Honesty among mums
As I write this, I am sitting in a cafe is Taupo¯ . It’s drizzling outside, but inside it’s nice and warm, tucked down the back of the cafe with my luggage, laptop and a green smoothie. I am about 250 kilometres away from my children who have spent the weekend at home, pottering around with their dad and, from some reports, asking ‘‘where’s Mum?’’ no less than 500 times.
I have been away on a much-anticipated girls’ weekend with two women I have been friends with for about 25 years.
We are all mothers, eight spawn among us, and every year without fail we try to catch up for one of these weekends from our various corners of New Zealand.
It’s no mean feat trying to carve time out to make these things happen.
Often it feels like we literally need the stars to align to ensure it works with our work, study, childcare and health schedules, but we get there, and we prioritise it because we always know how good it feels to get away from the grind for a couple of days and reconnect with others who are in the same waka.
Many of our weekends away have involved alcohol – yay for the ‘‘wine mum’’ cliche, not – but this time things were different given my desire to have a break from booze this year, if not longer.
I wasn’t worried about my newfound sober status though. That’s the thing with old friends, they’ve seen so many seasons of your life, they just take you as you are.
Instead, our weekend was self-care focused. We had early nights, we got up early and went to an F45 class on Saturday morning. We ate good food and shopped.
We splashed out on having a massage therapist
come to our hotel room and give us all full body massages, and dipped in and out of the resort’s large outdoor spa pool.
But mostly, and forever my most favourite part of these trips, we talked.
We connected in a way that only old friends can. Where you completely open up about the year that’s been and the year ahead.
Where you tell these people who you almost see as sisters your hopes and fears, your deepest desires and regrets.
It’s a baring of your soul I firmly believe all women, especially mothers, need to fill the cups up and push on and maintain momentum.
We spend so long trying to convince the world that we’re fine, everyone’s fine, everything’s fine.
The reality is, it’s not always fine – it would be weird if it was all of the time – and no-one knows how to parent correctly. We all make it up.
There is no rule book, just a whole lot of confusing guidelines or suggestions, but they’re so often different from reality.
So connecting with others in the trenches is important for me.
It’s a chance for me to talk about things in a way where I know there’s no judgment, where I’m able to say ‘‘I’m worried about this’’ or ‘‘do your kids do this?’’
Through the collective experiences of our parenting contacts, you can guarantee someone knows someone who has been through the same thing, or they have the same concerns or thoughts as you.
This is invaluable stuff.
When more than ever our villages are fractured and virtual, these face-to-face, soul-baring sessions are priceless.
I have friends who have children about to start school and they have never had a night away from their kids.
I get it, there’s a certain level of guilt assigned to stepping away from responsibilities, even if it is a night or two.
But the benefits?
Wow. Priceless.
I am so thankful for my girls – two of my best friends who have seen it all over the years and still show up every year and make our friendship the centre of everything for one weekend a year.
And by doing so, they play a role in the lives of my children that they may never know.
They are the people who prop me back up when I start to keel over with the fatigue of mothering and set me back on the right path for the next year until we meet again.
And for that, there is no replacement.