It’s been a huge leap of faith – I have to have faith in David, which is hard enough, given the past. But I also have to have faith in Steven – faith that he knows what he wants and that he can handle it, whatever the outcome. That’s a lot for a boy of not-quite-thirteen. My nerves are shot.
So far, so good. It’s not a regular father-son relationship, and it’s doubtful it ever will be. But it’s more than they’d had before, and that’s good, at least. Whatever one can call it – friends or buddies or family – the two of them will have to define it for themselves, somehow. I’m sure Steven wishes for more and that breaks my heart.
He’s brave, my boy. I love him so. He’s turned out splendidly – even with a teenage mother who couldn’t say no.
I think I’m supposed to say that I spent the next five years expertly juggling motherhood, career and personal fulfilment. I think I’m meant to be some sort of shiny example of dynamic, sexy, 21st century momminess. Are you waiting to hear that I have it all, and you can, too? Tee-hee. I could tell you that, of course, except I’d be lying through my teeth, and we all know it.
Show me a single mother with time to do her nails and drink Sauvignon Blanc in a candlelit bubble bath and I’ll show you somebody who feeds her children McDonalds four nights a week. There’s just not enough time in the day for that sort of luxury. That elusive Balance, you read about? It’s an evil myth. There is no such thing. The best you can hope for is moments of sanity and equilibrium amid frantic juggling, a moment when all the chainsaws are up in the air and you think you know where they will land when they come down. Sometimes you’re right, and sometimes you’re… um… not.
As a single mother, something’s gotta give. In my case, I’ve simply dispensed with the preposterous Me-Time charade. Me Time. Oh pulleez – pull the other one, it’s got bells on. It’s one of the biggest modern-day scams perpetrated against women the world over. Whose crazy idea was it, I’d like to know? Probably a committee of overtired, coked-up glossy mag journalist types, who dreamed it up one night in a desperate bid to fill 500 words between the Prada and Gucci ads, with a catchy headline designed to make us frazzled plebs buy more magazines. “Ditch The Guilt!” the windswept and airbrushed lovelies proclaim from the covers of glitzy mags.
Overjoyed to find something written that says it’s okay to be tired and want a minute on the loo by yourself, you part with your R30 and flip straight to the headline page, only to find half a page of ridiculous, bullet-pointed ideas on how to Spend Time With Yourself. To pull them off, you’d need a staff of thirty and a parliamentarian’s salary. Despondent and ashamed, you trudge home to your sticky un-Supernannied kids and two-minute noodles, while the magazine’s smart-arsed words clang about in your head: Ditch The Guilt, Love Yourself, Eat More Lettuce… But you can’t, even if that sequined nineteen-year-old on the cover said you should. Because, right or wrong, guilt is part of what being a mother is about. So now you feel guilty about feeling guilty. They’re just making more rules for us, more impossible standards to live up to. Why can’t everybody leave us mothers alone and let us get on with it in peace? I ask you. Screw you all, I say, and let us choose how we do it.
Me Time is a lovely idea if you have a nanny, a couple of housekeepers and pots of money. And a husband, preferably. If you have none of the above, an hour of Me Time a day simply becomes one more chore to add to your list. One more thing you have to fret over, when you fall into bed exhausted at midnight and scroll through the list of tasks you should have completed that day.
I’ve given up on the idea of special time set aside just for me, time when my children must bugger off and leave me in peace to read Jodi Picoult, or do Pilates, or whatever takes my fancy this month. I think it’s sort of nasty, too. It’s one thing to leave your children with the babysitter while you go to the movies. It’s another altogether to make them feel like they’re cramping your style at home. It simply doesn’t work for me. A boozy bubble bath equates to one load of washing plus hanging time, or half a Barbie DVD with popcorn, or getting to bed half an hour earlier to drool unprettily onto my pillow. Honestly, which one are you going to choose? Who likes bubble bath that much, anyway?
What works is grabbing five minutes whenever I can to sit and stare into space, even if it means tuning out, for just one extra minute, plaintive cries from the bathroom of “Mommy! Come wipe my bum!” Cheese snackwiches for supper translates into an hour I don’t have to spend in the kitchen – cucumber and apple on the side takes care of the balanced-diet issue.
My Me Time doesn’t have a special name or a special timeslot. I take it when and where I can get it, and I don’t feel like a failure when I don’t get it. Now that’s progress.