This Is Cheshire

WHEN MUMMY SUDDENLY DOESN'T KNOW BEST

From the Guardian Series, first published Thursday 4th Oct 2001.

AT FOUR, most children think Mummy can do anything - and knows everything.

But by the time they reach 16, Mum, let's face it, is hopelessly outdated and old fashioned - and knows virtually nothing about life.

At 35, though, a child's opinion changes again and Mum's opinion somehow matters.

And by the time you hit 60, many long to talk their problems through with her. She's the only one who really knows the answer.

It's a pattern that Knutsford's Patricia Watts - now 60 - knows only too well.

Her mum died 10 years ago but today she misses not being able to pick up the phone and ask her mum for advice.

"It's frightening to be at my age because with mum gone I'm at the top of ladder," she said.

"I'm the one who is meant to have all the experience to give out good advice.

"But what I really want to do is ask Mum what advice I should give others."

Despite having a large family of her own to tend to, Patricia admits she feels like an orphan without her own mum for support.

"I guess I've gone full circle now," she said. "There were times when I thought my mum didn't understand my life but now I'm in her position I realise how much she did know.

"And now, like when I was a child, I want her help and advice."

It is a learning curve that every mother and child goes through.

Toddlers learn by watching Mum, so it is only natural they think Mum knows it all.

"Children are innocent and see the world as their home and family," said Patricia, who works for the British Red Cross in Northwich Road, Knutsford. "If they don't know anything else exists and Mum is there through it all they are bound to think Mum can do everything."

Their perceptions begin to change when they start school.

"They are taught by other people and as they grow up they begin to realise that Mum does not know everything after all," she said. "But children can handle that because they are still learning from Mum too."

It is only when they reach their teens that the problems start.

"They begin to develop into individuals and that is when the battles start," said Patricia. "Teenagers think they know everything and because Mum does not agree, Mum doesn't know anything." Patricia's battles with her eldest daughter made family life unbearable at times during her teenage years.

"She wanted to treated as an adult, but I wanted her home by a certain time because I wanted to know she was safe," she said. "We had row after row about it."

One day Patricia knew she had to sort the problem once and for all because it was affecting the family.

After a long chat it was agreed that her daughter was allowed home whenever she wanted as long as her mum knew where she was going.

Instinct

"She never came home late again," said Patricia. "She thought she had won the battle and I knew she was safe so we were both happy."

Her experiences as a mum, though, reminded her of the trouble she too caused as a teenager.

"I had lots of arguments with my mum," she said. "I felt she wasn't letting me grow up even though I was ready to."

But now she knows how hard it is to let children find their own way in life.

"Mums don't want their children to make the same mistakes that they did," she said. "They will do anything to prevent their children getting hurt. "But life is about trial and error so we have no choice in the end but to let them get on with it." She believes the changing faces of a mother - from the woman who knows it all to the woman who knows nothing - is as much the result of Mum's behaviour as it is the teenager's.

"Mums don't want their children to grow up or make mistakes so we try and hold them back," she said. "But that makes youngsters think their mum doesn't understand their world.

"Mums know deep down that they can't stop children making mistakes because they are raising an individual not a clone. But our role is to protect them from being hurt. It's instinct."

But a child's perception of Mum changes once he or she has secured his or her own identity.

"Teenagers feel Mum always says what they don't want to hear," said Patricia. "They fear Mum is trying to shape their identity when they want to do it themselves.

"Once they know who they are Mum's image begins to change because there is no threat."

And when it comes to mums and daughters, Patricia believes there is a huge change in the relationship when the daughter has children of her own.

"It's only then they can understand why mums worry the way they do," she said. "That's when the image of my mum started to change again because I realised how much she had done for me in the past - and how good she was at being a mum."

mgillies@guardiangrp.co.uk

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