Motherhood

I've been thinking a lot about mothers lately, for some reason. A friend reminded me recently that every child has a different mother than his or her siblings. For example, the first child drops a pacifier and you sterilize it carefully before giving it back. When your second child comes along, you pick up the dropped pacifier, blow off the visible carpet fibers and give it to the child. The first child's baby book is full of pictures and notes (I kept a diary for the first and only time during my daughter's first year). Your second child is lucky to have his/her name in the book, let alone notes on what gifts you received when he/she arrived!

But there are bigger changes that take place for a mother. You have more (or fewer) responsibilities. Your relationship with your partner is different. You are more (or less) tired or depressed or content than you used to be. All of this impacts your children, of course. (I know you moms out there are resonating with these words. Dads - maybe not so much.)

My sisters are 7 and 8 years younger than me. My childhood and that of my older brother had a father at home. My sisters didn't. That made the level of stress on my mother and my sisters quite different while they were young. Just ask them!

But as Marv said recently, the goal is not to be a perfect mother. It's to do the best you can with the situation you are in and the background you came from. I sure hope my kids think that way, too!

My mother is quite a woman. She grew up in a time that women didn't work very often, but her mother did. I'm sure that affected her expectations for herself. And when she grew into adulthood, she had a different view of life from many of her peers, including my dad. She is a very intelligent, well-educated woman who wanted to contribute to the world through a career, and she did so for 50 years or so. I'm sure that impacted my expectations when I grew up!

Mom summarizes her life with three songs. Bridge Over Troubled Waters (Simon & Garfunkel) refers to her life of counseling as a missionary, college professor and dean, and private counselor. The Impossible Dream is how she describes her desire to be an ordained minister, which she achieved at age 60. I asked her one time when she felt called to the ministry, and she told me she was 19 at the time. No wonder it felt like an impossible dream! The third song she talks about (and any of you who know her know how appropriate this is) is I Did It My Way. She has always marched to her own drummer. She never goes to breakfast at the facility where she lives, and they have accepted that she's not a morning person. Just don't ask her to be happy about a 5 a.m. fire drill!

I think given her background and history she probably did the best she could. That makes her a successful mother. We still have some issues, but I can let a lot slide now that I understand her better - and also understand me better. She gets five pie slices.

We attended "Motherhood - the Musical" this week. It is a locally written play, but should be everywhere. It is hysterical! (For some reason, most of the audience was women. Marv was a little out-numbered, but he's a good sport.) The play concerns one woman who is about to give birth to her first child, and three neighbors who are "experienced" mothers, telling her some of what to expect. It ranges from the excitement of finding a bargain at Costco to the constant demands of children to the joys of being special because you're "Danny's Mom." Four pie slices for sure.