It is a natural maternal instinct to want to protect your children at all times. My boys are 22 and 19 – they don’t need that much protecting, these days, thank goodness. Still, like all of us, they want comfort and reassurance at times, and mostly I can offer it.
But a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t – and knowing I couldn’t made me feel powerless, but also resolute. I knew I had to accept that it’s okay for your kids to work things out and deal with knockbacks themselves.
Their football team, West Ham, were on the wrong end of a travesty of justice – or an entirely correct observance of the laws of football, depending on where you stand. I’m not a football writer and I’m not going to get into the ins and outs of what was clearly a debatable VAR decision, which is almost definitely going to contribute to West Ham being relegated from the Premier League.
I also know that it’s just a game; you only have to watch Newsnight or read The i Paper to know that it really isn’t important in the grand scheme of things, but it got me thinking about Ollie and Joe’s reactions to the ups and downs of growing up – and how you gain perspective through things not always going your way.
Which means sometimes, as a parent, as hard as it is not to step in and try and fix everything, you have to hang back and let them process whatever it is they’re going through.
Their love of West Ham comes with a huge slice of gallows humour, which I also think helps them keep perspective. Ollie’s first season saw the team get relegated – since then, there have been some highs and many lows. I don’t know whether following a club who probably disappoint more than they delight has helped them over the years when things away from the football pitch don’t always go smoothly.
As parents, none us gets things right all the time – and sometimes, all you can do is say sorry to your own children. Take World Book Day (WBD) – a very important event to encourage kids to read more. At Ollie’s junior school, like every school across the country, WBD was marked by getting the pupils to dress as characters from their favourite book.
As I arrived at the gates, I was greeted by a whole variety of Snow Whites and Harry Potters. Ollie was in his school uniform, as usual, because we were the parents who’d forgotten. His face fell a mile – and no amount of, “it’s ok, no-one will notice” was going to comfort him. I felt so guilty – and actually still do – over a decade on.
It was the overwhelming feeling that I’d let him down – and he stood out as the kid whose parents let this special day slip their minds. As weird as it sounds, it was as though somehow we cared less about our child than others cared about theirs. I detested myself for it.
If I could have told him then that in a few years time, he’d be really upset when he failed his driving test the first time – or when a particular girlfriend decided she didn’t want to go out with him anymore – I’m not sure it would have helped.
When both those things did occur in his late teens, all I could do was hug him and say, “I’m so, so sorry”. I couldn’t fix it for him, which is a horrible feeling – but as we all know, those setbacks are part of growing up and do make us more resilient (not that I said that to him at the time).
It was when I was diagnosed with breast cancer that it really hit home; I couldn’t do everything in my power to protect them. The reality of life – and possible death – got in the way. In the end, I was one of the lucky ones whose cancer was treatable; and when we knew that, after weeks of anxiety-inducing tests and biopsies, we made the call to tell the boys (then aged 11 and 8) and level with them about the prognosis and treatment that was to come.
Initially, Ollie said he was angry and asked me if I was too; Joe occasionally cried in lessons at school (always Maths, though, for some reason). They both thought it was unfair, but in the end approached it in a pragmatic way – taking their lead from us. And it helped that we’ve always encouraged them to share their feelings – which they do, openly and honestly, even as young men.
Cancer is frightening for adults, let alone two primary school-aged children. To make it slightly less so, we took them into the chemotherapy ward to meet our wonderful nurse Emma, who was going to administer the chemo drugs. She was funny and warm and they really liked her, plus they could see the ward was bright and light and playing Radio 2. It wasn’t a scary place. I valued not only their love and support, during that time, but the way they were clearly thinking about what was really important.
Which brings me back, now, to wanting to protect them from sadness and disappointment, all over again. Both our boys are season ticket holders – and both felt let down, frustrated, even sad by the result of the West Ham game. Ollie wrote a piece on his Substack which he titled, perfectly reasonably, “Modern Football At Its Crushing Worst”.
There’s nothing like a team you adore letting you down to give you added perspective on life. I love that they feel things deeply and can express those emotions – and I need to remind myself that even a mother’s love can’t make everything right.
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