Róisín Ingle: Nagging my child has turned me into a monster mother

What if I gave up nagging? Like just stopped nagging forever? I was asking my daughter but she wasn’t really listening. She was more interested in watching an episode of Stranger Things followed by an episode of Gilmore Girls with a little chaser of Modern Family. We were on a mother-daughter bonding weekend in west Cork, holed up in the splendid Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa, while the wind howled outside and the rain came down in a half-hearted drizzle.

From our window we could see the seagulls and surfers and swimmers wading into the Atlantic, caring less about the elements. We snuggled deeper into the duvet, trying not to leave too many crumbs on the sheets from our chocolate chip cookies. “We are very lucky,” I reminded her for the fourth time that day. She made vague noises of agreement. On my television, Lorelai Gilmore was apologising to her daughter for an irrational argument she’d started. “A crazy, evil spirit took over my body…she’s gone now,” Lorelai was saying.

I’d been counting in my head all the ways I’d nagged my daughter since this morning when we got on the train at Heuston. There’s no catering on Irish Rail any more, by the way, in case you hadn’t heard. During the pandemic, on-board catering was suspended and, according to the people in charge of the situation, will not be sorted until 2023. I wonder will they put that on the Fáilte Ireland brochures? Come to Ireland where you cannot get a cup of tea on an intercity train. Ah, you will, you will, you will.

My nag list that morning was epic. I’d nagged about: untied shoelaces (so dangerous!), a water spillage (“look what you’re doing!”), the volume on the laptop (”think of the other passengers!”), a stain on her sweatshirt (”what even is that?!”) and performed a lengthy monologue about the importance of reading more books and watching less TV (“when I was your age…!”) At some point in my 13-year parenting career, despite knowing better and having read a lot of manuals which clearly point out nagging is counterproductive, I became that kind of parent. I could stop though, I reflected as we sprawled in the hotel bed. I could just give it up, like overnight. “Yeah, maybe,” said my daughter, unconvinced.

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Earlier, she had her nails done in the spa and I got a facial. The lovely young woman slathering my face with lotions and potions told me that while getting her nails done earlier, my daughter had picked the beautician’s brains about a dilemma she said she was grappling with. “She wanted my advice, she was so cute,” she said. “Well, I suppose you are a therapist,” I said and tried not to feel jealous.

As we cycled, I nagged... About her saying I shouldn’t talk so much to strangers because it was embarrassing. About her shoelaces (again)

After our treatments we went swimming in the hotel’s seawater therapy pool. It was a bit like being in the Atlantic Ocean, visible just outside the window, except this water was 31 degrees. We floated on salt water and got pummelled therapeutically by bubbles. And then we went back to our room to do more lazing about. We are only starting Stranger Things now. We’re on season one even though everybody else is watching the newly released fourth season of the sci-fi drama set in the 1980s. We watched Winona Ryder’s character, driven demented by the disappearance of her son, string up Christmas lights to try to communicate with him even though everyone else thought she was crazy. I told my daughter about the time I was in a bathroom at a gig and I told a girl fixing her make-up in the mirror that she looked exactly like Winona Ryder. “Turns out it was Winona Ryder,” I told my daughter. She was impressed but not as much as I’d hoped.

The next morning, we went for a bike ride, along the coast, across the causeway. My daughter, a deeply urban child, worried that our bikes would “disturb” the cars on the twisting country roads. “We’re sharing the road,” I told her. “And, if anything, the cars should be worrying about disturbing us.” She was amazed to see motorists leaving lots of room, hands raised in greeting. As we cycled, I nagged. About her calling me creepy because I had wanted to watch a bridal party arriving at the hotel. About her saying I shouldn’t talk so much to strangers because it was embarrassing. About her shoelaces (again), they could get caught in the pedals. She pedalled away, fitter than me. I lost sight of her eventually.

I shifted gears, enjoying the solitude. I shifted gears too many times and the chain came off the bike. Walking my bike, I eventually caught up with her. There was a sign for Inchydoney. It’s this way back, I told her. But somehow we ended up in Clonakilty. We’d gone too far. Words were exchanged. Tempers frayed. My daughter sped off again. I freewheeled down an incline and near the model railway village my untied laces became caught in the pedals. Small children gazed out of passing car windows as I struggled to free myself. I turned the bike upside down and managed to fix the chain.

I cycled trying to catch up with her thinking about the episode of Modern Family we’d watched. The three mother characters were up in arms about being demonised by their partners and their kids for their parenting styles. A disgruntled Claire was saying: “Instead of blaming Mom for helping you make the right choices, how about thanking her? You know, it’s not so easy to be the one who always knows best. In fact, it can make you a little tense sometimes.” And then her mother DeDe was saying: “Unfortunately this is what families do, they turn mothers into monsters.”

Or we turn ourselves into monsters, fulfilling the role as though predestined when we could just as easily refuse to be typecast. A mile from the hotel, I saw her waiting for me by a bank of wildflowers and remembered how on the train down to Cork I’d realised I’d forgotten to bring one of my many pairs of reading glasses. I could not read my book without them. “I’ll read your book out loud to you,” my daughter had said, closing the laptop and reading the words, only some of which were age-inappropriate, for five chapters. And we sat there, mother and daughter, monster and child, on a journey together.

roisin@irishtimes.com