15/03/2026
A long one about Mothering so grab a tea or a wine 🍷 and have a read. Lucy Emma Wiles you wanted a book! 📖 📕
I've had a wonderful day of walking, sunshine, winds and an incident in a bog whilst attached firmly to a bramble!!
As I walked today, I cried, tears of sadness and of happiness. Realisations that my work feels done. My children are adulted and flown, no longer tiny people needing faces or hands washed and held. New adulting needs emerge, a shoulder to lean on an anchor in times of bad weather. Guidance in storms and wisdom requested for sharing. Holding when adulting feels too much or too weighty. Grandparenting becomes a whole new chapter of adventures.
Then somehow the tables begin to slowly turn as we gently move towards the ageing chapters of life. As we start the journey of leaning into and onto our children at times.
I've witnessed friends support aging parents and seen the roles reverse like a record turned over on a turntable.
I've witnessed and watched as mothers have passed away suddenly leaving chasms in their place. Children without mothers. Mothers without children and families fractured.
I mothered forcefully from the small age of 6. Forcing it into tiny friendships in a bullish way with a desperate desire to care and help.
That little 6-year-old me was a long haired bossy boots with buckets of love. It took almost 5 decades to learn how to offer that up without such brute force.
I mothered my way into adulthood. Bumping my way through Mothering my own children. Struggling with adolescence in them as my own adolescent years had never had the chance to come to fruition. I was terribly naive and young but 33 years later my Mothering has thankfully matured like a decent red wine.
I learned on the job! Juggling, struggling, slipping, sliding, and skidding. But I wouldn't change that ride because from that rollercoaster came me and the woman, I am today.
Those other Mothers I was privileged to gain from on my way! Deserve to be named today.
Ann Jonesy my father's girlfriend who hugged nurtured and laughed with me into my early teens. Val my father's wife who cared softly and gently remaining pink and fluffy in my hardened world of teenage angst and strife. Verity who mothered me through my 3rd child's earliest days, taking washing away and cooking family meals.Teaching me the joys of gardening and introducing plants and mud! Marcia, my darling Marcia who scooped me up in all of her 70 plus years of crafted wisdom, her 4 marriages her humour and prose. Her magical thinking and her laughter. How we laughed when I pulled up to her front door pushchair adorned with a screaming 4th child and fresh tears. She mothered me with soup, stories, potions and tinctures to take with buckets of laughter! Patricia who mothered me into my second marriage with wisdom, words, laughter, sewing and joy.
Carla and Angela, my clinical supervisors who mothered me throughout my work as a therapist. Presenting ways of holding others whilst containing my own stories so tenderly.
Nova and finally Pauline, counsellors who have held me so firmly in my seat. Gentle yet challenging, poky yet caring. Boundaried whilst validating in ways that left me feeling seen and heard on such a deep level. That the result was an internal growth that evolved so organically.
My own daughter who has mothered me in ways that she perhaps shouldn't have needed to but did! My daughter in law who mothers me equally on days I forget to Mother myself. My son's partner who mothers my granddaughter daily and steps into mother me too. When illness struck, she lit candles and ran me a bath. The height of nurtured Mothering in so very many ways.
Mothering to care to hold to nurture to create a safe space for someone to simply rest in. Mothering is to hold vulnerability in the palm of your hands and tenderly let it rest a while. We don't all experience that form of Mothering, so we seek it out elsewhere or we seek to recreate it in all we do. We often forget that also needs to include Mothering ourselves.
My hope is I'm learning still, how to mother with humility and love. Unconditional love.
I've had phenomenal teachers along the way.
My dearest darling girlfriends deserve the star roles.They have held me steadily. They've crafted a circle around me. Mothered me firmly and held fast. Individually they give me strength, together they crafted resilience in me. A knowing that I can mother myself with them by my side.
As Mothering Sunday closes remember that Mothering comes in many guises.
If you're a mum of tinies hold the little notes they write for time will run swiftly. Mums of bigs remember they still need you, but we simply move from the driving seat to the passenger seat and Marvel at their journey!
If you've not fallen asleep reading this, go look in the mirror and ask what Mothering you need for yourself tonight. Then do it softly for you ❤️
