What My Mum Taught Me About Mental Strength

From about the age of 3-4, I grew up without much of a father figure. What I mean by that is that I grew up, waking up, to a Mum and Brother to guide me through my upbringing. My Brother is a supersmart guy who also seemed, and still does, one step ahead of everybody else, he’s a natural born leader, though does lack patience with other people, fantastic with business and money though.

I’m the opposite, I’ve always been customer and person focused, not so much financially focused. Part in due to the fact that I never valued, or was really interested in money. I remember playing Monopoly at my Grandparents quite often when my Mum was at college and we would play Monopoly, and most of the time I was away with the fairies. My Grandad was very much a live and learn type man, whereas my Grandma was a teacher, before they both retired, so my Grandad would play the game with tough love, i.e if I wasn’t paying attention and somebody landed on my property and I missed it, tough. My Grandma played the game fairly, she could call at me several times if I ‘drifted’ away to get my attention and I would immediately ‘catch’ the person, though I didn’t often think I knew why.

My mum and dad divorced when I was about 3 years of age or so, for whatever reasons, and this had a fairly substantial impact on my upbringing. My mum did her best raising us both, and to be fair to her, she did a fantastic job, but I do feel that sometimes there are certain things only a man can do for their son, such as:

- Teach them how to ‘swoon’ a girl (I had NO game whatsoever, my only chat up line was ‘you alright?’)

- Teach them how to drive a car

- Show them how to use tools, to mow a lawn, to fix things around the house

- Roughouse with them

- Help them ride a bike, play football etc.

I truly believe that in life, when you have kids, you must do absolutely everything in your power to give them balance, sense of direction, sense of accomplisment, self esteem and a sense of belonging in the world, but more, much more than that, a sense of control and understanding of how to fight back.

You see, my Mum is a formiddable woman. She is driven, she is strong, she’s stubborn as hell, but she is the woman I most admire in my life. Sure we’ve had ups and downs, and I wouldn’t say she’s the most sympathetic woman in the world, but she has taught me more about strength than anybody I know.

Something I’ve told quite a lot of people in the past, and will continue to do so, is how she showed me how to be strong without actually being strong, basically, she lead by example.

I grew up watching a woman work hard, and grind, work some more, and grind some more, and what’s more, she made it look EASY. So easy, in fact, that I wonder if I could ever match her strength for strength.

When I look back at all the memories, it fascinates me how she got through all of it. Everybody carries themself a certain way, with my mum, she carries herself like a Queen. She has a strong posture and a strong walk. Her eyes glow with determination and a sense of ‘cross me and watch what happens’, and even with 2 fully grown sons and a Husband, she will defend us against anybody, and in a way I’m not surprised, she had to fight to raise us, and I suppose it’s a case of she damn sure as hell ain’t going to anybody stop her now.

She is also a lady of principle I guess. One example would be how she ripped a cheque up that our Dad had given her for child maintenance, at least that’s what I suspect it was. My dad had us at the weekends, I think every other weekend, but I can’t remember. If you are going to have kids, make sure that your children can look back in 20 or 30 years and remember seeing both parents equally i.e think about your kids before you get a divorce, because it gets real ugly.

In this instance, my dad had dropped us off back at the house, I guess on a Sunday, but I can’t remember. At some point my mum had a cheque in her hand, but I can’t imagine that she ever stepped within 5 feet of my Dad at the time, and I can’t remember giving her the cheque, so my assumption is that she gave my brother the cheque who then gave it to her. All I remember is seeing my mum stand outside on the balcony on the 2nd floor and hold the cheque up high and rip it up, as my Dad drove away.

I believe this to be a matter of principle. In this case it’s not about giving your kid’s Mum a cheque that you owe her, it’s the principle of ‘They’re your kids too, so where the hell are you?’

I love my Mum and Dad, and if they read this, I want them to know this. My mum is an exceptionally strong woman, and is amazing at communicating to get what she wants for the greater good.

My dad, a lesser strong individual, is just a really good all round guy and is very handy with basic housework, building stuff, gardening, and is a firefighter, though doesn’t have the mental strength that my Mum does, but then again, he doesn’t mind tackling a fire or running into a burning building, whereas my Mum probably wouldn’t even consider it, so I guess it’s all relative.

I think I inherited my Mum’s natural strength.