Something I've been thinking about lately... is parents.

Everybody has them but everyone's relationships with their parents are different. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

And most people who have decent relationships with their parents will defend their parents style because they grew up with it, they think of it as normal and what parenting should be. At least, that's how it is for me.

Like, my Mum doesn't crawl into my bed early in the morning and cuddle with me while we have D&M's, but she's there for me when I want to talk. She supports me when I need it, she gives me space to be myself and do my own thing, and she doesn't treat me like a baby. She doesn't stay up waiting for me to come home late at night, or fret or make me leave notes saying where I am. But she buys me all my favourite foods without me needing to ask, and if my room gets terribly messy, she cleans every inch without asking for thanks. My Mum is terribly selfless. She's works herself ragged looking after me and providing for our family. I've never doubted that she loves me, or that I could do anything to make her fall out of loving me. If shit hit the fan, I wouldn't have to wonder where she'd be because I know it'd be with me. I read a book once, called Surviving Hitler. It was one of my favourites, and it was about a young boy around 12 who managed to get sent to a concentration camp rather than straight to the gas chambers like his mother and little brother. Sorry, morbid I know. I just finished The Book Thief so that would be why Nazi's are on my mind, but the boy said that when he pictured their final moments, he pictured his mother holding his younger brothers hand and comforting him, and that gave him comfort.

Maybe as I have a mother and younger brother, that's why I was always able to picture it, but if it were my Mum, she'd do that too. She'd cuddle us up and even if she knew what was about to happen, she wouldn't let it slip, she'd just soothe us and be the adult while we cried.

I really, really love my Mum. She's just good. I suppose since on Exchange, when we talk about our parents, we have to describe them with a bit more insight because none of our friends have met them so we start to think of them more as people, with their own personalities, not just as 'Mum and Dad'. Jen describes her parents as 'just, kind. Really, really kind.' I like that.

I think if I was to pick a word for my Mum, it'd be selfless.

She may not be the warmest, most affectionate, hands on Mother, that's not her and that's not me, but if we were Jews and there was only room for one of us to hide in a basement from the Nazi's, she'd let me be the one, no question.

She has her own things that make her happy, of course, that's healthy, and as we get older, she is getting more involved in her own happiness again, but she pretty much gave up the last 10 years of her life to raising me and my brother and we suck. And we are literally the worst. My whole childhood, the latest Mum ever got up in the morning (and this was sleep in day)- 9 o clock. I don't even remember the last time I was awake that early.

Mum's are superheroes.