What is it About Your Mother?

A dear friend and I had coffee Thursday, a hastily arranged date to catch up on our lives. But this time, she had terrible news to convey about her adult daughter. As I listened to her story, it ended (as all these stories do) with her anguish that perhaps it was her parenting that somehow resulted in her daughter's violent act.

Now think about calling your mother. Do you sometimes dread it? Put it off? Does she tend to give you unsolicited advice? Or, treat you -- still -- as a child?

I always kept bad news from my mother if I could. Who wants to tell your mother your marriage is crumbling apart, or you're losing your house? It's so much easier to say "Everybody's Fine" (the name of a great movie starring Robert DiNiro about adult children and what they tell, and don't tell, their parents.) I always figured that by telling my mom that everybody was fine, it was in her best interest.

The irony here is that whatever your relationship with your mother, NO ONE ON EARTH is as interested in you as she is. And when your mother is gone, this fact above all others will be front and center. You get a promotion at work: your partner is thrilled, your kids are proud of you. But it is your mother who would be happiest, proudest, hanging on every detail before she runs to brag to her friends!

Adult kids may not realize this, but you and your lives are our main topic of conversation with our friends. We love to talk about our kids and how proud we are of them. This fact was brought to light for me one day many years ago when my kids were small. I had dropped them off at mom's in Whittier and then stopped to get gas before I ran some errands and went out to lunch.

The gas station attendant (that's how long ago this was!) was filling my car with gas and he looked at me and said, "You have the most beautiful children." I was shocked, realizing quickly he had mistaken me for someone else. I even glanced in the backseat to see if they were there, in their car seats, while he was commenting.

"Excuse me, I think you have me mistaken for somebody else," I said, briefly wondering if the guy was some weird pervert. "You are Kymry and Amber's mother, aren't you?" he said, causing my jaw to drop open. How in the Hell did this guy know my children? Major creepy!

He saw my shock and quickly explained. "Your mom is a customer here, and she always brings in the latest pictures of your kids and tells me what they're doing," he said, continuing to pump gas.

OMG. My mother is showing pictures of her grandkids to the gas station attendant?! Yikes! Can you imagine her pulling up and whisking out the pocket photo album while he's a captive audience, pumping her gas? And him, probably all of 19, having to be polite as she shows him photo after photo? And he recognized me from the photos.

I was mortified. Only later, long after my mom died, did I realize the depth of love that act was. At the time -- as a young mom myself, I only saw it as highly embarrassing.

It's highly difficult business, being somebody's mother. And the biggest myth of parenting is that you do most of your "mothering" when the children are little. It's the adult children, with their careers and relationships and stumbles in life, that require the most of us.

Comments

[Soumitro Sen]

I just loved this one, Dixie. Beautiful writing! And yes, I did refer my mom to go read it.

[Lynn Wenzel]

Thanks Dixie. I adored my mother above all others and she me. But it wasn't until she finally passed away after a long struggle with cancer, that I realized I was now truly an orphan. No one would EVER love me the way she did, there was no "home" to go to anymore. I believe it was Robert Frost who said, "Family is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Since 1994, I've had no one who "has to take me in." Now I'm the one for my kids. It's a free floating feeling at times, one that puts you in touch with your own ephemeral stay. I KNOW how much my mom would have loved my grandchildren. I only wish she were here to be with them.

[Dixie Redfearn]

Don, thank you for sharing that. Beautiful! I had an experience akin to yours when my kids were a bit older, maybe 12-ish. It was the same chaos, whining, chores not done, etc. Out of nowhere, I got up and announced I was leaving. I said, "I quit. I can't do this anymore...I'm running away from home!" With that I got my keys and left. I don't even remember where I went that night, but when I got home the house was immaculate.

[Don Pelton]

Beautiful reminiscence, Dixie. Thank you.

I had an opportunity -- when our son was six and our daughter two -- to learn a bit more firsthand about what it's like to be a mother.

I spent that year as a "househusband," taking care of Paul and Laura full-time, doing most of the cooking, laundry, shopping, etc, while I also worked part-time in a daycare center.

There's a lot to say about that time, but one big unforgettable lesson I learned is that whoever is the primary caretaker becomes -- so to speak -- part of the background, taken for granted with respect to those essential domestic services.

Here's how I described (in an essay I wrote at the time) one typical day:

"I remember one particularly hectic day, after going to the Employment Department with the kids in tow, then to the grocery store, then home at last, past lunchtime, past naptime, the kids whining and whining and whining. I had just put all the grocery bags on the linoleum floor in our little kitchen. We were all miserable. The whining was incessant. Something went adrift in my brain. I got down on the floor on my back, among the grocery bags, and just stared up at the ceiling, completely defeated. Strangely, this had the odd result of interrupting the melodrama. Paul and Laura stopped crying and just stood over me, looking at me in puzzlement. I could almost imagine their thoughts: Dads aren't supposed to lie on the floor!

One of the great, influential books which I read during that period was Arthur and Libby Coleman's Earth Father, Sky Father. In their view, father in our traditional, patriarchal system, is a distant and awesome figure, like Zeus on his throne. His power is in the world. He is like a celebrity in his children's eyes. When he comes home after a day of great accomplishment, they are excited and thrilled by his presence. He is the "Sky Father." All the while, Mom's power, because it is so intimate and familiar, is taken for granted. It is part of the background.

I learned two great, consoling things from this book. First, it is possible to be an "earth father." Men have an innately nourishing side. There is much support, surprisingly, in myth, for the image of a nourishing male. We have so relegated the soft, nesting virtues to the feminine in this culture that it is easy to miss this fascinating reality. One almost has to experience it to believe it. It was helpful to me to have this interpretation of my own experience.

Second, I learned that the one who takes on the role of day-to-day nourisher, will necessarily be taken for granted, and become, so to speak, part of the background. This meant that if I truly wanted to become an earth father (rather than the traditional and distant Sky Father) I would have to willingly give up that heady celebrity status. Thanks to the Colemans' book, I decided to make that bargain consciously. I've never regretted that decision, but I still sometimes feel a melancholy longing for that lost heroic status."