We think we’re talking about the 11+ or goalies or whether it’s better to learn classical piano or bass guitar – but what we’re actually talking about is who with think we are.

One of the great challenges of parenting is the invitation it offers to continually reassess your identity.

Maybe you’re someone who has always considered herself to be a nice person. Taking care of people’s feelings and helping them feel good is what you do and who you are and what you always have been…

…and then you have a daughter whose brain is wired in a way that means empathy does not come naturally to her. She tends to blurt out exactly what she thinks and isn’t able to understand that it’s hurtful, not to say shocking, to be on the receiving end of her comments.

One reason why this situation is difficult for the mum is that it challenges her identity. Can she continue to think of herself as an empathetic person when she has a daughter who isn’t?  How can she have faith and confidence in her daughter, as a mother surely needs to do, when her own sense of self is built on her belief that she doesn’t hurt other people – and that matters?

A father who is passionate about rugby might have a similar difficulty if he has a son who hates sport and who feels – and looks – clumsy in his body. If the dad has developed his own sense of masculinity through being a flanker on the rugby pitch, his son challenges him to recognise there are other ways of being a man.

Time and time again, I find being a parent causes me to question the ideas I have about myself. Did I really take such pride in getting full marks in spelling tests?  Is my identity rooted in something as flimsy as that?  It would seem that is. Why else do I feel uneasy if my child doesn’t do the same?

We all emerge into adulthood with stories that we tell ourselves about who we are – clever, middle-class, well-liked, sporty, funny, musical, whatever….  And these stories are important. They give us confidence and a way of navigating the world of work into which we thrust our adult selves.

But if we have kids who aren’t well-liked or sporty or whatever our particular thing is, it raises a question. How would we have survived without that story from which our identity was formed? It’s a deep question. And it’s what we’re all exploring as we chatter away about whether what school our child is going to, whether our daughter is gifted and talented, whether our son has special needs..

In preparing my talk, I’ve noticed that I have felt in a very quiet place around sexuality issues in recent years and found it almost unbearable listening to debates about the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill currently going through Parliament.

It’s not that I’m not political.  Sexuality is a very political issue affected by the laws of the land that need changing, so some people have got to argue about it. There was a time when I would have been quite happy to be one of those people. Indeed I would have wanted it.

But now when those same arguments are being rehearsed over and over again in the The Mail,  The Sun, on Newsnight, on the Today programme, I find myself wincing and covering my ears (or eyes, depending…)

I don’t want to shout about it.  I don’t want to argue about it – though I CAN. I just want to metaphorically take off my shoes and recognise that when we are talking about sexuality, we are indeed on holy ground.

I am enormously grateful to have my experience articulated so very accurately.  (And it’s interesting that it was a man who did this for me.)  I would like to share it as Mother’s Day approaches.

“After many years of talking with women about their motherhood experiences, it is clear to me that almost without exception, the birth of her baby (especially her first one) is a central event in a woman’s life, in equal parts miraculous and traumatic, packed with unforgettable emotions and implications.

“For most women it is an event so primitive and profound as to be difficult to fully assimilate or put into words. It is a story that never gets fully told, not even to the mother herself, and therefore remains a partly-known unmovable cornerstone in the construction of her life story.

“Whether the birth experience was good or bad or a mix of the two doesn’t matter.  The memory remains vivid, no matter what.”

Exactly.

From The Birth of a Mother – How the Motherhood Experience Changes You Forever by Daniel Stern

Do you know that feeling of having told a half-truth? It’s not about telling a lie. It’s about settling for less than the truth deserves, neglecting to tell the most important part of a story.

The truth – the full truth – is that many months before I had an NHS local business card, I had another one beautifully designed by lower case design, which said: “Jo Ind – Writer” on it.

When I left the Birmingham Post and became self-employed earlier this year, I was asking myself who I am and what I do.

I could have tried to sell myself as a journalist, editor, teacher, manager, consultant, social-media-thingy because I am all of those things but it seemed to me that what I am, at heart, is a writer. Everything else I do comes out of that.

That was the simple  – and deeply truthful – message that I put on my business cards.

But for some reason I didn’t share that at the time. I shared my position at Maverick TV instead.

Well, I am deputy site editor with NHS local and do you know what? I thoroughly enjoy it.

But before that I was a writer. And when I am old and grey (perhaps I should say older and greyer) I will still be writer.

That is what I am and that is what I need to say.

That’s all.

(Clearly I’m not a photographer. But I’m getting Photoshop next week, so I hope to learn how to improve the images on my blog very soon.)

I know she has my best interests at heart – as I do hers. It’s not uncommon, even in the best of organisations, to feel a degree of ambivalence towards your employers.  You are prepared to work hard and put yourself out, but, quite rightly, there are limits as to how far you will go on their behalf.

I don’t feel like that towards my new boss. I would go to the ends of the earth for her and her family. She has my complete, unconditional support.

I love being self-employed. It rocks.

Earlier this week, as part of a feature I was writing for The Birmingham Post, I went with family historian Paul Wilkins to Birmingham Central Library to trace my family tree and discovered, amongst other great worthiness, that I am a direct descendant of Elizabeth Fry, the woman who reformed prisons in the nineteenth century and is commemorated on the back of a fiver.

Now I’m trying to work out how it makes me feel.