I really can't believe that I am as important to my kids as I perceive the role of mum to be.

[Thankyouandgoodnight]

That's a nonsense title i know, I am just not sure how to word it.

I have always seen other people's mums as huge figures but I just don't feel significant as a mum at all. My DCs are still very small and maybe it will change.

Does anyone know what I'm wittering on about at all??

Urm no, not really. I bet your dc see you as a huge figure though, you'll be the centre of their world even if you can't see it and just feel like a 24hour slave!

What about your own mum? was she a huge figure?

When I became a mum I often read in parenting magazines people saying things like "I feel like I am just xx's mum, I have lost the real me". I've never felt like that at all! - I sometimes forget that I am "a mum" as a category as such, IYSWIM.

I do think I'm important to DS though - very much so as he's still quite clingy at 3 - I think you do get much more of a sense of that as they get older.

I feel like that. It seems presumptious somehow to imagine I am this colossal figure in dd's life - and yet as you say - you see other families and see that this is how it is.

Never, ever underestimate the power of mothers.

I think I know what you're saying and no I don't think I realised how important I am to my dc's until recently.

In her mothers day card to me DD1 wrote "I love you so much I could burst out of my skin". I remember feeling that way about my mum - and now here am I with dcs of my own.

i have felt more important to them as they have got older, now 5 and 3.
when they were little i did feel like anyone could play with them, feed them, change nappies and probably be "better" at it or more patient/enjoy it more than me.
however now, i can clearly see how important i am. when they come out of school/nursery it is mummy they want. when they are tired, they just want to be in their own home with their own things and their mum.
don't underestimate it.

I know what you mean, Thankyou. I don't feel like this huge figure in my DS's life and, while there are a few examples of such mothers in my RL, it certainly does not apply to 100% of them (or even the majority).

DS (just two) is going through a stage where he is absolutely mad about DH and while I'm sure he needs me and would miss me if I wasn't around, I'm not always sure that he likes me ... but that I hope is down to my own neuroses!

I do think that the role of motherhood can be massively sentimentalised though ...

I was reading to DS2 (3.2) today and in the book, there was a giraffe who was sad. I asked him why he thought he was sad and he said, "Because he wants his mummy" and leant his head comfortably on me. The giraffe was, in fact, not at all bothered about his mummy - but it was the first thing DS2 thought of as a reason you might be sad.

And I was struck by just how important I am to the boys - so this thread is timely, because I have at various different times wondered about my importance to them.

I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a fraud, seeing the children looking up to me, expecting that I know everything about everything... I wonder when they will twig that I am just me and not this marvellous all knowing being that they seem to see.

I think I'm very important to my children at the moment. I'll be so for another few yrs, and then they'll put me on their black list.

Thank you for even attempting to understand my witterings! Acinonyx you should have worded it for me I think!

In terms of how they view me, it's like their very very favourite nursery person or something - just a familiar person rather than the biggy of 'mother' which somehow carries a more complicated meaning. Perhaps it's because they're still small.

Totally get you. I was casting my eye over some Jade reportage and got a little teary re. her boys' loss. I was thinking how odd it was that I don't see myself as significant as I saw JG being to those boys who I don't even know iyswm.

I found a book the other day, just some old diary I'd given to DD (9) and she has called it 'book of funny stuff'. I looked inside thinking I'd find some of her hilarious attempts at jokes but on 3 pages it said 'I love my mum so SO much' and similar.

I was quite astounded actually.

I felt exactly like this. I didn't feel I was as important to my children as my mum was to me. It didn't help that my elder 4 were daddy mad.

Then I had DD2. We are joined at the hip She wants mummy all the time. The unimportant feeling has gone

About the Jade thing - awful though it may sound, I could feel her mother's pain but not her sons....

They both have really detailed baby books with letters etc incase I go prematurely. I couldn't bear them not knowing how I feel about them.

Thankyou, do you have sons or daughters? I sometimes wonder if I had a DD if she would be more Mummy focused than DS ...

well I know I'm not as important as I think I am - on my dd (5)'s "nice list", I'm number 10. I come after her grans dog, my Mums 2 dogs and my sister-in-laws 2 dogs.

She recently started a "good book" and I was pleased to see that I was 2nd - after her doll. She's put me in my place though - shes sellotaped in some new pages - think I'm no 12 in it now....

stillstanding my PFB was a DD and was totally daddy's girl

I know what you mean , I intend to impart small nuggets of wisdom for the children to pass down the generations and mention when they are interviewed for Time magasine but it just seems to come out as ' FOR THE THIRD TIME PUT YOUR SHOES ON OR THERE WILL BE NO TELLY TONIGHT'