When you become a mother, your attention and desires have a gravitational shift towards the newborn in your arms. Motherhood is one of the best things that has happened to me. Since becoming a mother, I have become a better plumber and a more efficient worker. In a way, I have to be because if I wasn’t organized or at least working in some small capacity, I would go insane.
Mothers play an important role in the household and in our society (so do dads… but that blog post will come later in the year). When I came across the Woman with Wrench website and I started to read other female tradie stories, I was amazed at how many were mothers. I’m not sure why this fascinated me, but maybe it resonated with my firm belief that women can do anything they put their mind to and working in a trade doesn’t stop them from being or becoming a mum.
I remember being ‘clucky’ when I started my apprenticeship at the ripe old age of 22. Of course it was the wrong timing, but when I discussed with my dad about wanting to start a family and trying to work out the ‘right’ time, he told me there was no ‘right time’ to have a child and not to let my apprenticeship stop me from starting a family.
Due to a mishap with the Department of Education, Training and Arts when I first started my apprenticeship, I didn’t want to rock the boat, so to speak, by being pregnant as a female apprentice plumber. It meant I would have had to defer my apprenticeship and I knew that if I stopped then, I wouldn’t have gone back to finish.
So I persevered through my apprenticeship. Then close friends started having babies and that desire to become a mum grew stronger.
I will never forget the time when I was on a lunch break at Tafe and a close friend rang me to see how I was going. Our environments were complete opposites on the scale of things. She was shopping for new clothes for her baby daughter, and I was stressing about a practical assessment that I had to finish that I was not looking forward to doing (I think it was a gas installation). How I yearned to swap places with my girlfriend!
Six years later, the moments when I have had a screaming baby in my arms or the sleep deprivation has gotten the best of me, I have yearned to go back to that moment when I was at Tafe!! It’s in those classic mummy moments where things with my children are overwhelmingly crazy, I realize how important it is to appreciate each and every single moment in my life.
With Mother’s Day coming up, it’s a wonderful commemoration of what mums do for us each and every day. My mum’s devotion to me has been unwaivering. I appreciate her more now since becoming a mother. I didn’t realize how hard being a mother was until I became one. It is certainly rewarding and I love my daughters so much, but there are the days where I have wondered what on earth have I got myself (and my husband) into!
Of course Mother’s Day can also be a sad time if your mother is no longer with you or the ability to become a mum is a dream due to difficulties in falling pregnant. The commercialism of Mother’s Day can be a harsh reminder of what one doesn’t have or is unable to become.
Unfortunately I can’t relate to either situation because I have been blessed to still have my mum with me and I am a mum to two daughters. My daughters are also blessed to still have their great grandma’s alive too to witness their births.
My hope for all who read my blog is that you have a wonderful Mother’s Day whatever your situation and that you can celebrate a mother figure in your life. I have a special Mother’s Day give away which you can enter here to either win for yourself, your mother or a mother figure in your life.
I will leave you with Oprah Winfrey’s quote ‘Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.’