Who decided what these roles mean?

I've been thinking about labels.

Not just relationship labels either. This has somehow gone much further than that.

I've always tended to want to know what something is. If I care about someone, I want to know where I stand. If something feels important, I want to know what we're doing.

I think, for a long time, I've mistaken the definition for the safety.

If I know what something is, I know what I'm supposed to expect from it.

Except then I realised something rather obvious that had somehow escaped me completely.

We do this with practically every relationship we have.

Mum. Dad. Sister. Brother. Daughter. Son. Partner.

We give the relationship a name and then, somewhere along the way, we collectively decide that the name comes with a set of rules.

A mum should do this.

A dad should do that.

A partner should behave like this.

A daughter should be this way.

And suddenly I found myself wondering...

Who decided?

Because maybe I've been assuming the label tells me how the relationship should work, rather than allowing the actual people in it to figure that out for themselves.

And then my brain wandered straight into parenthood.

Because seriously, how many people become parents and have absolutely no idea what they're doing?

You can be standing there with a baby in your arms thinking:

Right. Apparently I'm responsible for an entire human now.

And nobody says, By the way, you're allowed to be completely overwhelmed by that.

Because you're Mum.

You're Dad.

That's the role.

So presumably you know what you're doing.

But what if you don't?

What if you're still figuring yourself out? What if you still don't always feel particularly grown up? What if you've got your own stuff going on and suddenly there's another person whose whole life is partly in your hands?

I've often thought there must be parents who would love to sit down with their kids and say:

Look, I love you more than anything, but I've absolutely no idea what I'm doing here. I've never raised a human before.

And I don't mean dumping our emotional overwhelm onto our children.

I mean the ordinary vulnerability of admitting that the person carrying the title of Mum or Dad is still a person.

I've heard so many times that you can't be your child's friend.

You're their parent.

And I get it. There are things that are different. I'm the person who has to make decisions they don't like, set boundaries and occasionally deliver the dreaded Mum speech nobody asked for.

But does that mean friendship can't exist too?

Because maybe I've really fucked that one up.

I don't know.

And that's the honest answer.

My boys aren't finished growing up, so I can't stand here and tell you whether I've got motherhood right or wrong. I don't get to see the finished version yet.

Maybe one day I'll look back and think, Jesus, I got some of that spectacularly wrong.

Or maybe I'll think, Actually, allowing them to know me as a person was one of the best things I could have done.

I don't know.

And suddenly I'm wondering whether we're supposed to know.

What if the role is only the starting point?

Being their mum doesn't tell me what being their mum needs to look like.

They're not generic children.

They're themselves.

And I'm me.

So perhaps the relationship between us has to be something we discover together.

Maybe I can be their mum and still be someone they laugh with.

Maybe I can have boundaries without creating distance.

Maybe I can admit when I've got something wrong without somehow surrendering my position as their mum.

Maybe being their friend doesn't mean I'm not their parent.

Maybe it just means there's friendship inside the parent-child relationship.

And that got me thinking about all of our relationships.

Because perhaps we do this everywhere.

We meet somebody and immediately attach a role to them.

Partner.

Friend.

Mother.

Brother.

Child.

And then we start behaving according to what we think that role means, sometimes without ever asking whether it actually works for the two people involved.

What if the relationship comes first?

What if I don't need to decide what a partner is supposed to be before I know what this particular relationship needs?

What if I don't need to decide what kind of mum I'm supposed to be before I actually know who these people are becoming?

What if the person matters more than the job description?

That's the bit I'm questioning now.

Because I think I've spent a lot of time trying to understand the role so I can make sure I'm doing it properly.

And maybe I'm beginning to realise there isn't a “properly”.

There is just us.

What works.

What doesn't.

What hurts.

What helps.

What makes us feel safe.

What makes us feel loved.

What needs changing.

And sometimes, what needs apologising for.

Maybe that's all relationships really are.

Two or more people continually discovering how to be with each other.

And yes, we're going to fuck it up sometimes.

Obviously.

We're human.

We'll say the wrong thing. We'll react from fear. We'll get defensive. We'll make assumptions. We'll think we're doing the right thing and realise later that we weren't.

But perhaps getting it wrong isn't evidence that we're failing at the relationship.

Perhaps it's just information.

Okay. That didn't work.

Try something else.

I actually find that quite comforting.

Because it means I don't have to have motherhood completely figured out.

I don't have to have partnership figured out.

I don't have to have myself figured out.

And neither does anyone else.

We're all just walking around with these enormous titles attached to us, trying to work out what the hell they mean while simultaneously being expected to live up to them.

Maybe we should loosen our grip on the title a little.

Not abandon it.

Just stop allowing it to do all the thinking for us.

Because perhaps being a mum isn't about knowing exactly how a mum should behave.

Perhaps it's about knowing your children.

Perhaps being a partner isn't about fulfilling some universal relationship checklist.

Perhaps it's about knowing the person you're actually with.

And perhaps being someone's daughter, sister or friend doesn't mean squeezing yourself into whatever shape that role was assigned before you were old enough to question it.

Maybe the relationship gets to become its own thing.

Maybe life really is an experiment.

We try.

We learn.

We fuck up.

We repair.

We try again.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, we become people.

I'm still becoming one.

My boys are still becoming themselves.

So maybe I'm not supposed to know yet whether I got it right.

Maybe neither of us has to.

Maybe raising people doesn't require pretending you've already finished becoming one yourself.