Poor Mothers/Poor Children
from Behind the Scenes at the Museum, by Kate Atkinson.
Poor Bunty. (12)
….suddenly, an unwelcome note of reality interrupts [her] reverie, somebody’s pulling at Bunty’s dressing-gown and whining in a not very pleasant fashion. (15)
Bunty unclenches the little fists that have fastened on to her hair, and deposits Gillian back on the floor.
Get down,’ Bunty says grimly. ‘Mummy’s thinking.’ (Although what Mummy’s actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire family was wiped out and she could start again.) Poor Gillian!
Gillian refuses to be ignored for long–she’s not that kind of child–and hardly have we had our first sip of tea before we have to attend to Gillian’s needs. For breakfast, Bunty makes porridge….
‘I don’t like porridge,’ Patricia ventures to Bunty. This is the first time she’s tried this direct approach….
‘Pardon me?’ Bunty says, the words dropping like icicles on the linoleum of the kitchen floor (our mother’s not really a morning person.)
‘I don’t like porridge,’ Patricia says, looking more doubtful now.
As fast as a snake, Bunty hisses back, ‘Well I don’t like children, so that’s too bad for you, isnt’ it?’ She’s joking of course. Isn’t she? (16)
I’m sure the first time I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum that I pitied the children. But on my most recent reading, it became clear that those children also grew up to be parents, who repeated the sins and omissions they’d been bequeathed through generations. The mothers were less obvious, but nonetheless sympathetic, characters. Every mother had been mothered inexpertly herself. Each generation of mothers was unprepared for the physical demands of motherhood, and ill-equipped for the emotional ones.
It’s tough being a child, but it’s also tough being a mother. Does anyone feel prepared for it, or good at it? Or do we all just muddle through as best we can, with the light we have at the time (as my own mother likes to say)?