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Parenting

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Original poster

Don't ever under-estimate what good mummies you are...

43 replies

Moomin · 18/10/2003 20:54

Been thinking about starting this thread off for a while but haven't had time to try to put it into words. Here goes:
My mumm died when I was 9 and my lovely lovely dad brought me and my brother up on his own from this point. He was an older dad (52 when she died) and so from a different generation but he didn't think twice about giving up his very good job overnight and looking after us full time. In this respect he did an excellent job, (also seeing as I was such a mare in my teens) and I love him so so dearly. I always buy him cards and pressies on fathers AND mothers day because he's done so well in both areas, IMO.
BUT, since I've had dd, I've started seeing all those little things that mummies do and that I missed out on, through absolutely no fault of my dad.
Whatever criticisms you mummies have of yourselves and the way you bring your babies up, always remember that the way you stroke their hair and the way you make sure they have nice things to eat and the way you arrange their brithday parties and the way you check their homework and talk to their teacher and the way you make sure they say please and thank you and all the other millions of things you do just as naturally as breathing means the world to them, even though they might not know it yet....... but they will!

OP posts:

suzyj · 20/10/2003 10:04

oh moomin, crying buckets! fabulous post. We are better than we think, aren't we?

susanmt · 20/10/2003 13:37

Thanks Moomin. Your post made me cry but it is true. My Mum left us for my Dad's best friend when I was 12, and my Dad was the best 'Mum' I could have had, but since I became a Mummy, even though mine are still so little, I can understand exactly what you are saying. And as I've been feeling like such a cr*p Mummy for the last few weeks and now I realise its not all so bad. Thankyou.

handlemecarefully · 20/10/2003 14:21

I'm filling up too - embarrassing when you are at work in a shared office. Will have to pretend I have a cold!

Thanks for sharing your post with us.

CountessDracula · 20/10/2003 14:59

Moomin

ThomCat · 20/10/2003 15:28

What an absolutley lovely post - bless your heart.

Dahlia · 20/10/2003 16:46

Thank you Moomin, what a really lovely post. You've made me cry and cry! God bless xxx

Songe · 20/10/2003 16:50

having just lost my mother in June, okay I'm not a kid no more but I am expecting my first child, I realise just how good mothers are, and Moomin, eventhough you had no Mum, your Dad seemed to have done a bloody good job. The more I think of becoming a Mum and how I will be I realise I will be like my Mum!!

Original poster

Moomin · 20/10/2003 19:24

Songe, don't feel bad about that. It's been 26 years since my mum died but I lost count of the times I drove back from work when I was pregnant, crying my eyes out because I was missing my mum, and I hadn't done that for years. It's a very significant time in your life and one that makes you acutely aware of your own parents and the role you'll soon have as one yourself.
I love doing things with dd that I know my mum would have loved and it's a comfort now rather than a gap in my life. She took my and 4 friends to an evening showing of 101 dalmations for my birthday one year and let us stay up til midnight afterwards, having a feast. On my last birthday before she died she took me and my best friend to see Margot Fonteyne and Rudolf Nureyev in Swan Lake, on the train down to London. Can't remember the ballet at all, but I remember the journey and the excitement. And a really funny thing I remember about her was that she'd drive round and round a roundabout when it was raining just so we could go through the puddles and make a splash. What's that Alishah's Attic song - "It's just the little things, the incidentals"....

OP posts:

tinyfeet · 20/10/2003 19:30

I'll blame it on pregnancy hormones, but Moomin, you're making me weep. I'm going to have to go now, as I can't see my keyboard.

vkr · 20/10/2003 20:26

Songe - I do understand what you are going through - trust me that you mother will see the fabulous job you make of bringing up your ds or dd (whichever it may be)- she will also be there during the labour - which would have been unlikely if she had still been "around"

marthamoo · 20/10/2003 21:37

Moomin, what a lovely thread..bless you for that . We are too hard on ourselves, aren't we? I got so cross at ds1 last night I made him cry and I have felt like the worst Mum in the world today..but you're right..Mums are special (despite our shortcomings!)

Stargazer · 20/10/2003 22:25

Thanks Moomin - It's been a while since I've been here, but this thread has made my day. Your dad sounds wonderful. But you're right there is something special about mummies.

KMS · 20/10/2003 22:40

Thankyou Moomin I have tears running down my face.

I find it very hard to take credit for being a good mum and am so worried I will turn out like my mother as she didn't give me a very good role model. As you say it is the little things that make the difference.

Clarinet60 · 20/10/2003 23:14

A really lovely thread moomin, thanks. I've been trying to say the same for a while, but your words are spot on.

(BTW, are you troll or snork maiden? snufkin, pappa, mamma or little my? mymble? hemulin? fillyjonk? or just moomin?!)

sunchowder · 21/10/2003 02:52

Beautiful Thread Moomin and my sympathy also goes out to Magnum and Beetroot. I also lost my mother (but I was much older than you) and I had my daughter at 38. I miss her like it was yesterday and for me it was just 12 years in April. I missed my Mum dreadfully as you did during the pregnancy and early months. It was so lovely of you to post this for all of us. Thanks Moomin!

Rags · 25/10/2003 18:12

I am sorry, you may think me a freak, nutter or whatever but after getting totally hooked on Colin Fry & John Edwards I do believe there is life after passing and I strongly feel that even though your parents/friends can't phone you up or call round for a cuppa they are still with you everyday watching you and your families grow, knowing how much they were loved xx

Original poster

Moomin · 25/10/2003 18:26

Interesting thought, Rags. I prefer to think of the person as being a "presence" at times, rather than there watching you. I got a bit freaked out when I was younger because wheh my mu first died, I was 9 and I convinced myself my mum was watching me and looking after me for ages. However when I reached my teens and started doing things that I shouldn't have been doing - or rather the things teenagers do but don't tell their parents! - I kept thinking my mum could see me and thought she'd be really disappointed in me. I also felt very embarrassed! I came to terms with this some time later and I do prefer to think of my mum in terms of moments when I think "she'd love this".
My cousin died last year very sadly and prematurely. She was a great fun-lover and very cheerful. At her funeral at the point when the coffin arrived we were all in a terrible state. As the coffin was being lifted out the hearse, an ice-cream van drove past with its song blaring. We all just burst out laughing because we all felt it was her, telling us to lighten up. When things like that happen it's like they're winking at you and we know they're sort-of still around.

OP posts:

Clarinet60 · 27/10/2003 22:07

I went through that teenage embarrassment thing too, moomin. It was even worse when I was in my twenties and doing things I certainly WOULD NOT like them to see!
I came to a convenient arrangement with my brain.
I decided that they could only see me and watch over me when it was fitting for them to do so.
Seemed to work a treat!

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