Real Christmas miracle is the Irish mammy
YOU are a mammy. To ensure a wonderful family Christmas, you’ve made the cake and the pudding, and the mince pies, which are in the freezer, and you have mulled wine for the visitors. You decorated the house, wrote the cards, gift-wrapped the presents, which you bought, and cooked a mouth-watering feast.
Afterwards, you’ll be tired, but you don’t mind hoovering up while everybody else watches TV... or do you? Colm O’Regan, author of two Irish Mammies books, says all the family should help, but all too often the work is left to Mammy: “There is the weight of history there,” he says. “It takes a long while to change it, but it will slowly change. Maybe in 100 years’ time, the Christmas landscape will be different. We think we’re a modern country, but often gender roles take a while to break down.”
Of course, he points out, there is the cult of The Irish Mammy – she who feels that even adult children still need ‘mammying’. The adult children are sometimes complicit: “As soon as they go home, they’re suddenly helpless and Mammy takes over.”
Siobhan Berry, who lives in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, is an entrepreneur and mother of two children, aged two and five. Siobhan runs two companies, Mummycooks, a cookery school for weaning mums, and Babypotz, an online company that sells food storage containers. Christmas is tough for her. “As regards Christmas, everything lands in my lap,” she says. “I don’t think my husband does anything, apart from the tree. He’s good to help with the housework generally, but there’s an assumption that I ‘do’ Christmas and if I ever asked him about that, the response would be that I simply do everything better. This may be an Irish mindset — my mother always did everything for Christmas and my father wasn’t that involved in it.
“I buy the gifts, not just for my family but for all of my husband’s.” She even buys the gift he is supposed to buy. “I do the decorating, the grocery shopping, the gift shopping and the Christmas dinner. I like Christmas. I like seeing the kids’ excitement, but I find it all a bit stressful and also financially draining. I think it’s just easier to organise the presents and the Christmas shopping myself, rather than nag him about it. It’s definitely a mammy thing, but it’s also an Irish thing. Probably our daughters will see us mammies doing it all and then they’ll do everything themselves, too.! It’s also an Irish male thing. Most of my friends seem to be in the same situation.”
Fiona Quinn from Kilcully in Co Cork is a carer and stay-at-home mother of four children, aged 18, 17, 13 and 12. Her husband, Michael, is a self-employed electrical contractor for whom Christmas is busy.
“Christmas probably wouldn’t happen if I didn’t do it. I start the preparations fairly early in the year — I start saving towards next Christmas the week after Christmas and I save all year for it. At the end of September, I start putting away money for the turkey and ham.
! “By November, I’m onto the kids to write their letters to Santa. I do everything for Christmas, although my husband, Michael, and the older boys will take down the decorations from the attic — usually on about the tenth reminder.
“I do all the decorating of the inside of the house. My two youngest help me, and Dad and the older boys do the outside decorations, although the outside decorations have been getting more scant every year.
“Michael usually gets very busy with work-related things during December — for example, wiring other peoples’ outside decorations! It’s a bit of a case of the shoemaker’s children going barefoot. I do all the gift-buying for the family. I write all the Christmas cards, usually about 30, and organise everything, so that when we visit people I have the presents ready. I cook the Christmas dinner — my daughter, Molly, is very good to help there, although the boys just aren’t in that game. Michael helps with the wash-up after Christmas dinner. I think most mothers do this — my mother always did it.
“I know that if Michael did try to help, I’d probably tell him he was doing everything wrong anyway. I think there’s a universal thing that mothers simply take over Christmas, because they have their own way of doing things and you never think anyone else would do it half as well as you.”
A qualified, second-level teacher and a stay-at-home mum with three children aged eight, four and 18 months, Caroline Olivier (35), lives in Kilcock, Co Kildare.
“My husband is very good at helping and enjoys cooking. I suppose he would be atypical, in terms of actually rolling up his sleeves and cooking the Christmas dinner — but there may be a cultural element to it. He’s South African. I notice he doesn’t give the same amount of attention to presents.
“I’m very much responsible for the presents. I write all the Christmas cards, as well. He needs a bit of a push to help with the decorations, but he will help. He shares in the excitement of Christmas, but his attitude would be not to stress over it.
“I’d be the one wrapping presents, because I think it looks much prettier. I think women are more involved in Christmas preparations than men. I know my own mother put an awful lot of work into Christmas, often single-handedly. I believe the Irish culture puts the mum very much centre-stage as regards the work.
Author and marketing consultant, and mother to four girls, aged between 15 and 7, Sheena Horgan (45), from Dublin, does “pretty much” all of the Christmas preparations. “I sort out most of the presents, though my hubby does get a few things and will always ask about what our plans are. We’ll both talk about the food and whilst I’ve probably done most of the food shopping in previous years, he does more of the weekly shops now, so will probably take this on for Christmas 2013.
“The decorations around the house, the Christmas cards — the girls do homemade ones — and the all-important tree is organised by me with my four helpers. In truth, this is because I love doing it. My Mum loved Christmas and all the decorations, and so do I, and my girls get into it also. The tree, in particular, is a full-on family affair.
“My husband does as much as he can, really. There’s so much that I like to do, he probably doesn’t get a look in. I think Christmas, for me, is such a wonderful and special time. There’s all the little things that I like to get right and that I especially like doing with my girls.
“I’m sure there’s an expectation women manage Christmas, but, for my part, it’s because I choose to and wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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