Sometimes I don't feel like a real Mum

As a MOO, I sometimes don't feel like a real Mum. I know this is ridiculous but I feel because I run a household that is not overly chaotic, with just one child in it, and I that have a life evolving outside of motherhood, that I'm not a "proper" Mum.

So what's a proper Mum? One who has several children demanding her attention at once, one who ferries a multitude of children to their different after-school activities, and one who has virtually no time to herself as she pours all her love, time and energy into her off-spring?

I'm not sure where these preconceived ideas of a proper Mum come from. I have noted that on many committees around the place it is the MOTs and MOTHs who put their hands up. I have felt some guilt around this as as a MOO I obviously have a bit more time to help out. I do write a bimonthly column for free for the local parents centre newsletter, however. That's my contribution for now.

I received a copy of the newsletter in the mail today. Of course the majority of members are new parents so no surprises that the content is mainly about babies and pregnancy. Yet I found it upset me a little today to read about the expanding families of some of the committee members who put the newsletter together. Once again I feel like I'm being left behind at the starters gate in the dust of the MOTs and MOTHs. One of the Mums I did an antenatal yoga class with when pregnant with my daughter is a MOTH-to-be and her eldest is younger than my one and only! How did that happen so fast? Three under-threes in the blink of an eye, it would seem.

I feel like a fraud on some level as a MOO. I am even contemplating stopping my column for the newsletter as me talking about family issues with the one three year old doesn't seem relevant to new families out there (which is my target audience).

Yet today as my daughter lay on the couch, tired and pale after several bouts of vomiting, I lay with her and I did feel like a real Mum. I also feel like a real Mum when I do some baking for the family and my daughter licks the spoon, when I dish up the family tea at 5pm every night, and when I sing the ABCs, do jig-saw puzzles or make sand castles with my daughter. There are lots of moments and occasions when I feel like a Mum. I certainly don't think my MOO friends aren't proper Mums. Not at all. So why I see myself like this sometimes, I don't know.

I dunno what's up with me tonight. Just the same old SIF woes bubbling away. Not in a big way. But in the background somehow.