Mothers are a special breed of human. Well, most mothers are. Some mothers just shouldn’t have bothered and their kids are going to let them know about it in a big way once they are adults - I salute those kids.

My mother was special in her own way. She was a product of the “Great Depression” - a misnomer is ever there was one. She started her life during the years leading up to World War II and this is probably what shaped her thoughts and actions as an adult. For instance, people who lived during the depression and war years were more likely to be more frugal with their money and less likely to throw anything away that might come in handy. My mum was both of these things.

By the time I got to knowing my mum and remembering things about her, I’d already passed the bonding stages. In fact, my first memory of her is of my first day of school when she “abandoned” me to a bunch of strangers. There were no pre-schools or playgroups around at that time so I apparently went from being a carefree 4 year old with nothing to worry about to a full time kindergartner in one day.

Suffice it to say, someone did a lot of crying that day... yeah, it was me.

As I grew up, I learned little bits and pieces about my mums life prior to her being my mum. She grew up in the Sefton and Auburn areas, her dad was killed during a wartime blackout when he stepped between the carriages of a train at Lidcombe. At one stage she was event the President of the Johnny Ray fan club. She worked at the Tivoli Theatre and met some famous people, she worked on the railways in the Central refreshment room (cafeteria) and got her name in the paper when she refused to make someone a milkshake at closing time. She was friends with Bobby Limb and dawn Lake (google them).

Yeah, my mum was pretty special in her own way.

Growing up, she had a few part time jobs to help make ends meet. My father didn’t really give her enough money to make ends meet so once us older kids went to school, she worked a few hours a day. Despite my fathers inability to want to adequately provide for his family, we did eat well every night, had good birthdays and always had a joyous Christmas. My mums frugality throughout the year paid off when it had to.

Food was an interesting thing. My mum believed that everything needed to be cooked to within an inch of being burnt. Meat had to be extra well done, vegetables couldn’t have any texture to them and desserts were for a special occasion like Christmas. Until I started eating at other peoples houses, I really believed that meat had to be totally gray inside, vegetables had to be mushy and why are we having dessert after a normal meal?

When I started cooking for the family, if the meat had any pink in it, mum made me put it in the microwave because it “wasn’t cooked” and veges still had to be boiled to death. I swear there was more colour in the water than in the actual vegetables.

Christmas day was a fun day throughout my life. As I said earlier, mum used to make sure that this day was extra special for us. Good presents and a full proper Christmas dinner every year despite the fact we lived in a non air-conditioned house in the middle of summer. Roasted beef, lamb and chicken, baked vegetables and a Christmas pudding with custard. Plus, it was the day everyone in the family came to our house (when they were speaking to each other).

In the last few years of mums life, I took over the Christmas dinner arrangements. It was the same food but only immediate family. My two brothers and I would be there to celebrate the day with mum. Her special gift on that day was a bottle of “Passion Pop” - a drink usually reserved for 14 year old girls looking for a fun night. While I organised our dinner, mum would happily drink the glasses of this beverage I would keep refilling for her. It was the only time of the year that she would drink alcohol and she was the happiest drunk I knew.

At my brothers wedding last year, we raised a glass of Passion Pop and toasted this wonderful woman who raised us. The woman who had to be both mother and father to us. The woman who sacrificed so we could have birthdays and Christmases. The woman who made sure that we had clean school uniforms every week. The woman who held us when we were sad or yelled at us when we were bad.

The woman who was my mum.

Fathers day in the great land of Oz was a couple of weeks ago. A day for families to get together in person or online and show the first male influence in their lives some extra special love and celebrate all of the other things they love about having a father or remembering a father who is no longer with them. For the most part, this is a good thing. It’s great to see so many of my friends sharing photos of their fathers on Facebook with short messages of love and appreciation towards them.

Unfortunately, that just makes me feel jealous because I didn’t have that relationship with my father. I lived in the same house as the man for the first 15 years of my life and to this day, I still have no idea who he really was. He was in reality two different people inhabiting the one body. There was the “everyman” that people outside my immediate family knew. Pleasant and conversational, helpful and friendly. You know, the kind of guy you’d invite into your house to meet your family and stay for tea. That’s the man I would have liked to have grown up knowing.
The man I did grow up knowing was an awful human being. A man who was a exceedingly harsh disciplinarian and I’m not talking about a hard slap across the bum with a bare hand, imagine being flogged with the buckle end of a belt or an electrical cable for a minor infraction. A man who drank to excess and angered easily. A man who would give my mother $80 - $100 a fortnight and expect her to feed and clothe 4 children. A man whose final response to an issue was to use his fists - the sight of your father rolling around on the front lawn with the neighbour over a minor dispute about emptying the backyard pool was just embarrassing. Watching him beat my mother in the bathroom because she pointed out that the toilet was leaking was the last straw - that was the night my father died to me.

My mother left my father twice - the first time was soon after the aforementioned beating in the bathroom. That lasted about a month because he convinced her that he could/would change. He would go to AA and get help. HAHAHAHAHA!

My mother finally realised that he was never going to change and we would be better off without him in 1981. He had visitation rights and would come home every weekend to spend “quality time” with us kids but then he would complain that we were never around for him to spend time with us. Of course we weren’t - my older brother and I were teenagers and had lives to live and my younger brother just didn’t like him that much either. I really didn’t have much to do with him throughout the ‘80’s.

Our paths did converge when I joined the railways in 1988. As he worked as a brake examiner at Clyde railway yards and I was a trainee engineman, it was inevitable that we would come across each other. He would proudly introduce me to his workmates as being his son and act as though we were friends. On these occasions, I would try and talk to him but we had nothing in common and I left the freight services soon after and we never really spoke again until he was near his death and asked to see us boys. I did go to the hospital to see him but there was nothing there - no compassion from for his predicament, no apologies from him over the way he treated us. He died a short time later. My younger brother and I never went to the funeral.

When I think about it now, I realise that the old adage that says “the ability to have children, doesn’t mean you should” rings true here. My father was never the parental type. He didn’t know how to be a father and he wasn’t prepared to learn. He could certainly act like one but being a father is a lot more than just going through the motions. It’s teaching kids the lessons in life that they need to be able to deal with every day life. It’s helping out with homework or going to parent/teacher nights. Even the simple things like teaching you how to tie your shoelaces - my father never even taught me that. I was about to go to high school and my uncle had to teach me how to do it.

So you will have to excuse me for not enjoying fathers day. I had a shitty father who was never worth the praise and thanks that other peoples fathers deserve.

So a Happy Fathers day to all the good fathers out there.