The problems with Irish pubs
The problem with a national holiday held in your honour is that you have to share it, says Sophie White, but that’s the plight of mums everywhere
M“The reality, post spawning, is that ‘you’ don’t really matter any more”
other’s Day should be the one day of the year that we are cherished as the ‘one and onlys’ that we are. The problem is that all the other mums are in on it, never mind our own mothers — mine still hasn’t forgiven me for the forceps birth she endured having me; there should be a statute of limitations on that type of grudge.
There’s really only a short window in which to completely selfishly savour the day, and that’s after our mothers have (sadly, of course) passed away. Only then will we be able to totally revel in having the day all to ourselves. It’s not much of an upside, I’ll be honest — even if a large part of Herself ’s verbal output towards me is loving criticism, I’d be devastated without her.
And even then, we still may not be able to count on having the day completely devoted to us. After having kids, one realises that all the things you thought about motherhood (for example, that Mother’s Day is a day for you) are a complete sham.
Really, if any of us knew fully what we were getting into, it’s highly unlikely we’d have pressed the matter of having kids after those four glasses of wine that fateful Saturday night in the living room. The classic “Let’s have a baby” would more likely have been “Let’s have another bottle and enjoy our perfectly preserved Scandi aesthetic.”
The reality, post spawning, is that you don’t really matter any more. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially for us raving narcissists, aka millennial mums; we probably needed this wake-up call — it’s just an adjustment.
I got the first inkling of my new status right there in the delivery room when the midwife brought in my tea and toast — the single greatest tea and toast ever — and Himself helped himself. Outraged, I sought back-up from the midwife, who said, sympathetically, “It’s been a long night”... to HIM.
Since then, I spend a lot of my time essentially reliving that betrayal. If I put a treat in a cupboard, it’s demolished in minutes — the older one has a great nose for biscuits. If I slip into the loo (things have deteriorated) to eat a sneaky packet of crisps, I’m immediately rumbled by the rustling.
At the table, the little one climbs into my lap and intercepts bites as they try in vain to make their way to my mouth. I’ve tried to fling sweets into the corner of the room in a bid to distract them, but Himself doesn’t know his own strength, and usually one of the children ends up in tears during the scuffle.
The only hope I have of enjoying my Mother’s Day treat today is to make something that they’re not scrambling to nick. This rich torte is the perfect foil for their thieving ways.