on being a mum

this is a comment i wrote on someone else's blog:

my son has always accepted that he has a mum who has a life around him, whether in my work as a lawyer or when i'm knocking down walls and doing up the house.

i am the mum who used to sit him in the back of the car with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon if i forgot to get his tea before we had to rush out. i am the mum who never irons his clothes. i am the mum who has to set up an e-mail reminder for his cookery ingredients and who even then has to write in his message book that the dog ate the cheese.

but i am the mum who fought to get him into a special school, who has never told him a single lie in his 12 years, who explains everything from gender dysmorphia to chrystal meth when he asks.

he knows that he is the main focus of all my endevours, and that i will fight with every breath in my body to protect him and champion him and make his life better wherever i can.

it took me years to work out how to be a mother. there were a number of reasons why it took so long, but a big one was the crazy messages that society gave out about what a proper mum was all about - a model which i could never fit into in a million years. but i'm his mum, the only one he will ever have and he seems pretty happy with that, which is all that matters in the end.