What It’s Like To Be Best Friends With Your Mum

We asked our members, ahead of Mother’s Day.

My mum is my role model, my best friend and one of my favourite people ever.

Most people might say this about their mums, but my mum is different.

I suffer from separation anxiety, but only with my mum. I am constantly fearing ridiculous and highly unlikely ways that she could be taken away from me, and sometimes, it has turned me into a small quivering ball of fear. But who is always there to make me feel better, every single time? My mum.

For some reason, only she can calm me and reassure me that she will be okay. Car rides, plane trips… anytime we would be separated, she would call me, hug me and comfort me. The world would stop shaking and I could carry on through my life.

How many people can do that for you? How many people can save you, every single time?

Like all people, my mum can annoy me (only occasionally, when I’m in a bad mood), embarrass me (only when singing in public, or discussing menstrual cycles in front of my friends) and hurt me (like, once, when she said that my Year 4 history assignment had no facts), and I do all of these things to her too.

All people do this to each other; it is a fact of life. But every single time, I will forgive her, often about two minutes after, as she will do too. This is a wonderful best friend trait.

“Which one of us is your favourite, mum? Come on, just tell us!” This used to be a very common conversation between my sister, mum and I.

“I love you both exactly the same!” she would always answer with a kiss, but we were convinced that she had a favourite. It became like a game, with a point tracking system and everything. Praise? One point. If she snapped at one of us, you’d lose a point. Eventually, we grew out of this, and realised that our mum actually did love us both equally.

You can rarely tell with best friends, even the very best ones, if they like someone just a smidge more than you, perhaps for just a second. But you can always tell with my mum. She will love you to the end of the universe and back, and then more, without fail.

I never had a dad around, since he left when I was two, so my mum raised and loved two daughters all by herself. I know that lots of single parents do this, but that will never make the enormous respect I have in my amazing mum waver.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Congratulations to Molly for winning this writing challenge, answering: My Mum Is My Best Friend. Molly wins a $50 Westfield gift card for her submission. For your chance to win, check out our latest writing challenges in our Comps section. Also, be sure to follow this guide on how to win the writing challenge!

Photo: Paramount.