The look of love

As I try to raise and guide three teenagers, I have come to realise that I fall back on what I know and how I was raised. It’s a natural default to simply refer to your own upbringing, even if at times you want to dig your toes in and claim a new and better parenting technique.

I’m not sure where I went wrong but my own children are constantly amused by my attempt to corral them, be strict and hard on them or give them advice. They mock my attempts at ‘‘bad cop māmā’’ with great delight. In my pursuit of control and discipline we all end up in hysterics about how pathetic my household management actually is.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is some semblance of parenting going on, but I wouldn’t rate it very highly, if I’m brutally honest — no awards here for mother of the year. So, I sit discombobulated about where I went wrong.

I think about my parents’ generation and how they did a great job raising us with benign neglect and I admire the way they were surprised by our occasional success, checked in now and again where we were heading on a Saturday night, reprimanded us for any air of arrogance and expected us to work hard and own the decisions we made, right or wrong.

When I was little my dad would shoot a look of disapproval so fierce, it would stop you in your tracks and you’d hold your breath. We might be in the middle of a hui and you wouldn’t dare take another step and it was as if every other parent was in on that too. The aunties and uncles would shoot that look of disapproval too — they were all in on it!

I’ve tried this with my kids, particularly when they were little, moments in a pōwhiri as they were climbing their father’s leg while he was giving a formal speech. They looked at me as if to say — you have no power over me, Māmā! I tried giving them the evil eye but to no avail.

When my daughter was little, she would turn on me, hands on hip, and she would put on a high-pitched voice as she refused to comply. My oldest boy had decided at a young age that there was a pecking order in the house and he used his hand to say, this is how it goes Māmā, Pāpā first, then it’s me, then you, then Ripeka and Tuki last ... it would be fair to say he pushed all boundaries from the moment he could talk ... and still gives me a run for my money at 16. But there isn’t a lot between his ears at the moment and apparently a lot of white noise comes out of my mouth ... so the power-tussle is an ongoing work in progress.

My youngest has just given up and is simply compliant — he backs out of a room if his older siblings are arguing, he simply can’t be bothered. I appreciate he probably thinks it will be the least disruptive pathway, because its win-win for him and me. Thank goodness there is one following the path of least resistance.

So, I’ve come to a place of capitulation, self-reflection and I resign myself to the fact that I have carved out a different relationship with all three of my brood. The difference being, I think, that we are all trying to be a unit that works together as best we can — and sometimes it just doesn’t work and other times it does.

My daughter talked to me once about her being my friend and I was very matter-of-fact with her — something I did learn from my upbringing. I said to her, I am not your friend but your mother, I am there to guide you, be a cushion to fall on, be a light in the dark, be hard on you when required, and be a strong mooring post and ever- present in your life. I continued to say to her she doesn’t even have to like me, but the simple fact is I am her māmā.

I think at that point it didn’t land well with her but as we have grown some more, she knows I have her back. She can see the tangible boundaries of safety I have put in place as necessary and defined.

Through all this crazy learning as a māmā I really just hope I have helped create better humans, ones who are a step ahead of their pāpā and I in every way. I have no doubt that death-defining glance of disapproval will be used by them one day. He taoka tuku iho!