A teenage
girl’s mother
(Lychandra at 13)
What can I tell you about boys?
Can I tell you that they are honourable?
Can I tell you that they are loyal?
Can I tell you that all their words are true?
What can I tell you about boys?
When I look back at my own experience
And wish I had nothing to look back upon
What can I tell you about boys?
What I can tell you about boys
Is that they have grown up pretty much like you
But then there is what other girls say
And then there is what other boys say
What can I tell you about boys?
Not much more than I can tell you about girls
Not much more than I can tell you about anyone
What can I tell you about people in general?
I can tell you that if you like someone
And they make you feel good inside
Then I am happy for you
That you have found someone good to be with.
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007