I love my mum, but I try to be the mother she wasn’t

I distinctly remember last Mother’s Day. I cried that day. I was in trouble for teaching cellmates a Chinese song about loving one’s mum.

Because of the more than three years I was away, she’s had to grow up without me. There is nothing I cherish more than the moments she needs me, the chats we have about how she sees the world. When I was in grade two and pushed into a ditch by a school bully, she had a word with him and even threatened to give him a belting.After we came to Australia, she worked the afternoon shift at Peter’s Ice Cream, so for four years, I only saw her on weekends. She was busy then, too, teaching Chinese at schools and in homes. Her idea of fun was solving maths problems with my dad.

Cheng Lei with her mum in Milan earlier this year. “Just as she’s not trying to be any type of mum, I am not expected to be any type of daughter.” Maybe her aversion to expression has made me more articulate. Maybe her inability to show affection has made me more tender with my kids. Maybe her apathy has given me more freedom in the choices I make.

My mum has never held me to any convention. Just as she’s not trying to be any type of mum, I am not expected to be any type of daughter. I am just accepted as her daughter, and she loves me in her own way.

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