Róisín Ingle ... on less work, more play

The problem with having written a book about daughters and their relationships with their mothers is that I now know far too much.

I know too much about the mother issues daughters hold on to for their whole lives. I know about the potency of recurring critical remarks about daughter’s hairstyles, casually thrown out by mothers. I know the damage done by comments about a daughter’s life choices, emitted tightly from the corner of a mother’s mouths. I know the sense of failure daughters feel when they sense their mothers are disappointed in them. About the simmering betrayal and loss that can consume daughters when their mothers are absent, either physically or mentally. Mothers must never be absent. It is The Law.

I'm not saying this tension doesn't occur between sons and mothers or between sons and fathers, but a couple of years ago I spent six months laughing, crying and being intrigued by the stuff that goes on between daughters and their mothers, so that particular can of worms is more tangible to me. And after all that research and writing for The Daughterhood, the book I wrote with Natasha Fennell, there are things – having two daughters of my own, and having a mother of my own – I wish I didn't know.

Sorry to state the bleeding obvious but we parents, we mothers, leave an indelible mark.

People have said some mean things to me in my time, but the worst thing anyone said to me recently was the other night. This person was just telling her truth, she didn’t mean to hurt me, which makes it a bit more bearable.

My six-year-old daughter was sad going to bed. She was missing her Daddy who had gone up North to watch a boxing match and a football match. (He Time.)

My daughter was sad and she wanted to explain her sadness to me.

She said: “Mum, it’s not that I don’t miss you when you are not here, but you are not here a lot of the time, and Daddy is always here. So I really miss him.”

And then she cried. Exhausted tears slaloming down her cheeks as I snuggled into their saltiness and tried to defend my case.

“I am here, though, I’m here a lot.”

“Not as much as Dad is here.”

“I am ...”

“But you go out to work things at night and in the morning you never make us breakfast ...”

“... that’s because, you know I find mornings a bit difficult, I ... “

“... and even when you are here you are working. On your phone and on your computer ...”

“ ... but I have to work.”

“I know that and that’s why I don’t miss you much when you aren’t here but I do miss Daddy.”

I don't miss you much when you aren't here but I do miss Daddy.

My poor jayzizing, motherheart.

In hindsight, this was probably the worst time I could have possibly chosen to watch the Shonda Rhimes Ted Talk. I thought it was going to be all about her work as writer and producer of programmes such as Grey's Anatomy and Scandal.

It was in a way but it turned out mostly to be all about parenting versus work and about her three daughters. And about this one time her toddler daughter said “Momma, want to play?” and she decided, in that instant, that she, a workaholic person addicted to the “hum” of being a total and utter titan in the workplace, was from then on going to answer a big fat “yes” when that question arose.

And then she said something which made me want to reach into the YouTube screen and scream: “me toooo Shonda! I know EXACTLY what you mean.”

She said: “I wish it were that easy, but I’m not good at playing. I don’t like it. I’m not interested in doing it the way I’m interested in doing work. The truth is incredibly humbling and humiliating to face. I don’t like playing. I work all the time because I like working. I like working more than I like being at home. Facing that fact is incredibly difficult to handle, because what kind of person likes working more than being at home?”

What kind of person? And here’s another question: What kind of mother?

I remember chatting about parenthood with my younger sister once. We talked about the things other mothers do, the things you think that maybe you should also be doing.

And I said with conviction. “All we can do is our best”. And she said with conviction. “But is it our best? Is it really?”

What Shonda Rhimes did when faced with a question was say yes. She said yes to less work and to more play.

This Mother’s Day and every day, I’m with Shonda.

The Daughterhood by Róisín Ingle and Natasha Fennell is published by Simon & Schuster