Before interviewing my mum I came up with some questions that I wanted to ask her and to find out a bit more about. The interview went well as my mum was obviously comfortable being interviewed by me so I feel that I got the best possible answers. It was interesting to find out a bit more about my mums early life and what it was like for her growing up during the 1960s and how different it was to the way that I have been brought up. A lot of my mum’s answers really interested me and gave me inspiration to make effective images, I found that this project has really helped me to get a better understanding of her and how she sees her role which I want to be able to express my views and images well.

Questions to ask: 

Q. Who are you/what defines you?

“My name is Susan, I’m fifty-six years old. I’m a mother of three girls and a grandmother.”

Q. What is your role in the household?
e.g. mother, provider, carer etc

“I do all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, umm”

Q. Do you enjoy this role?

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t exactly say I enjoy it, umm, sometimes I do. But it’s just what I do.”

Q. Does this role ever challenge you, do you ever wish your role was different?

“No I don’t wish that I had a different one, sometimes I wish it was easier, a bit easier. If other people would help me but I guess I’m a bit, a bit of a control freak so I tend to wanna do things in a certain way so it’s difficult.” 

Q. Growing up what were your mum and dads roles in the household?
– Do you think this has affected how you see your role?

“umm, growing up my mum’s role was very similar to mine, umm. My dad worked, my mum had a little part-time job but she was the main umm homemaker. She did all the cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids just like I do but the only difference is that I’ve got a full-time job whereas she worked part-time umm. So it’s harder.. I think.”

Q. How do you think their roles have affected you and what you think is expected of you?

“Probably, probably the way I’ve been brought up, you know, has made me the person I am and that why I..I do the things I do because in my house, when I was growing up, it was expected that the woman did those kind of things.”

Q. Why did you not bring me up Catholic like you were brought up? Do you think it’s made a difference?

“No not really, umm. I just wanted to let you make your own choices. Uhh, your dad wasn’t a catholic so when we got married we didn’t get married in a Catholic church  and he was not against catholic, Catholicism but he wasn’t really interested in any religion and at that time I wasn’t practicing catholic whereas I did when I was younger, so I didn’t think that it was right to force it upon you especially when he wasn’t really interested so.. that’s the reason.”

Q. Where both your mum and dad Catholics?

“My dad was a Catholic. My mum wasn’t a Catholic, she was a Protestant and she became a Catholic when she married my dad because they got married in a Catholic church and to do that you both had to be Catholic.”

Q. Where do you work?

“I work in a bank, umm my role is a finance manager.”

Q. How many managers in your department are female?

“At the moment there’s only one, umm. There was a few managers previous to that but people have left, umm. There was about fifteen people in my department. Umm, there’s only two females and at the moment currently I am the only manager there.”

Q. What are your thoughts on feminism?

“I don’t agree with the extremist, extreme views on feminism, umm. Yeah I think women should have rights and I’m no one of these shrinking violets that sits there in the office and lets men walk all over me, I do agree with women having the similar rights but I’m not quite as strong in my views as you are. Umm.. I don’t, I believe there is certain things, and you probably won’t like this, but I believe that there’s certain things that men are better at than women and vice versa and that’s just our makeup.”

Q. Why do you think the two of us have very different views on things such as feminism etc? Is it because of the time I grew up or because of something else?

“Things change over the years don’t they and these days young girl especially, I think, don’t want to have that role. They don’t want to be seen as, you know, the.. the homemaker because they feel that they work equally the same as men so why should they do that. Why should they be the one that does that. Now that, that’s fine and I accept that because yeah I do agree that the men should help out more and probably if I’d instilled that in your dad, initially, then it would have been easier for me. But that was just the way I was brought up and so I just took that role on myself, It’s not as though he forced it upon me, so, it’s probably my own fault really.”

Q. What are your aspirations for me in my life?

“Oh I want you to fulfill you dreams and be the best you can. But it doesn’t mean that to do that you need to be some sort of superstar. As long as you’re happy in yourself and, you know, you’ve done what you wanna do. If that was just getting married and settling down and having a family, if that’s what you wanted to do then I’d be happy with that but knowing you that won’t be. So, I want you to do what you want to do.”