“Mothering’s a marathon, not a sprint”

I KNOW a lady, in her eighties now, who used to take to the bed from time to time, when her children were living at home.

She had nine. I have four children and right now, I’m trying to imagine the variety of ways in which the scope for torment might increase if I had five more. Thinking about this for half a second has made me absolutely positive that if I did have nine, I’d take to the bed every single day and play dead. This lady raised her family on a farm, milked cows by hand every morning and lived with her in-laws. The effort to resist the lure of a soft, quiet mattress must have been Herculean at times.

I’m an old friend of one of her daughters and I remember arriving at her family home, years ago. An assortment of siblings met us at the door and told us in hushed but matter-of-fact tones that ‘Mam’s taken to the bed.’ Other than the size of her family, I can’t recall the specific reason that prompted her mother to close her bedroom door on the life outside it but everyone seemed to know exactly how to manage the situation. For three days, their mother stayed in her bedroom and different family members brought her tea and sustenance, coming out for re-fills and to give the latest Mam bulletins to the rest, while the rest carried on pragmatically. I got up on the morning of day four, never having laid eyes on their mother before and found her in the kitchen, cheerfully making breakfast for hordes.