Thirty odd years ago, some old fart collard me in the street and coochie cooed my toddler son and baby boy.
‘Enjoy them while you can, dear,’ she said. ‘They’re all grown up before you know it.’
If I’d had a decent braincell left that wasn’t sleep deprived, I would have responded with a tart, ‘Can’t come too soon for me, lady.’ Children who squealed like steam kettles in the night, did not jibe with my experience of other people’s well-fed, smiling children. No one had told me there’d be days like this, not until the stork had well and truly departed for more fertile fields.
By the time I was knee deep in nappies and ankle biters, it was clear to me that motherhood was like belonging to the Mafia. You can never ever leave it. It may leave you, in fact it usually does after a couple of decades, but you can never ditch that job description. Children give you sleepless nights, the terrible twos, and the importuning thirty-twos. Then they give you more sleepless nights, heartburn and a chance to give up your Saturday nights all over again. Marie Hartwell-Walker, an American psychologist says that ‘leaving home isn’t an event, it’s a process’ of them growing up and us letting go. She doesn’t know the half of it. What about us growing up when they let go?
We’ve done our duty. We’ve loved our children unconditionally, protected them in their innocence and taught them our values by example. If we’ve done a good job we have produced a marked improvement on the earlier model. If we’ve done a good job we’ve prepared them for life after us. But where do we go next?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I see that now. That woman was right. Before you can say Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS) you have a spare room or two to fill. I had a fantasy in those long ago days.
Like Audrey Hepburn in ‘My Fair Lady, all I wanted was ‘a room somewhere’. I wanted a child-free den of my very own; a rocking chair and an antique writing desk. I wanted a room lined with books where I could sit, read and like Audrey eat chocolates all day long. The thing about fantasies is that once you can have them they lose their potency. My whole house was a den, what I wanted post-ENS was a life of my very own.
But ENS found me unprepared. I’d been given the glad hand and a box of chocolates for work well done. I was free as a bird with nothing to do with my time. Free as a bird in its empty nest. We just love to borrow from avian analogies, but no self-respecting bird lets its children hang around for decades the way that we dumb humans do. The chicks get tossed out at what mum perceives the most appropriate moment has arrived then she gets on with life.
Go forth old woman and start afresh. That was my idea. Do a bit of no pain, no gain, braincell aerobics and take on a writing course. It was great. I enjoyed the stimulation of learning something that wasn’t child related and even contributed opinions to class discussions that didn’t begin with, ‘you’ll never guess what the children did yesterday,’ I only wish I’d done it earlier.
Childbirth was a lark, a breeze compared to pushing out of the child-rearing envelope after a couple of decades of rusting away in suburbia. I was a mature age student, rahh, rahh. My classmates had the confidence, I had the wrinkles. I had the advantage of life experience they had the benefit of time. Sounds equitable, but they could always get the life experience while time was running out for me.
If I’d had it to do again, I’d have prepared for the ENS two minutes after saying ‘I do.’
If I had it to do again, I’d do it now. Feminist author Gloria Steinem said: 'There is no such thing as integrating women equally into the economy as it exists.... Not until the men are as equal inside the house as women are outside it.’ With those words ringing in their ears women have trained up their sons so that you could reap the benefit. Take advantage. There are a growing number of men who are brilliant at ‘mothering’. You see them everywhere on the weekends, confidently feeding their toddlers babychinos, riding their helmeted brood through suburban streets and guiding their children’s reading material at the local library. Use your partner.
At around nine hundred dollars a diploma, TAFE courses are still affordable. Do the whole shebang in one go. Some of the tertiary institutions have child care centres tailored to cater to the mature age student. You and your children can simultaneously encounter the social and educational experience. Do a Uni subject to see how you like it. You’ve got two decades. By the time you’re free, you’ll have several degrees under your belt and a new career.
The Australian Institute of Family studies says that today’s grandmas are a great resource. We’ve had fewer children than the generation before us and have more time to spend with our grandchildren. For a CAE short course your best bet is your mother in law. (Same beast, different hat). She doesn’t ask for much, just a crumb or two from your table. Mothers in law were mothers once, before they fell into bad ways. You could do much to redeem the species and do yourself some good at the same time. Take up archeology explained in ten easy lessons or musical appreciation for the tone deaf. If the poor fool genuinely believes that fruit does not roll up and juice does not come out of a bottle, why disillusion her? If she wants to waste time pottering round the kitchen, let her. You might even find dinner cooked when you get home and the furniture polished. How much damage can she do in an hour or two a week, even if she is behind the child rearing times?
Take up bungee jumping, learn conversational French or the gentle art of flower arranging. Be a good role model for your children. They will thank you for it some day. Whatever you want to be when your children grow up, do whatever it takes so that middle age doesn’t find you wandering the streets with nothing better to do than to accost parents strolling innocently along the street with their children.
Published in a children's magazine 2006
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