Spent the day sewing with my Mum today. I’ve been so busy going slowly round the twist with back pain and associated psycho-babble nonsense that I didn’t realise how much I missed her while she was away. We sewed, did lunch and chatted. Spent a lot of time talking about my Dad and for the first time in about 4 years I felt like she was ‘back’. She was so very wrapped up in looking after my father that I think a large chunk of her disappeared for a while there and it seems the travel has restored some of her confidence and somehow she’s given herself permission to laugh again.
I told her about Angel’s experiences in his new school and what he’d been learning in art class. And I took the opportunity to express my thanks to her for sending us girls to a good private school though I know it must have been a considerable investment as my father’s income was fairly modest when I was young. She told me that when we were very little kids (around 3 and 4) she had suggested to my father that they needed to start saving for ‘the girs’ education’ and his response was “What for? They’re girls, they’ll go to school until Year 10 then get a little job until they get married.”
Well apparently he couldn’t have said anything worse as Mum herself had been made to abandon her education by her step-mother at barely 14 years of age and sent out to work as a seamstress. So Mum drummed him about the importance of giving us a good education and luckily she won the day and we went to good schools and two of us have completed university degrees to boot. I never knew my Dad was so old fashioned in his thinking as he always seems so proud of his girls. 🙂
Thanks Mum!