The Long Hot Summer (23 page)

The necessary paperwork hasn't arrived the day before I leave and the airline won't issue a new ticket. As a last resort I wait anxiously on their doorstep at nine the following morning and somehow they manage to cobble together a substitute ticket. I have to catch a taxi, which is a hellishly expensive way to get around Paris in the peak hour, and somehow I make it through check-in and customs and security – with only minutes to spare. I stagger to my seat feeling totally drained. My usual sensation of excitement at the prospect of going home has vanished. Instead I am overwhelmed by a feeling of dread.

On the plane I try to regain my perspective. I think about my life as a mother and grandmother and the way events have unfolded in my life. I had my first grandchild at the age of forty-three. I was the first of my contemporaries to become a grandparent and at the time it was considered quite unusual. I was a curiosity.

My generation – the baby boomers – had their children much later than their mothers who, in turn, had children later than their mothers before them. It's been a continuing trend, with the age of first-time motherhood gradually becoming later with each successive generation. Not that long ago a woman of twenty-eight was considered ‘elderly' to start a family but now it's not unusual for women of that age to delay motherhood for another ten years. Or even longer.

I was twenty-two when my daughter Miriam was born, and she was not quite twenty-one when she gave birth to Eamonn in her last year of university. So becoming a young mother was more atypical for Miriam than it had been for me all those years ago.

I am now fifty-four and I have eight gorgeous grandchildren. Six boys and two girls. When I mention with pride my grandmotherly status, it is invariably greeted with astonishment. Not because I look particularly young for my age, but because now it is so unusual to have grandchildren at all before the age of about sixty. Let alone eight of them. What once would have been accepted as quite commonplace has become a rarity. I am in the minority and people comment on the fact that my children have all become parents at such an early age. I often think about it too.

My three biological children – daughter Miriam and sons Aaron and Ethan – all became first-time parents at twenty-one. The three pregnancies were unplanned and when discovered they were greeted with shock and disbelief followed rapidly by delight. We are not Catholic, we are not anti-abortion and the children were, I always thought, well informed about contraception. But they obviously weren't rigidly careful or concerned enough to make sure that their preventive measures were one hundred per cent. There's also the factor that instead of being considered a blight, the prospect of a baby in our family is always considered a bonus.

During their formative years I must surely have established a mindset in my children that babies equal bliss. Babies were never too much trouble or too much hard work or too expensive. They were adorable and fun and brought so much love and happiness that having one around the house was perceived as the epitome of joy. Not surprisingly, when each in turn was confronted with the prospect of parenthood they embraced rather than rejected the idea. I was quite surprised myself that they all launched into having children at such an early age. I didn't hesitate at David's
suggestion that we have our first child when I was in my early twenties, but looking back I now realise I was yearning for stability and love. I knew nothing about birth or babies and I was therefore quite lucky that I took to it with such ease and pleasure.

The two boys wanting to have children at such an early age was, even under the circumstances, quite a surprise. A lot is written these days about ‘Peter Pan Syndrome', where males delay commitment to relationships and parenthood until much later in their lives. Studies have shown that they would rather play with their computer games and remain living comfortably at home, rent-free, with their aging parents, than accept responsibility for starting a family. This has been blamed on the lack of positive messages in society about marriage and parenting. It is just not seen as an attractive option. But not so for our boys. They leapt into steady relationships, marriage, parenthood and mortgages all before the age when most sons even think about leaving the nest.

Our children must have been inculcated with happy messages about parenting. Those were the best years of my life, when the children were growing up, and they picked up on all those confident and positive signals. They didn't sit down and make a plan – they simply emulated the established pattern. None of them was financially secure but that didn't stop them. So, even though I was concerned about how they would cope at such tender ages with the emotional and financial implications, I was happy for them. Because they were happy. They all had good relationships with their partners and, fortunately, David and I were delighted with the choices they had made.

