Family values

I come from a close knit family of four and our modus operandi has always been that we would help each other as much as possible when necessary.  We stay in close contact, always talk about events within our own lives, and try to solve problems together through discussions and offers of support.  Naturally my parents and sister wanted to help me as much as they could with the pregnancy and then with Sprog.  My parents live abroad and my mother came to stay with us to help with Baby.  She arrived a week before the birth, was one of my birth partners and then stayed on for two months to help look after Baby and me.  We are very grateful for her help throughout this period and to be honest I don't think I would have recovered as quickly if she hadn't been there.  It was good to have her for company while I was adjusting to motherhood.  Her presence also made enough time and opportunities for me to do little chores at home and the occasional thing for work, meaning that I could carry on with our ongoing home improvements for Baby and keep my career going in this fragile period.

However, it was not all plain sailing.  My mother had her own ideas about how a Baby should be cared for and these do not necessarily coincide with mine.  This sometimes led to quite heated discussions between the two of us.  The experience was a bit strange because we have not spent this much time together for a good many years and we have since become quite different people.  These differences were not apparent in the short visits we paid to each other on holidays, or in our phone conversations, and they caught us a bit by surprise.  We expected some differences but the actual extent was a little frightening.  However, our basic values are still the same and fortunately one of these is that we can agree to disagree; we will always discuss things and be frank with each other with our thoughts.  While I was getting used to being a mother, she was also trying to adjust to her new role as grandmother.  We negotiated our way through this well in the end and I miss her now that she has gone home.  The reward is a new-found closeness that is different in nature to what we had before.  I guess we are both mothers now and share that in addition to our relationship as mother and daughter.