Normal mothers

‘Why can’t you just be like a normal mother?’ my daughter ranted. Twelve years old and already asserting herself in this way. She had just got into the car after a long day at school and she started on at me. I hoped I could keep my cool.

‘What’s a normal mother? I asked. It had been a hot and trying day for me at work and although I was glad to see my daughter, I could have done without the aggravation. I hoped my response was cool enough.

‘A normal mother is someone who is always on time to collect her child from school and when they get home a snack is prepared or a meal is ready. A normal mother doesn’t always have to be working. Nor is she usually late for collecting her child and is waiting for the child to come out of school.’ She stopped to draw breath and see what reaction she was having.

‘So who do we know who is a normal mother?' I asked patiently.
‘Well Lara’s mother is normal. She is always early at school waiting and Lara tells me about the delicious food that she gets to eat when she gets home.’

My daughter’s face in the mirror in the back of the car was now smugly composed.
‘Anything else? I asked.
‘No, that’s enough for now but it’s not going to make any difference, is it? You’re still going to be late coming from your work and I’m going to continue to suffer.’

The expression on my daughter’s face in the mirror changed to aggrieved.
‘We’ll see about that.’ I replied. I didn’t like to leave my daughter with the last word.

When we got home I got down to preparing the evening meal. It had been a long day and I was exhausted from trying to keep two jobs going at the same time, neither of them straightforward. My husband was away as usual, so the majority of the parenting was left up to me. I had help in the house but there were times when I could have done with having an older experienced woman around to share with. That wasn’t going to happen.

Most people I knew were in the same situation but they left their children in the care of drivers and nannies who did most of the school runs and the preparing of food. There were a few other women who preferred to stay at home rather than work but I just couldn’t do that.

I had spent so many years working under the radar in countries where a stamp in my passport said: No paid or unpaid work allowed. It had nearly killed me, that one small phrase that consigned me to the desert of being without a career. I had spent years working quietly to keep my soul in a happy place and I felt had achieved something that no one could ever take away from me.

Now that I was allowed to work legally in this new country I felt liberated and justified in having broadened and expanded my repertoire in those places where I had had to remain hidden and unacknowledged. And now my daughter who could have been my greatest ally was castigating me for being a little late every day. But, I also recognized that this was important to my daughter.

I needed to feel that things were running smoothly. When my two children were younger and we lived in another country, I had left them every day at school and gone to work in some hair-raising situations that no one knew about.  I had had to take my daughter to work with me one day and I had filled up the large car with seven of my local colleagues, agricultural extension agents. The car weighed down with too many bodies, had got stuck on a railway track  in the middle of nowhere and we had had to lift and heave it back onto the road.

My almost daily forays out into remote mountainous villages without any roads or even tracks on broken-down motor bikes had been risky but I was thrilled to take the sex and life education program I was pioneering, to inaccessible places and give opportunities to people with very limited horizons and opportunities.

I tried hard to be a normal mother and settle the family into its new life. We were renting a colonial style bungalow surrounded by lovely gardens and trees. The master bedroom was huge and fitted out with a very ugly dark brown nondescript 1960s type carpet as was all of the bedroom area. It had nearly put me off renting the house. The first thing I had done was to scrub the carpet clean and cover its bare patches with nice colorful rugs.

The kitchen was brighter with a circular breakfast bar and good for kids to hang out in while I was preparing food. The living room was slightly sunken and looked out onto the most charming side garden and lovely pool with a gentle waterfall. There was also the attraction of the separate granny annexe that I was hoping to use to revive my own healing business after the big move from our previous country.

The family had started to settle in well to their newest home and it took only fifteen minutes to drive the kids to school. I had to do it on my own as my husband was always traveling. We all missed him but seemingly my daughter most of all. One evening as we sat down to dinner my daughter had looked askance at the food. Then she took her knife and fork and banged them on the table and said, ‘That’s it! I’m reporting you to Dad when he gets back again. He’s getting back this weekend, isn’t he? Well I’ve had enough. He’s been away two and a half weeks now and in all that time we’ve had no meat. AND I NEED MEAT!’ She banged the knife and fork on the table again for emphasis. ‘I NEED MEAT!’

I was taken aback. This was my normally reasonable child behaving in a peculiar way. I looked over at her and saw a look of desperation and truth. This wasn’t just an adolescent strop over nothing, it was a cry for help. We resolved the situation by talking quietly about it and I made sure that there was a meat dish always for my daughter from then on. Years later we found out that my daughter had an iron deficiency and needed red meat in her diet.

Now I heard the same voice of truth coming out. I knew that I wasn’t the mother I needed to be at this moment in time. But I did know one normal mother. Lara’s. As soon as the dinner preparations were underway I phoned her up. We had met a few times socially and in some fundraiser/ get to know each other type coffee mornings. We were both delighted to be living in this lovely country with its relative safety and with access to a nice quality of life. We had both come out of a repressive experience in the previous country we had been posted to and we loved the relaxed freedom of this new country.

I said, ‘Hi Helen, how are you? Are you busy at the moment? Helen responded with a laugh. ‘No, not busy. My girls are fed and doing their homework and my husband won’t be home for a couple of hours.’
I replied, ‘That sounds so well organized and that’s what I want to talk with you about. My daughter is upset with me. She wants to have a mother who collects her from school on time every day and have everything ready at home for her. Now I can never predict how long it’s going to take me to get to the school. I try to make it on time but something always turns up. I’m failing her badly.'
Helen laughed again. ‘What are you asking?’
I said, 'I wondered if you would consider collecting my daughter from school and taking her home with you?'
Helen laughed again. 'Of course, I would. The girls can come home and do their homework together and then you collect them later. If it’s ok with you I’ll give her a snack as well. My girls like that when they get in from school.'
Now it was my turn to laugh. 'Well you are more than a normal mother. You are a star.’

A few months later I was able to repay Helen a little for her kindness and my daughter’s well-being by doing something special for her. I never forgot this lesson, to look at the small possibilities in life instead of making things complicated. And not to be afraid to reach out to others when I could not see any solutions myself. And my daughter will hopefully pass the same message onto her own children.