Mother’s Day was yesterday and hopefully some of you were able to find some solace in the flowers and homemade breakfast of burnt toast and strong tea spilt on your bed as an endearing demonstration of your children’s love, writes Ruta Mave.

The fact the kitchen is a mess and needs cleaning up is an enduring demonstration that your husband also thinks you are his mother.

While the children are still living under the same roof as you and you are responsible for them on the daily somewhat qualifies you for the special one day of the year recognition. But what of those of us whose children are grown and flown the coop?

My last child has turned 21 so technically, legally and so they say he is now old enough to vote, go to war and drink and earn his own money I no longer need to mother him.

I only have two children, a first and last there was no mistake of counting beyond that, as an older mother I didn’t have the resources in time or eggs to go much further.

I remember my mother used to always ask me in my early 30s “I thought your maternal clock would be ticking by now?” I always took great joy in replying “Mum the alarm has gone off twice, but I keep hitting snooze.”

Having lived a long single life, I was able to tick the boxes of study and travel adventures. I was able to choose different careers and be irresponsible according to the community of conservative stay at home, get a job critics. I worked as a tour guide around Europe, Russia and Scandinavia; a horse trekking guide and chef on a deer farm; a snowboard instructor; a body builder programmer; graphic designer; massage therapist; sales rep and blind foundation fitness rehabilitator.

I had space between living at home with my mother to living on my own and with others before I too became a mother. It was important for me to have a life of independence just to show I could be. Nevertheless, it never ceased to amaze and scare me how many times I would be with siblings or friends who had children and some comment would come out of my mouth and sound just like my mother.

Sayings like, what part of no don’t you understand? I don’t care who started it, money doesn’t grow on trees, your hands are not broken, beds are made for sleeping in not jumping on, ‘I don’t know’ is not an answer, and everyone’s favourite ‘because I said so… that’s why’.

The enduring imprint of our mother on our lives is more than we like to bear witness to. In fact, the more we try not to be like them the more we are like them. Is it such a bad thing? 

The day she becomes a mother is different to the day he becomes a father. Having carried a little alien in your belly for months while still maintaining business as usual on the work and social front you now have an alarm clock for more work and fussing to add to your schedule.

When they become toddlers, women find there is no place that is off limits to their constant need of their mother. Once a mother you never get to pee alone, shower alone, nap alone.

He can still go out with the boys alone and go to the gym, cycling, darts alone.  She has group meetings with other mothers and children in a chaotic loud merry-go-round course of pick up, drop off, getting coffee for on the run or walk with the pram, on the phone and in the car.

Teenage years are most testing as a mother, it is good to get a dog at this stage in life so that at least someone is pleased to see you when you get home. There is no appreciation by these teens that they are alive, especially when you know, and they know, that some species eat their young.

Words of wisdom fall deaf on their ears as did ‘don’t put your finger in there’ and ‘I told you not to touch that’. Teaching them to be careful and not drink and drive puts motherhood into a whole new level of anxiety and fretting.

I recently saw a clip of a mother giving her boys the rules for the evening talk I wished I had known it for my own. Thankfully it didn’t come to fruition, here it is for mothers in case you need it for your teenagers.

Have a good night, be safe make good decisions. Don’t add to the population, don’t take away from the population. Don’t end up in the hospital, morgue or jail. But if you do go to jail then establish dominance early.