Introduction

History is a personal thing. I am fascinated by the perceptions people have of their own lives and circumstances.

I’m also fascinated by motherhood and the relationships between mothers and their children.

I have four children of my own, and before that, I started life as the baby of a young mother who felt she didn’t have the capacity, resources, or desire to look after me herself. That led me to the home of a woman who had lost one of her own babies in pregnancy and wanted another child so badly that she was prepared to take someone else’s.

Things my mother taught me…

When I catch myself nagging my children about how much sunscreen they should be wearing, or how they shouldn’t climb any higher on the monkey bars, or how I don’t want them to go to that party at the house of a child whose parents I’ve never met, or when I send them away to fend for themselves in front of the television for a couple of hours while I check emails and try to find that balance between work and home, I wonder how they will eventually judge me and the job I have done as their mum.

Should I have shown them my tears those times I was sad? Do I tell them all the bad things that happened to me in the hope they won’t make the same mistakes? Or should I do my best to show them I am breezing through life and that the world really is a wonderful place?

I have clear memories of so many moments from child­hood – some good and some not so happy. There were the times we spent in a caravan together, with Mum’s ham sandwiches on white bread for lunch on a flat South Australian beach, and there was the way she used to turn up the car radio and dance to Rod Stewart on the sand. Then the screaming matches between us when my idea of teenage freedom didn’t match her visions for my safety. But I know there are so many other things I’ve forgotten. I’m sure they are all important – all memories shape us, in their own ways.

My lessons to my own children began with all the basic cautionary tales of health and safety – red means danger, wash your hands after going to the toilet, if your hair is long you should tie it back when you’re standing near the stove, don’t touch any spiders (just in case) and don’t ever get into the car of a stranger who tells you they have a cute puppy or kitten or a bag of lollies. But life gets more complicated for our children as they grow and the lessons we need to share are forced to evolve.

Some things, though, will always be the same.

When I spoke to my interviewees about the things they learned from their mothers, I was reminded that small moments do matter.

As a mother, that’s both comforting and terrifying. Those times you drove them to rowing training when all you wanted to do was sleep in might actually be appreciated. That snipey little insult you deliver when you’re having a bad day may be the one thing that they tell their counsellor when they’re forty.

What did you learn from your mother?

For dancer Li Cunxin, they were lessons of pure sacrifice, from a mother who managed to raise a herd of children in rural China even though there wasn’t always enough food to feed herself.

Ask Benjamin Law and he’ll tell you that he learned about acceptance and understanding, which helped to drive his ambitions as a writer and gave him confidence to come out as a gay man.

For author Kathy Lette, the lessons were about steady support and unconditional love, and these gave her the resilience and strength she needed to care for her autistic son.

Tracy Bartram knows it was the inheritance of her mother’s absurd sense of humour – even in the craziest of circumstances – that helped her become the person she is today.

A mother’s influence and education can be powerful.

In my own life, I have watched my mother overcome all kinds of challenges and upheavals. I now have even more to learn as she enters the next stage of life, bothered by the beginnings of dementia and trying to clear the hurdle of loneliness that has come with outliving her friends.

There is a lot to be gained from watching and listening to the lives that have gone before us. People may not be perfect. But even the flaws and failings have something to teach us and the happy times might have even more.

These stories aren’t all dramatic. Life isn’t really like that for everyone. But there is something we do all share. We all have a mother. Things my mother taught me? There are plenty. Part of growing up is recognising what those lessons were.