The whole issue of motherhood and grandmotherhood fascinates me because it has changed so dramatically in just two or
three generations. I talk to other women in my age group and their experiences are so different from mine and from those of their own grandmothers. A journalist colleague in her early sixties tells me she has given up on the idea of ever becoming a grandmother. Her two children, one male and one female, both in their late thirties, show no inclination to produce offspring. When she asks them if she is ever likely to become a grandmother, she is laughed off with the words, ‘It's your problem, Mum. We're quite happy the way we are.'

So she is resigned to the probability that she may never, ever hold a grandchild.

Another friend in her late fifties with several grandchildren admits that she loves them dearly but is adamant that she has no interest in being overly involved in their lives. Certainly no interest in babysitting. ‘I did the baby and kid thing for decades,' she says. ‘I am free from children now and I don't want to be tied down looking after them. I love seeing them, but ultimately they are their parents' responsibility. Not mine.'

They seem harsh words but my friend is anything but cold and heartless. She adores her family. It's just that she is relishing the time she now has to do all the things she couldn't afford to do when her own children were young.

Yet another friend has a different story. Her son and daughter-in-law work full-time and she has been co-opted, with the other grandmother, into caring for the two small children several days a week. She loves them and is thrilled to be able to help, but she is also exhausted by the physical demands of looking after toddlers all day in her early sixties. She doesn't complain, however, and is just delighted that she has such a close bond with her grandchildren. A bond she wouldn't have if she wasn't their carer.

I fall somewhere between the last two. I love being intimately involved in the lives of my grandchildren but I also have to be realistic because, at my age, I still work constantly and therefore don't have unlimited time to spend with them. My career involves a lot of travelling, which means I sometimes go for months without seeing them. I miss them keenly but I know that when I am back home I can balance this out in many ways. I love having them to stay at the farm, en masse, and cooking up sumptuous feasts, so that for our family sitting around the table has become the centrepiece of bringing the generations together. In the summer I take them to the swimming pool or on picnics, getting them to help prepare the food and pack the baskets.

I also love treating them to special outings – films and theatre and concerts, and trips to the big city to visit museums or the aquarium. I am aware that family outings can be very expensive and often beyond the means of their young parents, who are now all at the stage of struggling with mortgages and car payments, not to mention huge grocery bills. On a recent two-day trip to Sydney with four boys in tow – Eamonn, Sam, Theo and Hamish – I was startled at the cost of lunch in a restaurant and tickets to a live stage show. Sam, ever the observant and thoughtful one, asked me as I stuffed credit card dockets into my wallet, ‘Are you thure you can afford thith Mutti?'

‘Yes, Sam,' I said. ‘Don't worry.'

‘How much money
have
you got, Mutti?'

‘Unlimited amounts,' I replied, to put his mind at ease.

I try to get to their pre-school and school open days, especially ‘grandparents day', when we are given a chance to visit their classrooms, meet their teachers and see examples of their
work. I went to Hamish's lovely little school in Mudgee with his other grandmother, who is about my age and also works full-time. We had both taken a day off work to attend. There was a formal assembly where the children, in class groups, performed songs and poetry. Then there were speeches. The youthful deputy principal welcomed us and emphasised how important we were in the life of these young children. He said that having grandparents who were interested and involved enough in the lives of their grandchildren to come along and support them was just fantastic. He concluded by saying: ‘So I would like to thank you all for taking time out from your art classes and games of golf to come along and support your grandchildren.'

Both our hackles rose immediately. Shortly afterwards at the morning tea I took the young teacher aside and explained, quite sweetly, that not all grandmothers had time to attend art classes. Some of us had jobs and other responsibilities. Somewhat flustered, he apologised for being both ageist and sexist, and I laughed quietly to myself at his embarrassed reaction. After all, he was just conforming to the common perception. Grandparents these days are meant to be a lot older.

