I have that line stuck in my head now but I cant remember the song it is from. Old age, people, old age.
Anyway the point of this post is to tell you that I will be talking on the radio this Friday morning. My daughter Veronica rang me yesterday to let me know that we will both be talking to ABC local radio presenter Ryk Goddard about our experiences as Mothers.
I think the point of the interview is to compare the differences with two generations of Mothers.
There aren’t the glaring differences with Veronica and my experiences of motherhood as there was between My mother and myself. Things had changed radically from the 60s style of motherhood to the 80s version of motherhood but not much has changed really from the 80s to now.
I think you could say that with a lot of aspects of womanhood as well. There was the great fight for womens rights in the 60s and 70s but by the time I was a grown woman in the mid eighties I took all my freedoms for granted and I was spoiled for choice. I had easy access to birth control, I could go to any university I wanted to, I had plenty of job offers on the table and I was about to start a horticultural apprenticeship, when I chucked it all in to become a stay at home mum.
Once I held my new baby in my arms I chose to be a stay at home mum and choosing to be that stay at home mum was a lot more difficult than I expected it to be.
Financially it was a nightmare. The Spouse was a deckhand at the time, a third generation fisherman and it was always feast or famine living with a fisherman.
He was at sea when Veronica was born and managed to get home to meet his daughter when she was three days old. He had gone back to sea again before we had even left the hospital to go home on day five.
When Veronica was twelve months old our rental house was sold and we moved away from the city to live closer to the block of land my Mum had given me. We ended up living in a converted bus in Mum’s back yard for eighteen months, luckily it was a very big backyard or Mum and I would have driven each other crazy.
I remember having an epiphany one day down at the wharf, holding my small daughter in my arms and us both waving to The Spouse as he sailed away. The feeling I got as I watched these small men in this small boat venture out onto this huge grey ocean was one of impending doom. Veronica and I waved until we couldn’t see that tiny speck anymore and then we did what countless generations of fishermens families had done before ue, we went home to wait.
I made The Spouse chuck his job in when he returned home. I argued passionately that the money wasn’t worth it for the risks he was taking and that he needed to stay on dry land or else. The Spouse wasnt prepared to risk the “or else” and he stayed home with me. Within a month of “The Spouse stopping work we had moved the bus up to our own land, funny how living in your Mother in law’s backyard quickly loses its charm when you are actually there every day. It was a hard transition for a man with salt in his veins to make and one day I am going to make a large sculpture of Poseidon and have him here looking down the valley shaking his trident angrily at the circumstances that left the sea god marooned so far inland.
The skipper hit a rock, off South Cape on the next trip with a green crew and they were unable to save the boat. The crew were fine but it proved my point and The Spouse has never returned to the sea.
So here I am sitting at the computer twenty odd years later reminiscing and trying to work out what on earth I am going to talk about on the radio. I did things so differently from my peers. We eschewed the mortgage and the 9-5 lifestyle in favour of an alternative lifestyle where we built our house room by room out of recycled materials. This wasn’t done to fit in with some utopian dream of ours, it was down to simple necessity. I had chosen to be a full time mum and The Spouse found it very difficult to hold down a job that wasn’t at sea.
We were also young and full of beans and had all the time in the world.
I think that on Friday morning I will do what I normally do, I will just wing it, I will work it out as I go along, I will follow my daughter’s lead and I will hope like hell that I dont babble.
It will be just like everything else in my life.
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You are amazing and I hope there is a live stream, so I can listen.
Motherhood, like life, I think is one long series of ‘winging it.’
You will be fine. We will be fine. Promise.
It will be wonderful, and I wish I could listen. Let us know if it’s going to be streaming live. Have fun!
Yippee! You’ll be great.
Oh what a wonderful story. It makes my heart sing when I hear about people following their dream or desire and all working out in the end. Often this is the harder path in many ways but not being true to yourself crushes the soul. I doubt you’ll have any problems on Friday – enjoy!
You will be fine Kim, winging it is the best idea. Too much preparation tends to result in a stilted conversation.
I chose to be a stay at home Mum in the late 70s. Never regretted it. I was luckier than you in that my husband had a steady safe job and I managed to boost our income by looking after babies/children for Mums who either couldn’t stay at home or didn’t want to. Suited me just fine 😉
You’re both going to do very well.
I did things completely different from my mum too. She left home when I was seven, so I didn’t have a clue and did things that felt right. My kids were fed, clean, happy and well-mannered. Yet my mum still felt the need to give me a booklet titled How To Raise Your Children for christmas one year. I ditched it without even reading page one.
You will both do brilliantly! Will I be able to hear a recording of it afterwards?
Your story is very interesting. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine! I wish you good luck!
Just babble if winging it doesn’t seem to flow! Can you tape it, I know thats old fashioned but I can’t find the right words tonight. Then you can post it on you tube or something if as I may not be able to listen to streaming or what not here in UK.
Because you have both chosen non mundane ways to ‘do’ your lives I have no doubt it will make people stop in their tracks and listen.
Just think because it will be on the radio at least you could turn up in your pj’s and it won’t matter.
Good luck and don’t worry.
Wow what a great story, you should write a book. I think you’re gonna do just fine because you’re naturally interesting! Good luck!
How very exciting 😉
You would have done it by now and I missed out on listening so I hope it went well! I always like the way you lived 😉
I bet you will both make quite the team! What an interesting past story you have.
http://www.pampersandpinot.com
Poseidon for your man and Bakchos for mine, living in suburbia, away from his open air and sparse company, able only to imbibe in the product, but not the source of the grape.
Glad the interview went well. X