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Parental Truths number three

18th April 2007 by Helena 4 Comments  

 Never mind the vinaigrette, last night I felt totally overcome with an overwhelming and heavy sense of responsibility. I looked around the table at my three children. They were all happily eating, arguing over who should have laid out the napkins and whether Jesus had created my hair (actually he didn’t, Rodolfo Valentin did).

Suddenly I thought; “Help, their whole happiness, health and lives are in my hands.”

I think in part I am feeling like this because next week I go away. I have one more luxury spa to visit in the Caribbean (it’s such a tough assignment) and am going to spend the week being pampered and also finishing the book which I said I would get to my agent by the end of April.

Most sane people would be busy packing their bikinis, waxing their legs and shouting ‘yippee’ at the thought of a week in the Caribbean. Not me. As I walked into my son’s room this morning and smelled his yummy, gorgeous smell my only thought was “I can’t live without this for a week”.

But of course I can, and I will, and the children will be fine with ‘Mami’ Chantal and ‘Papi’ Gilbert who spoil them and adore them and do all the things with them I will never do like go to McDonalds, drink Coca-Cola and watch Spiderman in French.

I know from past experience that once I get on that plane and start thinking about the book my angst diminishes, but that doesn’t make it any easier to cope with now.

My husband meanwhile is in Delhi, hanging out with my best friend. He helpfully emailed me this morning to tell me she “has not one wrinkle and looks great”. So is the answer to staying young living in India, surrounded by younger men (she works on an Indian version of a FHM-style Mag) and not having three children? If so, it’s too late for me.

I’ll just have to accept my wrinkles and go and smell my son’s pyjamas.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Books, Children, Parental truths, blog --> Tagged With: number, parental, three, truths

4 thoughts on Parental Truths number three

  • aminah says:
    18th April 2007 at 12:16 pm

    Oh I know exactly what you are talking about…I will be travelling to Beijing and I am dreading leaving the 2 single most important people in my life; my children.
    Good luck and enjoy!! Your kids will be in safe hands, coca cola and all!!

  • Debio says:
    18th April 2007 at 6:56 pm

    Not enough is written exploring the separation of mothers and children, either during childhood or when they have left the family home.

    I suffered horribly when my daughter went to boarding school – and that was only part-time!

    I suffer now when she merely returns to day school from a few weeks holiday.

    But separate we must – it is the natural way of things – for the children and mothers too.

    Have a wonderful working break!

  • Elle says:
    18th April 2007 at 9:34 pm

    My children’s father lives in a different country so they go back and forward every holiday and half the summer one. The very first time I felt my heart was ripped out and, like you, I buried my head in their pillows to pick up their smell.

    Fast forward some years. They are both 8, travel on their own as ‘unaccompanied minors’ (bad Mummy, badbadbad Mummy!!) and I LOVE IT!

    Guilt-free me time. Children adore it, ex-husband and his family love it and new husband and I wouldn’t want to be without it. Yes of course, I miss the fun bit of parenting, the wonderful weird conversations you can have with 8-year olds, the smell of my daughter’s hair, the way my son plays with my hands if he is near me. But the freedom, the not having to think about them, the ‘me’ time as supposed to the ‘Mummy’ time.

    Enjoy it as I’m sure you will do to a certain extent.

  • Julia says:
    19th April 2007 at 10:32 pm

    Hmmmm the smell of children especially the smell of sleeping children. The musky male aroma of my 5 year old in his bed.
    Love Johnson’s baby lotion, baby wipes, talc, bubbble bath too.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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