There's a story that needs to be told, because some people won't understand it. They will fear for our children. They will wonder why we have changed our minds yet again. They will scratch their heads and shrug their shoulders in bemusement at the oddity of it. That a mother would choose to be the caretaker, companion, nurturer and teacher of her own children. Every day. That can’t be natural, surely?
But I say that it is natural. It comes naturally to me, anyway. Letters, numbers, sums, words and stories, pictures and plays come just as easily to me as kisses and sticking plasters, hugs and sandwiches. And in the short stretch of time we call a day, these things are all important. None of them can be relegated to back stage. Not the sandwich, not the story.
I feed my children. I slice the cheese and butter the bread, I cut and core the apples. We sit together, we eat together, and while we eat, I read. The words enter the body by a different route to the bread, but they enter all the same. They are savoured, they are digested, they become a fuel of their own.
Will I make sandwiches but not stories? Will I choose the best fruit from the bowl, the bananas not too brown, the tart plums rescued from under the tree, the apples crisp and cold, and not choose the words that open up like doors to the sky, or the numbers that explain the earth under our feet, or the formulae that sit like a magnifiying glass over the world? Would I not prepare my children a full meal?
You may question my abilities in the kitchen. You may look at these hands of mine and say they are too young, or too old, or too tired. You may prefer a menu designed by a qualified nutritionist. You may like to know exactly what your children are consuming, down to the tenth of a gram. To do this you may find it preferable to buy your meals pre-prepared. The exactness of this gives you confidence. You can read on the packet precisely what they will be eating. You are assured, by the slogan on the front, that the meal has been designed according to nationally accepted guidelines. And you see every mother in the supermarket with a trolley full of these pre-packaged wonders. They must be good.
But what if one day your child notices a funny taste while she’s eating? “Was that strawberry, Mum?” she asks quizzically. “It didn’t taste like strawberry.” And what if the next day after eating she starts to look a bit odd, perhaps slightly ill. “I don’t feel well, Mum” she says. “My tummy isn’t right.” What would you say?
Would you say, well you probably ate too quickly and gave yourself indigestion. Or would you say, next time you can try another flavour love, you liked chocolate last time, remember? Or would you say, there’s nothing wrong with it you ought to be grateful for what you’re given. Or you might even say, everybody else eats it, Susie from next door eats it, and there’s nothing wrong with her.
If your child repeatedly became unwell after eating, what would you do then? Would you go back to the supermarket and scour the shelves for a different flavour, something vegetarian or gluten free? Would you take your child to the doctor, to find out if there was something wrong with her? Would you talk to your friends every night on the phone, and would they agree, the product is unmatched. Where else can you find something that is created according to such rigorous guidelines? Just keep trying, your friends say. The child will get used to it.
But what if one day you suddenly decide that you don’t want your child to get used to it. What if one day you are reading the back of the packet while the meal is in the microwave and you notice ingredients you hadn’t seen before. Numbers that were unexplained, by-products that don’t seem to belong. What if something takes over you in an instant and you open the microwave, grab the packet and throw it into the bin? What if you open your pantry and there like a dream sits a loaf of bread and a plate of butter. In the fridge you find cheese, just sitting there. And on the bench a bowl full of fruit. You hadn’t noticed it before.
And what if you find your hands taking on a life of their own? Slicing the bread, spreading the butter, cutting cheese, even though you had not done these things for so long, or not ever. What if you suddenly found yourself making a sandwich, a simple sandwich. It goes on a plate, the plate goes on the table, and before you know it your child is eating. “Can I have another one?” she says.
I could get used to this, you think to yourself.
To say that everybody is different is a truism. And yet we constantly gloss over it. We think of people collectively. Women, mothers, children, students, fathers, teachers. And we think of these groups as homogenous, more or less. It’s easier. It lets us say children need… children should…. children must… mothers are…. mothers must…. We have never forgotten the very first lesson we learnt at school, that the group has the power.
I love teaching my children. It’s an adventure. I learn as much as they do, about myself, about them, and about the world. I also happen to enjoy their company, even on the bad days. You might want to tell me to get out a bit more, to get a life. But I have a good life. I know what makes me tick, I know what I want to be doing when I’m sixty, and I know what I want to be doing tomorrow. We are a team, my girls and I. We live our lives side by side, watching each other closely, learning how to live. They watch me as I struggle and hope, and I watch them as they throw themselves at the world without apology. They will be who they are, as I am who I am. It’s a knitted together, symbiotic kind of thing. Like cells and seeds and all small and hatching things. We grow together.
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