They tell you it goes by in a flash. They tell you that all the time. With knowing looks and wry smiles, the “they” are everywhere. They are the grannies and grandads, the seasoned aunties, and your friends who’ve already had children. They are the random stranger in the park or the elderly couple in the supermarket. They are the ones who come over to coo, drunk on that intoxicating allure of a gorgeous new baby.
They don’t see the dark circles and the vacant look in your eyes. They are oblivious to the baby puke stains on the back of your hoodie and that, in these moments, you’re not standing there musing along with them about the emotional rollercoaster of time. No, you’re simply wondering if you’ll ever sleep again, feel like yourself once more, and if you can get by on another day of coffee fumes and catnaps?
“They” don’t mean any harm and while most are a font of sagely wisdom, many have forgotten what it’s like to be in the trenches. They’ll say well-intentioned things like “it’s just a phase, it will pass”, when literally no other words on Earth could be less helpful, as you trundle along in the thick of toddler hell or a baby who cries for hours on end, or both.
Eight years into this motherhood gig, however, and I’m now one of the “they”.
Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+: 10 of the best new shows to watch in February
‘We didn’t want it to be bright or stand out’: How one couple built a bungalow in a Kerry front garden
Des Bishop: ‘I never felt the grief with my dad like I felt with my mother’
LA after the fires: Like driving through a post-nuclear suburbia. The scale of destruction is unfathomable
My eldest son, who turned eight recently, started calling me “mum”. In my mind, it would have happened much later on, even though I was probably the same age as him when I started trying out the shortened version on my parents. I’d assumed it would be something he’d talk to me about in advance, like, “Hey, so I’m thinking of calling you mum instead of mammy, what do you think?” But then, I’m not sure why I thought that either because real life with children isn’t like that. It’s made up of a series of small moments. Life happens inside the mundane, not the Hollywood version of big chats around the kitchen table as dramatic music plays in the background. It’s while you’re driving back from sports, making their dinner, sorting the laundry, or trying to get a bit of work done with one eye on your laptop.
And so it was that this monumental change came when I was in the kitchen making dinner. Just a typical busy evening replicated in every household up and down the country. Kids tired from school, all of us in later than we’d liked, after battling traffic and doing homework in the car with the backlight on. As I played part referee, part short-order cook, the new word stood out from the rest of the static of daily life like a nuclear test siren.
“Mum, what’s for dinner?”
Not mammy. Mum.
I nearly dropped the spaghetti Bolognese on top of the dog who had taken up her usual position right under the stove, at my feet, ready for a moment just like this.
I paused for a beat that hung in the air for ages. Did he just call me “mum”? I wondered to myself. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, I didn’t want to pop my head round the door and start an inquisition. I wanted to be cool, to pass it off as the simple progression that it was and not the dagger to my heart it felt like.
“Spag Bol,” I replied flatly.
“Great, can I have lots of cheese with mine, Mum?”
Twice in quick succession. I died a little inside.
How on Earth had this happened? How had we gone from baby, to now super tall eight-year-old on the cusp of tweenhood, calling me “mum”? True, he’d called me lots of things lately, like “bruh”, and “dude”, but in the flow of normal conversation, and when the chips were down, it had been “mammy”, not “mum”. No more, though. Now I was “mum” and – sadder still – his five-year-old brother was trying it out for style and liking it by all accounts.
Of course, it had to happen sooner or later, but I couldn’t help wondering how I had let the precious “mammy” years slip by at such speed? Why did “they” have to be right all along? Why didn’t I stop and savour it more? Did I savour it at all?
[ ‘When does it get easier?’ and other parenting questionsOpens in new window ]
I thought back to the very early days of motherhood. It was a foggy haze of exhaustion, unsureness, and feeling like I’d landed on an alien planet where the rules of my life up to that point did not apply any more. I felt as though I had one eye constantly looking to the future. I kept wondering when I’d be out of the tough phases. Those challenging periods of broken sleep or trying to calmly deal with unreasonable toddler meltdowns over crusts not being cut off. It felt as though they would never end. And then, all of a sudden, they did. Now, they may have passed in a manner that felt like a slow-moving kidney stone, but they did pass.
The mammy-to-mum milestone had passed in similar fashion and, just like all the others up to this point, it passed without much ceremony. Like the last daytime nap that just happened. Just like the last bottle at bedtime, the final soother in mouth, the last sippy cup with dinner, or the time I changed the last nappy.
The truth, which you only learn and appreciate along the way, is that motherhood is full of strange contradictions you find very hard to level. It is, without equivocation, the best thing I’ve ever done; but often it’s the hardest. Sometimes all I want is a break away for a few hours from my boys, but when I do get away, I often spend the entire time talking about them, looking at pictures of them on my phone, or wondering how they are. What a head-melter.
When it comes to offering comfort to mums in the trenches, the “they” also like to dole out this firm old chestnut: “The days are long, but the years are short.”
As one of the “they” now, I understand this truth more and more with each passing milestone, but instead of telling this to an exhausted mum, I’ll think I’ll simply tell her she’s doing a great job because all too soon she’ll know just how fast it goes by.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
