Jane Phare and her son, now aged 16. Photo / Jeff Brass
At an age-and-stage when friends and siblings are sharing endless photos of their grandchildren, Jane Phare is drawing on reserves to raise a teenage son.
I love Mother's Day. I don't expect a present or even breakfast in bed. But I do expect a card, with heart-felt words written by The Son. (He's at an age when I have to listen to his point of view and his instructions were, "Don't put my name in the paper!")
The truth is, those words make up for a lot, namely the exhaustion, the exasperation, the frustration and repetitive monotony - "Can you PLEASE tidy your room?" - of raising a teenager who, at the age of 5, told a parent on a school trip, "You're not the boss of me!"
I keep all the cards in a fire-proof cabinet, in a special file of their own. There are gluey, spangley ones made at daycare that melted my heart when I came home from work; and the slightly less-sticky ones from primary school days written carefully in pencil.
"Dear Mum, You are so speshil to me. you where loveing caring aspeshly Nice."
Spelling back then was a work in progress. But it's the ones written in more recent years that I love, the boy-in-an-adult's-body messages that make me laugh but also make me realise that despite the moody grunts and the fact that nowadays I have to remind him to give me a "mum hug", he does notice and appreciate what I do.
On Mother's Day, there it is in print: "You are the best mum in the whole entire world" and he lists all the reasons why. Sometimes it's just the scrambled eggs, maple bacon and hash browns. Several years ago I was "the best mum because sometimes you stop the car to let me catch Pokemon".
Once he wrote, "Thanks for overriding Dad's decisions and letting me go out or stay longer." I had to hide that one.
He always adds something to make me laugh, something that indicates, "Don't take this too seriously. Like: "PS, still waiting for a husky." Or instructions like, "Lift the flap on your left" with a message underneath: "Can you please get me breakfast?"
Last year: "Thank you for everything you do for me and making me have the best life possible. Words can't describe how much I love you." Smitten, I examined the illustration on the left-hand side of the card.
He'd drawn a smiling stick-figure of me, wearing a tiara and Nike sneakers (which I don't own). My outstretched arms are holding a smoking bong in each hand, and the speech bubble says "Crepes are ready!!" a reference to the massive weekend brunches I make regularly for The Son and his mates. Where did he learn to draw bongs?
As an older mum, my life is way different from friends my age. While they're busy knitting and booking trips to visit their grandchildren, I'm dropping my son and his friends at a party at a time I'd rather be in bed. Or cooking pizzas at 11pm. Each night I send a "streak" to him on Snapchat (we'll hit 585 today). My Snaps are arty, thoughtful. His might be a sock on the floor, or a black screen.
"You do what?" my friends ask when I mention streaks.
While they're watching Bridgerton or Ozark on Netflix, I endure Ozzy Man on YouTube. Mind you, I have to admit Ozzy Man's reviews of Johnny Depp v Amber Heard are quite funny - squeaky chair, Rottenborn, long-suffering judge and all.
My older brother and younger sister have eight grandchildren between them, including two new babies this year. So one minute I'm the doting great aunt, sending presents and admiring their sweet faces on my phone. The next minute I'm checking the Find My Phone location to make sure The Son is still where he's supposed to be, and visiting shops with intolerably loud music to shop for sneakers and T-shirts.
But you know what? I've loved every minute of it. It's taught me patience I didn't know I had. I've learned the questionable lyrics of several rap songs simply because I've heard them on long drives to SoundSplash or trips away with five teenagers. I've learned about hood rats (ratty kids who don't go to school and think they are gangstas) and eshays (the Australian version of hood rats).
I've learned to sniff out a vape a mile off. The Son gave up on those a couple of years ago after I confiscated three in the space of a few months and he ran out of hiding places. Inside the breast pocket of his old school blazer, which was zipped up in a coat bag at the back of the wardrobe, was impressive. So was his mother's pat-searching technique.
Mums with boys tell me my main job is to keep him alive until he is 25 when the rational part of his brain is fully developed. When he was born we bought a 5-star safety rated car with front and side airbags and bolted the top-of-the-range car seat into the middle of the back seat.
But no one tells you how hard the keep-him-safe part is going to be. His 1997 Honda Integra definitely doesn't have side airbags or a five-star safety rating. Boys, I've discovered, do dumb, irrational things and then gleefully tell you about it later.
He back flipped off a high bridge above an estuary ("Did you even check if the tide was in?"); jumped off a three-storey roof into a swimming pool (no words); was caught speeding in his Honda ("Thank you, Constable Chambers, for bringing him home that night.").
But in among all the trauma and worry, there are sweet moments when I realise there is a beating heart in there somewhere, that the bursting love I feel for my son is, in some small way, returned. On my birthday last year, he took me on an outing. We climbed up Bastion Pt, into the bush, and sat in a spot looking out to sea. He even remembered beach chairs. A Thermos of tea and egg sandwiches would have been nice but really, it was perfect.
He climbed trees and threw sticks to the dog. I watched him and thought, when did he stop holding my hand? When did he stop liking peas? When did he stop wanting my opinion? When did he stop dropping wet towels on the floor? Actually, I jest. I don't think that will ever stop.
We took selfies on Bastion Point. Then he looked at his phone and said, "So . . . do you think we should be heading back now."
To all the mothers of young boys (and girls for that matter) out there, I say bottle those moments, save those keepsakes and cards. Suddenly the baby, toddler, small boy, big boy and adolescent is all grown up. And somehow you are too busy being a mum to notice it happening.
In an ode to her 22-year-old son Australian writer and author Mia Freedman says you never get to properly say goodbye "to all the little people" who grow up and change, little people that you never see again.
"But while we know they love us, their lives no longer spin around their mother as their main axis, " she wrote. "We are not the sun around which they spin."
So I'm looking forward today's treasure, my 2022 Mother's Day card which, by the time he wakes up, will be early afternoon. Last year he signed off with: Thank you for putting up with all my s**t."