Being a mother.

I was very young and naive at 20 when I married. My first son arrived when I was 22 and I had another son at 25 with a miscarriage in between. My daughter was born 2 years later. Although I was a trained primary school teacher I had no experience of babies or young children. I had moved from the Bay of Plenty to Northland when I married and didn't have any support. My husband was a workaholic and was away for long hours including weekends. I really struggled as a mother and can look back now and regret the mistakes I made. At the time I felt overwhelmed. Lonely.

It made me more independent and able to stick up for myself when necessary. It also helped me to be a caring grandmother able to allow my children time out from their children which is something I would have so appreciated. I love seeing our sons being hands on dads with their children. I also admire greatly the mother that my daughter is. One of the most wonderful things I love to see is families at the beach having fun especially with their dads.

I strongly believe that we need to be teaching our people how to be parents. Children need time, love and caring and so many children do not get any of these things. We learn how to be parents by the way our parents brought us up. Poor parenting is then carried on into the next generation by all levels of society. So many of the problems that are apparent in our society could be cured with money and resources invested in parent education eg child abuse and deaths, teen suicide, angry young men, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal activities, car crashes etc. It could be made compulsory by the withdrawal of child benefit payments, free maternity care, free paternity leave, free medical care. All these things are now expected and taken for granted.

My husband and I are still together and are good friends. After the children grew up and left home we had many wonderful trips to many exciting places such as West Africa, Turkey, Greece, Europe and Canada. I am very proud of our 3 children who have done so well in their chosen careers without any help from us and they are very caring of us. They have provided us with 7 beautiful granddaughters and one great granddaughter. We have been very lucky. They all live honest and productive lives.