Repeat after me: You are right where you are meant to be.
Asking Google who said this first will present an array of answers, from Oprah to some dude on Etsy trying to flog a poster in a nice bamboo frame.
Nevertheless, motherhood often makes me question it. Am I always exactly where I need to be? Sometimes, I’m absolutely not - like the time we missed a doctor’s appointment because I was too busy making porridge of a perfect consistency and had completely lost track.
But for most of the time, it seems the universe is trying to tell me something. Since having children, I have missed out on friend’s birthdays, hen dos, weddings. I have even been offloaded from a flight to Copenhagen for a weekend away.
In my son’s first year, Covid wiped my social calendar - along with everyone else’s - gratefully eviscerating any chance of FOMO for this new, unsure and indecisive mum. But gradually, as the world reopened, and the invites began trickling in, I had to make decisions. Should I stay or should I go?
As a business owner, making decisions, often under pressure, is something that I’ve learned to be pragmatic about. I read about “lean principles”, learning to pivot and adapt, being agile. My children threw everything I knew out the window, because when it comes to making plans of your own - children often don’t seem to get the memo.
Speaking to a friend this weekend about whether her child was possibly unwell, I ran it by my failsafe medical diagnosis assessment1 :
“Do you have any important plans?”, I ask.
If the answer is yes, then, by the principles of the law I have titled The Story of My Life, I’m almost certain the child is unwell and you’ll have to cancel all plans or instigate a highly complex spontaneous childcare scheme requiring someone to wear a hazmat suit whilst firing Calpol from a water pistol. If the answer is no, you don’t have plans, then they are probably fine. The same law applies to possible ailments of parents and childcare, for that matter. Most of my son’s illnesses have fallen beautifully across non-refundable nursery days.
And if it’s not them, it’s you. Blighted with tonsillitis earlier this year, I made it out with the buggy in tow, never having had it before and feeling like I was swallowing glass. A well-intentioned acquaintance, calling from across a busy street, gladly informed me that it’s inevitable for mums to get it when they have two or more children. She would know, she has three children and gets tonsillitis most years, but only ever since having child no. 2. Great.
Promptly after I had it, my youngest son, Gus, contracted conjunctivitis and the poor little squidge couldn’t open his eyes when he woke up. More plans cancelled. And then, when recovered, we were able (or so we thought) to joyfully attend a christening. However, my eldest son Henry, curled up in the buggy and slept for 3 hours - I hadn’t realised at the time that he’d been out that long and that we probably ought to take him home. He promptly threw up in a Gail’s bag (paper) in the car, and had probably infected the entire congregation with some form of sickness bug. You can’t make it up.
Only I wish you could, because the following week I fell down with said illness and missed an entire weekend in Copenhagen. I won’t bore you with the details except for when I felt particularly awful, after boarding my Easyjet carriage du jour - I had to inform the staff, during the in-flight safety demonstration, that I perhaps ought to speak to a doctor (bit of a complex medical history). Well, that was that. Once I’d said the words, I couldn’t go back on them - the staff whipped me up and I was escorted off the plane. They apparently proceeded to search the cabin for any suspicious devices I may have planted, causing a 45 minute delay to departure. Sorry, everyone. Not my finest hour. The following morning, after an evening at A&E (all was fine in the end), I woke up devastated that I had, yet again, missed out on something I’d really wanted to do.
But, my children were thrilled to see me.
The universe, in various ways, has foiled my many attempts to leave my children. And it’s been frustrating, sometimes heartbreaking, and often expensive. It’s meant fraught, and not often effective, decision making. It’s meant missing out.
However, as time passes and as these “thwarters” grow bigger, their footsteps take them farther from me. Time with them gets swallowed up. By school, by parties, by their own plans. So perhaps, despite initial disappointment, I think that I probably would rather have been with them, all along.
Note, you may be shocked to know but I’m not actually a trained medical professional so please do seek a more reliable source if in doubt of your child’s health.