, my house became a favourite amongst friends for entertaining. Much of that stems from my mother. 

You’ll hear my mum before you see her. She has her own vocabulary of made-up words, gives those she deems worthy peculiar nicknames, and loses something every 15 minutes. She gets home at the same time as her teenage kid on a Saturday night, and her most important life lessons have been to “have fun, be yourself, and be respectful.” Oh, and ensuring I have a ‘musication’—a music education which is heavily biased towards anything alternative.

Grace

My mum died when I was 10, which was pretty inconvenient. I had to go through the process of becoming a woman without a mother figure in my life. When my period arrived at age 11, I had to turn to my father for help. Until this point, my dad had a history of leaving the room during tampon ads. Yet on this day Matt sped off to the supermarket and returned with 8 different types of ‘feminine’ products, including: daily liners, maxi pads, sports tampons, lavender scented wash, and adult incontinence nappies. Unsurprisingly, much of this was not necessary. Throughout the painfully awkward years of puberty, my dad was playing both roles. He tried so hard to help me as I figured my way through growing boobs, having acne, and getting the most god-awful near-bowlcut you’ve ever seen. That last one was my fault, but I’m going to use the dead-mum-card here. Nonetheless, my dad and I both learnt a lot. 

LIMINALITY

Rosa 

I’ve come to realise that my Mum and I’s values often diverge. When I was younger, I incautiously accepted her values as my own. She unfortunately subscribes to the old school brand of feminism where sex means men are getting something, and women are giving something up. It is a shame I had to spend my first 13 years of life believing that shaving above the knee would summon some form of divine reckoning upon my family. After this realisation, I unconsciously demarcated our relationship as one of mother and daughter, not as friends. I left little breathing room for her to appreciate my growing sense of self. I felt a pressure to suppress aspects of my personal life I thought she might disapprove of. My frustration towards her manifested in intense and strange ways. We were more likely to blow up over trivial issues, than anything meaningful or important. But usually, each blow up was followed with an apology, or even just a ‘dinner’s ready’, that let me know everything was fine again.

Niva

There have been a few instances where Mother’s laissez-faire attitude has created more harm than good. Like when I ended up in A&E because she didn’t believe I was injured, or when I moved across the Strait without any of my luggage. Her messy mode of living was frustrating to get a grip on in my teenage years and this annoyance frequently boiled up to the surface. We would dance through the house yelling as our Italian blood told us to, decibels cranking up with every step. Most of the time these flare ups were just that—a short burst which burned itself out in a matter of minutes. Only a handful of occasions resulted in a serious bush fire.

Grace

I spent my teenage years trying to be as much of a stereotypical woman as possible, in an attempt to prove that I could do it without a mum. Since moving across the world to university, leaving my Dad and the rest of my life behind, I’ve completely reevaluated who I am. That didn’t come without growing pains. I spent my first semester sleeping with some pretty gross people and was predominantly drunk, confused, and sad. A year has passed and I’m now in love with a slightly less gross dude. He’s helped me realise that getting drunk and wearing ‘feminine’ clothes make me feel like a stranger in my own skin. I now feel comfortable embracing the woman I am with a (slightly cooler) short haircut, and some shirts that make me look like your weird uncle. Being a woman is what we make of it. 

COMING INTO OUR OWN

Rosa

Under her guidance, I have never felt less than a whole person. I don’t have a need to apologize unless I am truly sorry. I’ve always been able to hold things together even when I’m stressed out of my mind. However, it turns out ‘being ok’ all the time as a child makes for difficulties when addressing issues of conflict. While my ability to suppress feelings has served me well, I sometimes wish I could stop trying to fix and manage everything around me. Because I’m stubborn I sometimes find myself angry that she allowed us to have such a disconnected relationship. But what I have learned is that mother’s are people first. Before we were thrust from their wombs, they were just like us; flailing around, insecure, and burdened by social pressures like biological clocks and glass ceilings. I have to acknowledge that being a mother is tough in ways I won’t truly understand until I’m pulling the car over in Petone yelling at my own daughter to walk home. 

Niva

My mother and I aren’t the poster couple for mother-daughter relationships. I doubt we ever will be. But that’s ok, because we’ve both grown to sit comfortable with this. There’s never been a rule book for these relationships (at least, not an official one), and besides, nothing about my Mum and I is conventional. Our relationship has evolved organically—a euphemistic way of saying it hasn’t been smooth sailing. But that’s why it’s so strong. Moods flow through our bond like leaves down the river; they never stick around for long. Rocks come along for us to crash over, breaking the atmosphere and pushing us to move on. 

It was powerful to grow up with a parental figure instead of a ‘mum’. Sometimes her unflinching honesty felt like a cold shower dousing out my parade. But most of the time, having a parent who hasn’t compromised themselves for their children is something I relish. Feelings dealt with, interests discussed and experiences shared. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Grace

As I write this in my damp bedroom eating straight out of a box of Nutrigrain for lunch, I can’t say I feel like an adult. But for all intents and purposes, I am now a fully grown woman.  This growth would not have occurred without a whole lot of help. My dad has been amazing—I can proudly say he is now able to sit through an entire tampon ad without flinching. I wouldn’t have become the woman I am today without my Dad acting as two parents at once for the past 10 years. Compared to my mum, I’m less than impressive—she did law at uni and became a partner in one of the largest law firms in Scotland by her mid-30s. My father (also a lawyer) actually strongly discouraged me from studying law, as he was concerned about how it would impact my mental health. My dad has always encouraged me to be who I am, rather than what others might expect me to be due to the loss of my mother, and I am extremely grateful for that. I may be doing a BA with no career prospects, but I’m proud of how far I’ve come from bowlcuts and self-loathing from five years ago. 

Our first nervous ‘Mum article’ meeting in the Salient office started haltingly with interjections, rushed sentences and talking over top of one another; trying to get some sort of handle on what ‘mum’ was to each of us. What we didn’t expect were such strong commonalities present in our experiences. There was something reassuring about acknowledging that the feelings of anxiety, love, and pain we regularly encounter as we grow up were familiar to all of us, despite growing up on the other sides of the world (literally). 

So here’s to mothers, whatever form they take. While being their children isn’t easy, we can’t imagine the whole ‘parenting’ thing is a breeze either. Even those of us lucky enough to have our mothers here will know that no relationship is perfect. We’re growing into a generation of women fundamentally different to the one our mothers grew into. Perhaps we’re not meant to fully understand mothers and that’s part of the fun of it. Regardless, they’re a figure we can analyse and decide which traits, names, stories, vices we’ll  weave into our own life course. 

At the end of the day, mums are kick-ass women that are more than the title we bestow upon them. And they won’t let you forget it.