How was your Mother’s Day?
In the U.S. and in my home country, Australia, May 9 was Mother’s Day — a special occasion to celebrate mom or as we say in Australia “mum.” So I thought it fitting for this article to be a tribute to mothers, and a look at how they can influence our lives and our relationship choices.
When we’re single, our moms are often our biggest cheerleaders. We appreciate their interest and support in our dating lives, but sometimes it can drive us crazy. “When are you going to find someone and get married?” they’ll ask. “I want grandkids,” they’ll say. It’s understandable, but it can wear us down.
There are many people, of course, who approach Mother’s Day with trepidation. They don’t have a relationship with their mother or “it’s complicated,” or like me, their mother has passed away. Some women are estranged from their children, have a child or children who died, or wanted to have children but never quite got there.
Mother’s Day is sometimes difficult for me. I lost my mother 25 years ago, and her passing radically altered the trajectory of my life. When she died, although I had some guidance from my father and brother, I was largely left to navigate life alone. Her death completely changed my outlook and perspective on how I wanted to live. I saw how fragile and short our lives can be, and decided I didn’t want to live mine strictly around society’s expectations.
My mother succumbed to breast cancer five days before my 22nd birthday. During her life, I’d had one semi-serious romantic relationship. He was 34 and I was 19. He was a retired Australian Rules Footballer. Given the notoriety of this high profile sport in Australia, coupled with his good looks and 6ft frame, he was never short of female attention. My mother had met him and approved. I was impressed that she was so accepting of our relationship — 15 years is a big age gap when you’re that young and AFL footballers have a reputation!
I knew about one woman in his life the same time we were dating — an attractive, blonde, and married 52-year-old — but when I learned about the second, 26 years old and also married, I knew it was time to move on. I’d enjoyed getting to know him across the five months we were together, but I wasn’t interested in being one of three (or more) women in his life. At the time, I was open to a monogamous long term relationship and this wasn’t going to be it.
Knowing I was seeking a serious relationship, mum expected me to take a traditional path in my life, culminating in marriage and children. Maybe I would have those things if she was still alive, but without her that quickly became the last thing on my mind. There was a part of me that just emptied after my mother’s passing. Nothing much seemed to matter anymore, let alone settling down and having kids.
In my 20s, after my mum died and the emotional upheaval that followed, I felt insecure around serious, relationship-oriented men. I was scared to death they would like me, and that would then make me accountable to their feelings. In that scenario, I would have to “show up” as a fully formed individual, and I was nowhere near ready to do that. I was still grieving, still a shadow of myself. So to be safe, I stuck with the party boys, the ones I knew weren’t seriously interested in me. Had my mother been around, her support would have encouraged me to be kinder to myself and I wouldn’t have been so avoidant of the “good guys.” Instead, I took the safe route — always ending up with the wrong type of man, the ones I knew deep down would never ask too much of me.
I look back over this time and sometimes view it as lost years. It took me more than a decade to sift through my grief and grow wiser before I could make better dating decisions. Eventually I met my boyfriend in my early 40s but he did not want children. I considered foregoing the relationship but in the end chose his companionship over the promise of children in a very tight biological window with a man I had not yet met. I’m not sure whether my mother would have approved. She would have liked to see me married with children. However at some point we have to let go of what others want for us, and learn to be at ease and accepting of what makes us happy.
Our parents have such a hold on us. They shape and create who we become and without my mother, for a long time I lost my way. But I also came back in my own way. Even when our parents are no longer around, their hopes and expectations shape our relationships, if only subconsciously. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that reality. Ultimately, though, we all need to strike out on our own. Though our parents shape who we are, we don’t need to let them define us forever. As my father likes to remind me, “it’s your life, you’re the one who has to live it.”
Regardless of what my mother would have thought, today I am living my own life even if it’s a little unconventional. I still miss my mother and think about her every day, but I am the one making my life decisions. So when it comes to love, don’t be so concerned about how others think you should be living it, or how you thought your life should have played out. Celebrate instead what it’s become, who is in it today, and if you’re single but working towards a relationship — be guided by what feels right for you.
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