Clocking On For Mother Of All Jobs

Sun Herald

Sunday May 14, 2006

Kathy Lette

Mother's Day reminds Kathy Lette of the shock of hearing the ticking of her maternal clock - and discovering that being a mum is worth it after all.

I HAD never seen myself as the mothering type. Hell, I'd make Medea look like good mother material. I only knew how to look after dogs. If I ever did procreate, the kid would be cocking its leg on trees within days.

I just didn't like anklebiters. How could you not dislike someone who can eat sweets all day without putting on any weight?

Besides, I already had five godchildren and was expecting a sixth. No. I had absolutely no intention of dilating my cervix the customary three kilometres for the pleasure of spending the rest of my life in bathrooms applauding bowel movements.

When I hit 30 all my aged relatives began pestering me about when I was going to produce progeny. "Why?" I demanded. Just because they were in their 80s didn't mean I kept going up and asking them when they were expecting to get their first incontinence pads, now did I?

But then I awoke one morning to a very peculiar ticking sound. Yep. The snooze alarm had gone off on my biological clock. "So?" gay friends shrugged. "Get a digital."

But it was too late. The sonar echo was there in all my thoughts. It resonated from the depths - motherhood. How could I chicken out of my obligation to my eggs? I may have been 30 in human years, but in Childless Female Years that was about 330! Besides which, Engagement, Marriage, The First Baby ... weren't those the traditional greeting card hallmarks of life? And let's face it. I was already programmed to the baby's schedule - up all night, drinking.

Taken hostage by my hormones, I suddenly found myself with an uncontrollable craving for kids. I spent hours envisaging my future kinder frolicking at my perfectly pedicured feet. Hell, my family was going to make the Waltons look depressed.

It was time to find a sperm happy to get egg all over its face. Yep, I was about to enter a new phase in my life ... The phase where you're in and out of stirrups more often than National bloody Velvet.

But no matter how bad the birth, its a doddle compared with what follows. A baby resembles the most selfish, demanding lover you've ever had. Always hungry, but won't eat what you cook. Always tired, yet won't sleep. Tossing things all over the house, yet never picking up after himself. Throwing tantrums, yet never saying sorry. And possessive! A baby is jealous of other people coming anywhere near you.

He hates you being on the phone. He won't even let you go to the loo on your own. All day long he just sits around in his vest, waiting to be amused. Which is difficult, as you no longer have a social life. (The baby got hold of your Filofax and ate May-June.)

That's the other thing nobody had warned me about. The boredom. Sometimes I was so bored doing Creative Things With Playdough that I could actually see my plants engaging in photosynthesis. Once I grew a yeast infection - as a change of pace.

You'll know you're definitely a few nappies short of a packet of Pampers when you find yourself sitting in the playpen with the baby sitting out of it, giving you one of those disappointed "Hey, I gave you the best year of my life!" looks.

Is it any wonder that since my children were born I've only used one word with more than two syllables in it? The word was tranquilliser, because that's what I needed ... See mother run! See mother talking to herself! See mother unable to get the childproof lid off the valium bottle!

For years I clung to the illusion that motherhood would improve once they hit puberty. But with a 15- and a 12-year-old, I'm still bored and exhausted, but also derided for every outfit and opinion. "Oh Mum. You're just s embarrassing." Gee. If only I were young enough to know everything. I'm not allowed to sing, dance, laugh or wear short skirts. Hell, having a teenage daughter is like living with the Taliban!

The world is groaning beneath weighty statues of mouldy old soldiers and long-forgotten politicians. What I want to see are statues to the Unknown Soldier - a Mother of Five Teenagers. I want an inscription that reads, "A toddler AND a day job". I mean, imagine a job description for motherhood - Hours: constant. Time off: zilch. All food and entertainment supplied by you. Must be good at athletics, home repairs and making mince interesting. No sick pay, no holiday pay, hell, no pay! Would you take this job?

And yet we do. Although occasionally tempted to push my kids back into the condom vending machine for a refund, like all mums, I love my progeny with a primal passion. Maybe it has something to do with the way my son comes home from school and throws his arms around my neck, as passionate as Rhett Butler. Or the way your heart flops, like a pole vaulter into a mattress, as dreams flicker across your daughter's face, soft as sunlight.

Or kissing those ivory eyelids, the caramel-coloured lashes so long you could positively hike through them. The way you finally appreciate your own wonderful mother. The immunisation children give you against loneliness. And pretension - kids have the most finely tuned crap antennas.

The way babies wear their four hair strands combed horizontally over their heads in a fashion favoured by gerontic newsreaders. The way toddlers babble at you, talking in exclamation marks, punctuated with peals of silver laughter. The way they turn even hardened cynics sentimental.

Who could have predicted you'd become a female Cecille B.DeMille, videoing every nanosecond of your kids' lives for the archives - then immediately viewing the footage. "Brings back memories, doesn't it?" you whimper, teary-eyed to your husband.

The way you feel a great joy squeeze into your bone marrow whenever they tell you they love you. The fact that it is the greatest love affair you'll ever have. For life. Unconditional.

Although kids, if you're reading this, there are a few conditions:

1) Please stop disappearing up the stairs with the maths tutor between your teeth; and

2) Just remember that perfect mothers only exist in American sitcoms.