From Mother to Mummy to Best Friend

I read an article somewhere that addressed the point “Back in the day your mother was not your best friend, she was your mother!” It made me think about the generations of mothers and children that I was surrounded by and their different relationships. Naturally, I then started thinking about my own and if this statement was true.

Of course my mother was a mother! If she hadn’t have been then I wouldn’t have been given the correct advices and disciplines in life. As much as my father was an equally important role model, my mother was the person who made home feel like home. Home for me is a place of comfort, beautiful aromas of homemade cakes, washing that smells like mum, plumped handmade cushion covers that you sink into, bundles of knitting wool next to the side of her chair, a garden full of shrubs and plants that I can’t even pronounce, Delia Smith cook books with post it notes inside like bookmarks, the smell of Clarins face cream, the contents of Laura Ashley situated in our living room, The White Company shawls dotted around to insure you’re kept warm…you get my gist? Home.

Growing up, did any of us appreciate our mothers and what they done for us? Not really, is the correct answer! Did we understand the sudden mood change from loving to crazy eyes in 0.5 seconds? No! The disappointed face when leaving parents evening? The phrase “I couldn’t sleep until you came home!” Asking her if you could go out, to then being bombarded with “Who’s going?” “What’s their names?” “Who’s Kris?” “Do you fancy him?” “Why did you smile when I mentioned his name?’ The usual questions. If you actually think about it, the fact that they’re still talking to us after what we put them through is a miracle! How could you as a child think your mother was your best friend when there were so many RULES in place, so many times you heard NO! Your best friend was the crazy bird at school that your mother told you was a bad influence in your life, not her!

Then you grew up, you got a job and realised what £10 actually meant, maybe you realised when you moved out and the washing didn’t fold itself, your house didn’t smell like home and your food wasn’t the same taste! For me, it was when I would wake up in my own house and realise there wasn’t a room I could walk into, another bed I could get into for comfort, someone I could share my life troubles with…plus all the above that a child would naturally miss. It was then I appreciated my Mummy (who was not a Mother anymore!), every single thing she’d done for me at home that I didn’t even see. It became more apparent when I became a mother, I started to understand the looks, the phrases, the worries, the mood swings, the washing, the cooking, the husband, the kids. How on earth is my Mummy still standing? When I ask her this question she replies with “My children are my everything, I would move the world for them.”

It’s at this very moment in my life when she went from Mother to Mummy to Best friend. A best friend gets you, has been there and done it and advises you on how to get through it, cuddles you when you can’t do it anymore, takes a child for a sleep over when you’re ready to kill them, turns up at your door with a lasagne and ten bags of shopping…that’s a best friend. However, if you say this to her she will always reply with “No Sev, that’s not a Best Friend that is a Mother!”

Happy Mothers Day to all you wonderful Mums out there, especially to mine who made me the person and mother that I am today. I will always be eternally grateful that you’re mine and you were my guidance in life.

Sev x