Whether you still celebrate UK Mother’s Day or now mark the French date - depending on where your mothers and children are - March daffodils and the reawakening of spring still evoke Mothering Sunday for many - be it looking forward to a hand drawn card and tea in bed or a dash to Interflora.
This annual recognition is pretty fleeting - but everyone takes mothers for granted, so long as they have one.
If only the reverse were true! If we could take our children for granted, how much more bearable motherhood might be.
"the only time a mother can be really, truly happy is when her children are at home, in bed, asleep"
Instead, as soon as that first bundle is placed in our arms we turn animal like in our passion to protect. Understanding that you will never again be the most important person in your own life is a shock. The enduring state is one of exquisite agony.
When mothers say “kids - who’d have ’em?” or tell childless women they are lucky, I long to silence them quickly: that’s such a lie! And, call it a latent protestant background or plain superstition, but: what if somebody’s listening?
Yet while our instincts cry out to lock our children in a room and keep them safe for ever, the true story is of a journey separation - and one which it is our job to encourage.
Each success is a stab to the heart. The first time they smile at a child minder. Leaving them at pre-school while they beg you to stay and you pretend to be hard hearted and turn your back. When they start secondary school, you burst into tears because you have no babies left and any minute now - that’s what six years will feel like - they’ll be leaving home for good.
Each morning, I scowl at the bus driver in case he’s had a heavy night and in any case because he whisks my children away to a life in which I have no place.
In the evenings I am kinder because he has returned them safely, prompting a little leap of joy and relief.
For it is this, this fear of the ultimate separation - every time they go out on their bikes or on a coach trip - which means that the only time a mother can be really, truly happy is when her children are at home, in bed, asleep.
Then, whatever their age, we are allowed to brush their forehead lightly and know that, for the next few hours at least, our babies are safe.
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