“Let’s face it, motherhood is not a restful business”

I HAD two glasses of Merlot last night — all that my feeble liver can take.

This morning, I’m upstairs, staring at an empty word document with a leaden brain. Perhaps, I think, if I stare at the screen long enough, a column will just write itself, but all my staring seems to do is magic the phone into ringing.

It is my mother.

“Hello, love,” she says, “I’m just phoning to see whether my knickers have arrived in that post of yours.” My mother asks me to check the post; she hasn’t trusted An Post since Christmas 2011, when postal workers failed to decipher her handwriting and mish-mash of an address until Jan 22, 2012.

“What knickers?” I ask.

She’s sent a parcel of knickers for my youngest daughter’s 18th birthday tomorrow, she explains. “Racy little things,” she says. “Nothing to them. From Topshop. And you can tell her from me it’s a good job she’s got a nice bottom to put in them. I mean, honestly, you’d want to have something pretty special to put in knickers that expensive. How are you love?”

“I’m trying to write a column,” I say. “Something on parenting. An overview sort of thing,” I explain, “what with my youngest turning 18, and me having four grown-up children now.”

“God, how awful,” she says, “I don’t know how you do it love, coming up with new ideas week in, week out, and as for giving an overview on parenting... I mean, how can you possibly give an overview on something that never ends? That’s the thing about parenting. It’s not like a game of Monopoly where you learn the rules, play it and then fold the board up and put it away in a cupboard.”

“No, I suppose not,” I say.

“I mean you can never put being a mother away in a cupboard.”

“No,” I say, “you can’t.”

“Not if you’ve had six children,” she says briskly. “I mean, perhaps it’s easier to put it away if you’ve only had two children, but six? There’s no ‘Job done, now for an overview’ with six children. And definitely no ‘Job done, I’m off to Honolulu’. Not with six. Never mind 19 grandchildren.”

“No,” I say, “no Honolulu.”

“Forget overview,” she says brusquely, “you should tell them about that funny survey.”

“Tell who about what funny survey?”

“Oh for goodness sake,” she shouts, and drops the receiver. I listen to a fraught exchange between mum and my two younger sisters. My youngest sister puts her three-year-old daughter Lola on the phone. Lola tells me that she “juss done make-up” like her big-girl cousins.

My mother picks up the receiver. “Lola’s just came downstairs covered in Tippex,” she pants. “It’s all over her eyebrows. I don’t know how we’re going to get it off. Where was I? ”

“You were talking about some survey,” I say.

“Oh yes,” she says, “you should tell your readers about that survey they did in The Times, or was it The Guardian, the one where 50% of mothers said they would be happier if they’d never become mothers. You know I’m sure Tippex is toxic.”

“50%?” I say, “that’s dispiriting.”

“I’m only telling you what I read,” she says tartly, “and you can understand it, when you think about the effect it has on your nerves. I mean there isn’t a psychologist on the planet who could convince me that being a mother is good for your nerves. Let’s face it, it is not a restful business, and it stays not being a restful business until you drop in the grave. I mean, look at your poor sister now. Lola really ran amok with the Tippex. And the nail varnish. She doesn’t know how she’s going to get it off.”

“You’re right,” I say, “being a mother is not good for the nerves.”

“No it is not,” she says crossly, “what between An Post which will probably never deliver my knickers — and Tippex and then...”

“But all the same,” I interrupt, “it’s worth it, hey Mum?”

“Well of course it is,” she says, more crossly, sounding quite as if she’d like to put me in a cupboard.

“What an absolutely ridiculous question. I mean I simply can’t imagine the emptiness and loneliness of being on this planet without you all.”