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MOTHER’S GUILT

HERE are some things I beat myself up about, or at least fret over, most weeks: the state of my house, inbox, thank you letters, my To Do list, savings, fridge-freezer, children’s teeth, my teeth, weight and exercise levels; a seeming inability to sew, darn or take a package to a Post Office; historic sun exposure, alcohol and caffeine intake.

I am also worried about the future of this country, humanity and the planet, but feel less responsible for that whole going-to-hell-in-a-handcart momentum than some.

I’m mostly quite pleased with my hair, front crawl stroke, kids’ keenness on reading and lack of food wastage, so it’s not all bad. Often I sleep quite contentedly.

Most of us are, of course, just doing the best we can. Sometimes flailing perhaps, but not actually failing. And yet don’t we give ourselves a hard time? Modern women’s corrosive capacity for nagging guilt is explored in several compelling recent novels.

In Bev Thomas’s intelligent, astute A Good Enough Mother, trauma clinician Ruth Hartland is racked by the disappearance of her son, Tom. She neither knows if he is alive or fully understands why he left, but blames herself both for loving excessively and for sometimes being absent. When a new patient, who bears a striking resemblance to Tom, arrives, her professionalism is compromised.

As is journalist Kate Waters’ in Fiona Barton’s heart-in-mouth The Suspect. Her son has also gone AWOL, while travelling in Thailand. She had thought that was the worst that could happen until two teenage British backpackers’ bodies are found in a burnt-out hostel.

In Hannah Beckerman’s If Only I Could Tell You, dying mother Audrey has only a short time to try to heal the rift between her two grown-up estranged daughters. So, after years of recrimination and tragic misunderstanding, all three must revisit a painful period.

‘There were as many different beginnings to a life as someone was brave and kind enough to allow themselves,’ Audrey learns.