storbarnsförälder

We learn about motherhood primarily from our own mothers, I think. And from our formally and informally adopted mothers, I suppose.

I learned almost everything I know from mine.

When my little sister was a baby, so I was about 3 at the most, my Nana had laid her across her lap and was patting her back and bottom to burp her. My baby sister was crying - probably screaming, actually - and my Nana said to me, "Isn't she very bold?" (bold meaning naughty), and I agreed that yes, she was very bold! Nana said, "Will I smack her?" and I replied -

"Babies aren't for smacking. Babies are for loving."

I remember my mother chasing me around the kitchen with a wooden spoon to smack me hard for being very very bold - but I don't remember her catching me. I remember her chalking hopscotch on the kitchen floor (quarry tiles) and teaching me how they used to play when she was a little girl. I remember her teaching me to skip (jump rope) and knit and sew. I remember sitting for hours turning the fabric for hair scrunchies inside-out because she made them to sell; we used to stretch them over a knitting needle.

I remember her being given a stick with which to beat my "foster-brothers" by their mother. I remember her burning it.

I remember her explaining to me and my little sister, when we were arguing with the girls next door over whether or not you had to be married to have a baby, that "some people think it's best to wait until you are married." She's one of those some people, but she didn't say so. In Ireland. In the 1980s.

I remember her making my first communion dress and it being the nicest dress anyone had ever had. I remember she made a matching handbag. I remember she made my confirmation dress too, and decorated the buttons to match, the day after my father's mother's funeral. I remember she made my wedding dress without question and without flaw.

I remember that Santa gave me a Ballet-Dancing Sindy one Christmas, which I wanted because it had very very movable limbs. I remember that my Sindy came with handmade jeans, lumberjack shirt and sweater included in the box, stitched to the card with plastic thread just like real packaged presents. I remember receiving a Bosco puppet in a proper Bosco box, equipped with a bed and bedclothes and everything. I didn't find out the box was home-made for years and years.

I remember being taught to comfort eat: I was told that eating very sugary, starchy foods made me feel a bit better in the short term, and it was an ok thing to do. She explained quite a bit of the biology to me in a ways I understood at the tender age of 13. I remember comfort-eating porridge made with milk instead of water. And custard.

I remember pitying people with skinny mothers because they couldn't be as cuddly as mine. I remember hating her wearing lipstick. I remember thinking she was beautiful in an ancient, tatty cardigan. I remember her getting me French lessons after school. I remember her teaching me to use a grape scissors (my Nana had one) and how to arrange food to look attractive. I remember being sick in bed and getting breakfast on Wedgewood china because I was too grown up for Bunnykins - a small bowl with a satsuma broken into a flower shape, a mug of rosehip tea, some toast cut into small triangles, and a bowl of cereal. Milk in a little jug and sugar in a sugarbowl.

I remember that this was normal for us when we were sick and that I took it as my due - I was pleased about it, but not in the least surprised.

I remember that when I was miserably depressed in my teens, she offered to find out about fostering, in case I'd be happier in another family. I remember that she believed I wasn't doing drugs when all the psychologists were convinced I was (she was right - at the time I wasn't touching even alcohol). I remember that after I'd left home, she came and got me when I was ill or depressed.

I remember that she held my baby for me when I could not because I had given birth only three hours before and still couldn't move much.

I remember that ever single day in hospital, I had fresh ironed pyjamas and clean underwear.

I remember.