On Mothering Sunday

I present a picture of my mother when she was single
and socially mobile. She had the life she always wanted,
which included travel broadening the mind through enriching
friendships. When she was in Paris August 1956 she was free.

I was barely an abstract idea in some unimagined future for her.

For me there remains a distinct tension between
the selflessness required of a mother to get a child
as near to being the mature self reliant adult,
able to navigate the world to have their needs met,
that the child need to be, and the hardships
 of navigating a marriage where women are barred
from defining themselves on their own terms
    because men believed that to be men it was better
for them to not listen and around everyone,  
life moved too fast to be apprehended.