Despite the fact that in generations past grandmothers were a lot younger than they are today, even back then they always seemed to be little old ladies with permed hair wearing floral frocks with lacy collars. I have seen photographs of my friend's grandmothers at fifty and sixty, and they look positively ancient in the black and white photographs of the day. I'm not that sort of grandmother – although in some ways I look forward to the day when I can feel comfortable in that more conventional, less confusing role.

In the meantime I will just enjoy my large brood and continue
to set aside very special time to spend with them. After staying with Miriam and her family after their move to Adelaide, I returned home exhausted by the demands of those four lively little boys. Unpacking my bag, I found a little love letter, hidden among my clothes, from Sam. It was on pink paper cut out in the shape of a heart with the words: ‘Dere Mutti, It's good to have you come down to see us. Love from Sam.'

It can't get much better than that.

David is waiting patiently for me, as ever, at the exit from customs at Sydney airport. He looks tired and is a little withdrawn, kissing me affectionately but without a skerrick of passion. The total reverse of the farewell kiss he had insisted upon in front of the film crew when I was leaving for France five months ago.

In the car, before we have even exited the car park, David initiates a one-way conversation with me about the financial difficulties that lie ahead. He barely touches on the emotional issues except to say that he has made up his mind, once and for all, and that he believes this is the right and the only decision. He tells me that the long trip back to Australia, when he was forced to spend three nights alone in a hotel room in Hong Kong, was a turning point. How for that period of time he did nothing but sleep, eat and think about our damaged relationship. He says that since then he has been feeling stronger and better about himself than he has for the past three years.

I am jetlagged of course, and also emotionally exhausted. I sit
and listen to David's view on how our finances will need to be managed. He doesn't believe I am capable of looking after myself financially and says he envisages maintaining his role as the ‘manager' of my income and expenditure. He wants us to continue living together at the farm because we can't afford an alternative. He suggests I should seriously consider accepting any work that is offered and mentions in particular the possibility of a radio show that has been on the back burner for quite some time.

I respond by acknowledging that I have always been disorganised in managing money and agree that, from his perspective, I am a spendthrift. However, I am not thrilled at the prospect of accepting work that will see me anchored in one place all year round. How will I be able to take the tour groups to France if I have a weekly radio job? How will I afford to live in Sydney if that is where the work is based? By the time we reach the farm we are in the throes of a heated argument and I am beginning to realise that this situation is destined to be a nightmare. I have known enough people going through messy divorces to know that the money aspect is the most problematic. And here we are at the very beginning of our dialogue and already it's shaping up unpleasantly.

The entire family is at the farm, including all our wild and woolly grandchildren. The open fires are crackling away and the air is filled with the rich aroma of Sunday lunch cooking. I am hit by a blast of warmth as I enter the kitchen and the first person I see is my daughter-in-law Lynne, mother of Isabella and now quite heavily pregnant with their second child. We make immediate eye contact and we both begin to cry. But unlike our previous reunions where we cried with happiness to see each other, our mutual tears are laden with sadness.

All I can say to her is, ‘I think this is a big mistake.' She nods in agreement.

This family of mine is the most important thing in my life. Not any one individual above the others, just the group as a whole. The unit. Like many people with damaged childhoods, I had a dream to have a perfect family. And somehow I have managed to create one. There's my stepson Tony, now in his early thirties, with a successful career and a beautiful wife, Simone. A handsome and affectionate couple who are yearning to start a family because of the joy and fun they have with their nieces and nephews. Our daughter Miriam and her husband Rick, bravely wrangling their four bright and boisterous sons. A strong and committed couple with a positive outlook on life. Our blond son Aaron, less voluble than the rest, with his calm and patient wife Lorna and their two blond offspring. So different from their cousins and yet, in funny ways, so alike. Our youngest son Ethan and his partner Lynne, coping brilliantly with a disabled daughter and courageously awaiting the birth of their second child. Such an amazing group of people. Such a fantastic family. David and I as the parents and grandparents sit at the head of the table. When we sit down to lunch we number seventeen and I don't know quite how it happened.