Not another slippery dip

Embracing the messy, mundane & momentous

Happy Mother’s Day

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At no other stage in your life do you feel a greater respect and appreciation for your mum than when you become a mum yourself. Becoming a mum brings into focus the dedication, love and sacrifices that you’re own mum made. On this mother’s day I would like to dedicate this post to my mum – a woman who tirelessly put her children’s needs ahead of her own, and whose mothering abilities I aspire to match. It’s a post about thanks.

* The beautiful looking woman in this photo is my mum. It was was taken by my dad, at around the time she became a mum.

My dear mum,

Thank you for always being physically and emotionally available to us. My fondest memories of childhood are of walking through the door of our family home, after school, to Neenish tarts, Boston bun, and great chats with you. You always had time for this ritual and never rushed it by telling us to get to our homework.

Thank you for saying “yes” to all my creative requests and pursuits – ballet, tap dancing, gymnastics and drama classes – all of which I enjoyed immensely.

Thank you for driving thousands of kilometres across Melbourne to take me to tennis tournaments, tennis lessons, and tennis camps. Navigating the street directory was not your strong point, but your enthusiasm for sitting courtside and watching us play certainly was!

Thank you for providing us with The Best Lunches in school. Those chicken schnitzel sandwiches were legendary at primary school and I am sorry I traded them for the inferior vegemite variety. My friends reaped the benefits of my slow-to-develop palate.

Thank you for cooking every single night for 7 or more people – incredibly varying the menu constantly. I will never like your honey carrots but you inspired a great love of food amongst us and you were ahead of your time with your sophisticated approach to cooking.

Thank you for saving money from your “housekeeping” to buy clothes for me in my teenage years from designer shops like Bettina Liano so that I could look cool.

Thank you for not getting angry when I got myself into trouble at school.  You signed those detention forms diligently and often with a slight smirk on your face.

Thank you for not getting angry when I told you I had taken out your car and smashed it – underage and unlicensed. Thank you for trying to conceal it from dad. We didn’t succeed but you tried.

Thank you for being the “cool” mum whom all my friends loved to be around.

Thank you for helping me achieve “The Best Party House” status in year 12. What an accolade for a teenager! It still amazes me that when I invited 50 kids back to our house after our Year 12 formal for an “unplanned” after party, your main concern was that there wouldn’t be enough to eat. Cleverly you had stocked up the freezer, just in case.

Thank you for sending me to France on an exchange student program when I was just 14. It exposed me to many challenges and those experiences have shaped my character and path in life in so many ways.

Thank you for having exchange students from France and Spain come and live with us. As if 5 kids weren’t enough for you to manage, you welcomed more into your home and made their experiences rich and memorable.

Thank you for always having our friends over for dinner, often at no notice. Our home was always open and another mouth to feed was never an inconvenience, rather you considered it an occasion.

Thank you for recognising the potential within me and thinking beyond the conventional measures of excellence and academic achievement.

Most importantly, thank you for teaching me about compassion, and to prioritise kindness above anything else in life. A greater lesson in life I cannot imagine.

Happy Mother’s Day Mum!

Me and my sisters, Circa 1980!

 

 * Me and my sisters. You can probably guess the year that this photo was taken by the fashion and hair do’s! And in case you’re wondering, I am the grubby looking one on the right!

Tell me about a happy memory from your childhood. What’s the one thing your mum did for you that you would like to pass on to your own children, be it a ritual, advice or life lesson? 

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Comments

  1. Oh michaela – I love this and what a photo of your mum ………. No wonder your dad fell in love . Keep up the great writing. Xxxxx

    • Thanks Andrea. I know – what a stunner hey! And so glad you are enjoying my blog. I am really enjoying writing it. Hope you had a lovely day yesterday x

  2. Mich this is such a wonderful article – I too would like to thank your mum for alot of the content – the lunches, the dinners at your house, the endless conversations, the parties !!! for always going away weekend and letting us have the house – oh the memories !!!

  3. A beautiful tribute to your mum, Mich. Your little sister in the pic reminds me a lot of your little Miss H!

    • Thanks Lindy. Yes, I think you are right – there’s definitely some similarities. I think Miss H has inherited more of the fox genes…. what a lucky girl 🙂

  4. Your Mum is beautiful Michaela; physically and as a human being. I must admit to being a little green at your upbringing (which I am not proud of as I rarely get jealous), but who I am to begrudge a wonderful upbringing and a fantastic mother? It has obviously made you into the lovely person you are today and you will be passing on a great legacy to your children.

    The one gift I did get from my mother was a sense of humour and already my two boys think it is hilarious when Mummy purposely acts silly. We love to laugh together 🙂

    Beautiful post Michaela and I hope you enjoyed Mother’s Day with your family xxx

    • Thanks Michelle. Yes, she is quite the beauty and she did a wonderful job raising us. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, as our father worked late most nights and her own mother didn’t really help much. I complain if my hubby gets home after 6!! A sense of humour is the best gift to pass on and there is no age limit on being silly 🙂
      We had a lovely day thanks. I hope you enjoyed being at home with your family this mother’s day xx

  5. My favourite line, Mich…”Thank you for not getting angry when I got myself into trouble at school. You signed those detention forms diligently and often with a slight smirk on your face…” Mum too was strict in many ways, but like Fleur, knew her girls were regular detention recipients and didnt think it the end of the world! Beautiful letter to your one in a million mother, Fleur!

    • You know what Lizzie – I was thinking of you as I wrote that line and remembering how we were regulars for Fri night detention but never for anything too serious. Thought you’d get a laugh out of that one. Given mum isn’t internet savvy, I have given this post to her the old fashioned way. Correction: not hand written, but a printed out version! 🙂

  6. I hope my daughters turn out as gorgeous as you Michaela. Thankyou Fleur for raising an incredible friend, we were all so blessed to have you in our lives growing up. Best conversations and advice I ever received. X

    • Oh that is so lovely of you to say Jacqui. I hope we turn out to be “cool” mums who our daughters can talk to. Although I expect I might not be quite as lenient 🙂

  7. I knew your opening line would “piss me off” when I clicked through from your Facebook page. When I say that, I’m not trying to start a fight, rather I just want to share my own thoughts. Becoming a father made me appreciate the sacrifices of both my parents but specifically my mother. I try to be the parent to my own children the way she was to me. She was my shoulder to cry on, my biggest fan when I started to play guitar and write my own songs. She was my editor in my early days of writing, and my greatest critic forcing me to strive to be better.

    So I am overlooking your opening line and inserting parent; but I hope that by the time my own kids become parents of their own, they will think that they can look to their mum AND dad and say what you have said here thanking both of us equally.

    I wrote a piece on my own blog called something like I Am The Father I Am Because of My Mother but I won’t post a link because there’s not enough tissues here in my hotel room for me to read it myself.

  8. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Darrell. I take your point about the word “parent” perhaps being more appropriate. I appreciate that a dad can have this experience too and agree that our own children will thank us equally. But I do think there is an extra special exchange between a new mum and her mum – a physiological connection that comes from sharing the experience of birthing new life. It’s unique in that respect. But agree that brining new life into the world can be an equally amazing experience between a dad and his mum! I love the sound of your own blog post and I am going to look it up. She sounds like an amazing influence in your life and your biggest supporter. Thanks for sharing 🙂

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