FAMILY MATTERS by Jude Dobson

It is ironic, really, that I write this copy about Mother's Day balancing the laptop on my knee in the car while waiting for my son at yet another theatre rehearsal. The mother in the car in front of mine is filling in the hour watching a DVD, judging by the flickering that penetrates the darkness.
Another mother, across the road, is shuffling sheets of paper and making notes on them. Yet another escaped the waiting game by donning her running shoes. I expect she'll be back, suitably exercised, within the hour.
This vignette of life as I see it right now probably sums up the mother-hood experience. We are all here for our children and, while doing so, fitting what we need to do in our day around everything else. Except, perhaps, for the DVD watcher. She's probably catching up on the stuff she never gets to watch normally in a busy life. Correction. A sleepy child has just emerged from the car, so the DVD was likely keeping the sibling entertained.
In a couple of weeks the car park mothers will have disbanded, because the show their kids are rehearsing for - National Youth Theatre's Peter Pan - will have just finished. In a rush of blood to the brain earlier in the year I saw the opportunity for all three of my kids to be in the same production. Come Mother's Day I will, of course, think it was worth all the running round (this is the fourth time today I have driven in and out of this car park) when I will have seen them all on stage.
Motherhood has a lot of "prep" time in the job description followed by moments of marvellous joy when you see it all come together for your kids and you feel immensely proud of their achievements, big or small.
It starts with birth, really. The hours of labour and all that huffing and puffing, when you really wonder whether this was a good idea after all, are promptly forgotten and forgiven when you hold a squidgy, blinking wee bubby in your arms.
The moment your child says to their host, "Thank you for having me" without having to be reminded is another moment when you think the 10 million reminders finally must have sunk in.
Then there's the groundwork you put in as you take advantage of opportunities to discuss the myriad social situations the kids might come across as they grow up. The older they get, and the more immediate those situations become, there's more cringe factor possibilities, plus, it seems I know a lot less than I used to when they were younger.
That you're just mum works both ways. If the recipient is feeling unsure, I can say something complimentary or supportive only to be told I am biased because I'm mum and of course your mum tells you that. I'll keep saying it anyway. Or alternatively, because I am mum, I know very little about the subject - be it homework stress and exams, the right clothing choices, or the way other kids think or act.
I do remind them I wasn't born aged 43 and have, in fact, been through all the same things as them, but sometimes that's better left unsaid. It's not a competition. I just hope when some chats don't go so well that earlier ones are embedded in there somewhere.
At least the 6-year-old still thinks most of what I say is bound to be right. I told her exactly how many leaves had fallen off a tree yesterday and she was pretty impressed.
At times I feel a bit like "muzak". Always steadfastly there in the background, sometimes singing the song they love to hear, sometimes just audible, others not. 
When my son jumped back in the car and asked me what I was writing about, I asked him what he thought mother-hood was like. After a moment to think he came up with "hard work, but lots of fun". Yep, sounds about right.