JUDITH WOODS, 52
‘I have inherited Mum’s long-haul loyalty’
My mother passed on her shapely ankles (yay!), a generous handful of IQ points and her absolute refusal to be patronised by men. Whether I inherited her romantic life is a different story.
The mother I knew was a widow, grief-stricken and angry in the early years because my father, who died of a heart attack while in bed reading his littlest children a story, had abandoned her. No matter the cause; he left her with five daughters and boarding school fees. So she removed all traces of him from the house, save for one silver-framed photograph, and never mentioned him again.
As time went by she picked up the threads of her life but she died in her sixties in the early Nineties, never having had another relationship.
Fast-forward a lifetime and I have two daughters and a man I’ve been with for 29 years, so it looks as though I have inherited her long-haul loyalty.
We married in 2000 and I can safely say that if my dearly beloved spouse were to keel over on me, I’d kill him. And (are you reading this, darling?) I’d definitely move on. With Ryan Gosling, if he’s back on the market. Although, if the tables were turned, my husband would be expected to mourn forever, obviously.
As far as my girls are concerned, I keep the advice light and he knows better than to say a word. “In the interests of fairness I should state for the record that other relationships are also available,” I am liable to trill whenever daddy’s being a bit curmudgeonly.
The 16-year-old [above] knows I had boyfriends before him. She just doesn’t want me to talk about something so icky.
Meanwhile, the 10-year-old has long come through the Electra phase of wanting to marry her father. I probably had a hand in it by saying things like: “Go ahead! But take it from me, he’s not all he’s cracked up to be.”
As far as the future goes, neither my long-suffering husband nor I can offer counsel: girl-meets-boy has got a lot more complicated since going digital.
Moreover, fundamental human emotions might be the same but in an Lgbt-join-the-queue-for-anew-gender-identity world we’re clueless.
The only blueprint I can offer is love, laughter and an exhortation that every girl should go find her Ryan Gosling. No matter how many auditions it takes.