A Mothers Worry

Most of us will be aware of the 18year old boy who lost his live in Kings Cross recently, not due to doing anything wrong, not through a shooting, stabbing or even robbery but just walking down the street with friends talking on his mobile when he was king hit for no apparent reason. Today they have identified the person responsible via hours of CCTV footage. Yesterday one of our retired football players was arrested in a country town in NSW for murder after an altercation in a Hotel car park which resulted in the death of a 50 year old man. The young man in Kings Cross has left his family morning a young man at the beginnings of life, the other situation as had the exact same impact on his family. 

My eldest daughter turned 23 last Friday. She is a free spirit, works in a Pub close to the city and lives in a terrace house with a flat mate and her dog within walking distance of work, a major shopping/ restaurant strip and generally her life is basically party time. Being a non driver she walks everywhere or is driven by friends and apart from her dog and the rent she has very little responsibility. My life at the same age was not that dissimilar except for the career and the driving part. I lived down the road from where she is now and frequented the same places even thought they are now a little more ‘up market’ due to the property values and renovations that have been preformed.

Daughter One

The order of the day on Friday was planned to be shopping for shoes and a bite to eat before she started work at 8pm. I waited for her to call me when she woke up (as she had finished work the night before at 3am) so by the time I drove to her house it was early afternoon. I had the guided tour of the house (she had recently moved and even though I helped I never went inside as I had work to attend to). Her house mate came home from work (he is a roofer so they don’t see that much of each other) so by the time we had a chat we had to take the dog for a walk to the dog park. We arrived via lanes and backstreets to this wonderful especially dedicated dog park hidden from the world that was surrounded by a fence with plenty of trees and foliage in addition to the runs for the four legged guys to generally have a ball (or chase one as the case may be). We met three people in the park and 10 dogs including Lou, it felt good. Daughter ones phone rings, it’s her work and she needed to go in before 5pm to sort out some paperwork so back to drop off Lou and a walk up to the pub to sort things out. We arrive at 4.35pm; the dope that was supposed to be there till 5pm had left 5 minutes before and had sorted the situation anyway but didn’t think to call. Seeing we were in the pub we decided to have a beer in the garden out the back and before long she had generated a crowd around her wishing her a happy birthday. There was a mixture of patrons and staff with a warm friendly feeling surrounding the environment. Her boss introduced himself and praised my daughter for her hard work and work ethic, a proud moment I must admit. We sat and chatted to a couple of the regulars (one a late thirties chef and the other a 50 year old professional family man) when the conversation of raising children arose. The Professional man and his wife (who was home with the flu) have two children, a boy 15 and a girl 11 and how he was preparing them – or trying – for the years ahead. They had decided that trying to be moderately cool was a good start to keep the level of communication open and the fact they live so close to the city the kids see the bad things in life as well as the good. My only input was to make sure the kids are ‘street smart’ which to me hopefully makes them aware of dangers that are around them and those who are not to be trusted. Daughter one and I then went for dinner, I handed her some money for the shoes and she went to work.

As a mother I will always worry that she is safe. I know that she is not stupid or naive but like all of us can be silly at times. We as parents must realise that at some stage we need to trust what we have taught them and the judgements they make. My children are very different, so different that it is hard to believe they were produced by the same set of parents. While the youngest doesn’t even like the city let alone the life that surrounds it I worry about her in different ways and for different reasons. Every day she goes to her 9 to 5 job in the suburban accounts office I worry because she is driving and even though she is a good driver others are not. 

I have friend’s children who have lost or nearly lost their lives due to accidents or health issues and I know of others who have committed suicide and lost their battles with drugs. I know others that have overcome major hurdles to become strong independent individuals with purpose. We can’t keep our children in cotton wool all of their lives as much as we would like to on occasion; we can just trust we did the best we could. It’s a Mothers job to worry as it is to be joyful for our children’s successes and achievements both large and small.

We are not stupid but we can be silly!