Dear Mammy,

IAM writing to say thank you. I’m sure I said it to you numerous times in the past, but as always I find it’s when I put my thoughts into words on paper before me that I articulate the meaning best.

Thank you for your example to me. I feel to this day privileged to have been your son. I learned so much from you — from the simple things, from how to boil or fry an egg to the more important things like keeping good habits and being careful with words.

Of course it is only now, 12 years on from your death that I realise that I learnt all of this from observation of you in your everyday doings.

An odd time you’d issue a simple instruction. Sometimes that might be issued again until you felt I received the message. Never did it feel like a drubbing. Never did I feel the need to rebel.

As you got older you quietly did like any parent, you handed the controls over to me and stood in the wings. Your parenting style was such a simple art to observe, but my goodness your delivery was the best.

Anytime now that I find myself struggling as a parent, I just have to ask what would you do? What would you say? When should I make a statement? How would you consider this before making a decision? I think these are the important issues, would you think the same?

I do wonder Mammy if now in the late half of the second decade of this new century what parenting of the future will be like.

Enda

Thomas Smyth, Claremorris, Co Mayo