Mother’s Day and the Many Many Questions of My Child!

In the UK it has been Mothers Day last weekend. On Sunday. I’m not really fussed on the day. Sometimes these days come with higher expectations and if you increase your expectations then ultimately you end up being disappointed when the kids don’t behave or don’t bring you breakfast in bed. And so I am happy for this day to be a “normal” day and to get a card and that is that. And that was what we had. I got two lovely cards off my children one each….and a second card from my son who had made one at school too. My husband bought me some flowers and made me a Sunday dinner which was lovely and the rest of the day was ran around the children. I took my son to his football training and we went to visit my mum, my children’s grandma. The concept of mother’s day was a struggle for my son. What did it mean? And the questions started….

Him: “Who do you send Mother’s Day cards to?”
Me: “Your Mum” (not strictly true as some people now send cards to Grandmas/Nana’s/Stepmums but I kept it simple).

Him: “Are you my mum?”

Me: “I am!”
Him: “Do all Mums get cards?”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: “Even the Mums in heaven?”

Now there’s a question. Heaven posed an issue for my son. He couldn’t grasp it. And it bothered him. Previous to this we had other questions about heaven but the time that sticks in my mind was the one where we had just woken up. It happened at 7.30am as we were trying to get ready for school. And it made me stop in my tracks not just because I had only had one sip of my cup of tea and I wasn’t ready for a philosophical conversation so early but because it made me think what does go through his mind.  And the conversation went like this ….

Him: “Why am I the smallest in the family?”
Me: “When you get older I bet you are the tallest.”
Him: “You will be a Grandma by then.”
Me: “Probably.”
Him: “Will you still be my Mum if you are a Grandma?”
Me: “Yes, Grandma is your Grandma but she is still my Mum. So when I am a Grandma I will still be your Mum.”
Him: “What about when you are in heaven, will you still be my Mum in heaven?”
Me: “Yes of course.”
Him: “But if I don’t see you in real life because you are in heaven, then you how can you be my Mum?”
Me: “I will always be your Mum no matter where I am. Love lasts forever.”

And I hastily swallowed down my tears and took a slurp of my tear. Talking about heaven at 7.30am was not what I was ready for.

When I hear what he is obviously thinking about it seems logical. I understand why he has asked that question when I hear it, but it isn’t until I hear that question that I actually think oh yeah why haven’t I ever thought of that.

I understand why he asked if i would still be his mum if I was also a grandma. You get a name and that name doesn’t change. You are mum, dad, grandma, grandad, sister, brother and it doesn’t change. So if by you become a grandma how can you still be a mum. I of course explained that I would still be his mum. His grandma is his grandma but she is also my mum.

I also understand why he asked whether I would still be his mum if I was in heaven. But the speed at which he moved on to that question is pretty impressive. He wanted to know if you could be a mum and a grandma and you can so then he quickly wondered whether there would be an occasion where I wouldn’t be his mum anymore and I expect the only scenario he could think of was in heaven and so that is what he asked. Heaven was a concept he struggled to understand. Now I don’t want to get into the conversation as to whether heaven exists or not and I’m not interested in your own beliefs around it but it’s a concept I guess us parents tell our children about to make the experience of death easier. And my son couldn’t quite grasp it. If you have read What happens to the world after everyone dies? you will see he is interested in dying and what happens. And with heaven because he can’t see it he doesn’t know what it’s like, he can’t imagine what it is like. Imagining things…things that he hasn’t seen before don’t work for my son. Everything he talks about is real, he knows about. So heaven that nobody has actually seen…nobody alive anyway, is difficult for him to imagine. So do you send mother’s day cards to your mum in heaven. Well I guess some people do. And that is what I said yes of course and I left it at that.

But the questions rolled on…..

“Who decided to make Mother’s Day?”

“What if you don’t have a Mum who do you send a card to?”

And of course a question about time, his favourite subject….

“How many minutes does Mother’s Day last?”

Until we got to my absolute favourite question of the day. We were sat at my mums house when my son asked….

“Is it ever Son’s Day?”

We all had a little laugh but my son was being deadly serious and so I sighed and said…

“Only every other day of the year….and quite possibly most of this day too!!”