In the Company of Mothers

“You are such a good mom.” Ah, I leaned in, these words meaning more to me than my friend could know.

I had been talking about the latest challenges with my young teen, where everything felt new, unfamiliar, and uncomfortable. I took a minute to let the words sink in. It was the kind of thing my mom used to tell me.

My mom and I talked frequently when my baby was a baby, me needing to hear the calm of her voice, steadied by years of mothering. She seemed to meet with ease all the challenges of raising four kids close in age. Or at least that’s the way it seemed to me.

By the time I became a mother, my mom had been a grandparent to nine already, the oldest in college and the youngest just into the double digits. I was late to the game and met motherhood with a fair amount of hand-wringing. Those early days were especially fraught-filled. Was my baby sleeping enough? Eating enough? Hitting all the right growth markers? There was so much to worry about.

My mom didn’t always know how anxious I was, but I would call her just to hear her voice. In my postpartum funk, I couldn’t tell her I was scared and lonely—I don’t know why—but I might instead give her a mundane update of how the day was going with my infant, hoping she could intuit my struggles. I was afraid of my own fear and questioned everything I did.

As my child grew, my mom was a steady source of reassurance and always wanted to know what my little one was up to. I would tell her some tale of my busy toddler, then preschooler, then elementary student. The stories were mostly amusing, but sometimes I was exasperated or uncertain. “You’re doing a good job, Brenda,” she would say. I’d always think, “Really?” It never felt that way. But she knew what I needed to hear.

~

I miss that. My mom is no longer here to comfort or commiserate, to offer hope for parenting through the teen years. She passed away right before the pandemic and right as my child was entering the tween years. Now I find myself among the many motherless daughters out there, feeling my way along. While I know that I am lucky to have had my mom for as long as I did, I still miss her and her unconditional support. And I really want to know how she made it through parenting four kids from infancy to adulthood—especially through the teen years.

The author and her mom Lois.

She used to say that she had a lot of help, especially from my dad when we were all younger. And that having a lot kids close together was just what people were doing at the time. Now she would probably tell me she did the best she could and that she was far from perfect. And that she was also buoyed by a loose network of family, friends, neighbors, and others.

~

I wonder now what she would say about the precocious child who has turned into a strong and independent teenager. I imagine telling her of the latest tale and hearing her say, “Oh, Brenda,” lowering her voice on the “Oh” to add to the sense that she knew it was hard. Or maybe she’d shake her head and murmur words of commiseration. My child is much like one of my siblings, whose teenage years were punctuated by frequent conflict with my parents. Would my mom tell me she could understand the challenges of parenting an iron-willed but sensitive child? Or would she think of herself as a teenager, wishing that she had been nicer to her own mother? I never imagined my mom as a teenager but only as my mom and was surprised when she told me she regretted clashing with her own mom when she was young.

So perhaps this tells me that we never quite get it right and despite the anxiety, the self-doubt, the struggles, and even the loneliness, we are making it through.

My mother leaned on her own sisters, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and I am, too. I am banking on the collective wisdom of this vast community of mothers I am part of. They look like the friend who laughs with me and the one who offers a listening ear or a word of advice and then the one who just tells me I’m doing a good job.

Lessons Learned on a Sick Day

She was up barfing at four. When I arrived hours later, she had pink cheeks, a kitty ears headband, and was play-ready. She assured me it wasn’t really being sick to barf, but pre-school wanted her to stay home. She was sad Mom wasn’t staying home, sad to miss her friends, but game for whatever Grandma brought to the day.

Lemon-lime soda was no longer needed. Water was fine. Munching many plain saltines and a cup of dry cereal made up for a missed breakfast. Within minutes we were on the sofa deep in a Brain Quest card deck working through sequencing challenges, adding, matching letters and words, talking about calendars and telling time on old-fashioned round clocks.

Those clocks sparked the first pronouncement of preschool wisdom. She thought I must have had a clock with numbers in a circle because I am old. I corrected that statement to older. She didn’t buy the change. A teenager had given me the same look when I asked if the general store in a small town carried watches.

With interest in Brain Quest waning, I suggested we start an art project. She turned down the idea because she said she loved to learn things. There wasn’t anything better she could have said if she hadn’t finished with a sympathetic sigh before sharing that it was sad that old people couldn’t learn stuff. That’s not true I replied and told her about a friend who learned another language to work with immigrants, another friend attending university classes, my own tap-dancing studies. She frowned and said maybe I had special friends. That I do.

Even at her age I couldn’t do backward summersaults, so she had me at that, but I didn’t expect to frighten her when I got down on the floor to do a plank next to her. Old people could get hurt doing planks she said. I replied anybody could get hurt doing planks, but we were both strong because we could hold a plank for almost a minute. Then I sat back to watch her attempt head stands and intricate twirls.

We rounded out the day with dressing the cat, coloring paper dolls, and baking a chocolate cake. She looked tired, but happy. Her mother looked tired after an important work day. And grandma drove home, happily tired out after an unexpected play day.

Are You My Mother?

In the classic children’s picture book Are You My Mother? a newly hatched bird falls from its nest and wanders about asking that question of a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a few inanimate objects. He is clueless about his own identity and terribly lost.

You may have been nurtured by a mother possessing all the perfection of Caroline Ingalls or struggled through childhood with a parent who took lessons from Hamlet’s Queen Gertrude. For most people growing up in Mom’s kitchen fell in a more safe and boring middle ground with measured opportunities to learn about yourself and the world. A place where Mom, trusted adults, books, television and other kids helped answer questions whether insignificant or intense.

The maker of peanut butter sandwiches, enforcer of daily tooth brushing, comforter of physical or emotional injuries, was just a woman who happened to be older than you. She wasn’t gifted by the gods with amazing knowledge, a graduate of a secret parenting program, or anywhere near perfect. She didn’t know why 9/11 happened, how to stop social injustice, who to call about global warming. Her job was to make sure you felt loved and protected, often difficult work in an imperfect world.

Discovering that your mother has a masters in labor economics, hides a bag of bodice busters in the closet, holds strong feelings about mutual funds versus annuities, was married before she met your father suggests a richness in this woman’s life that has nothing to do with your existence. This is the school where she learned the mirepoix that flavored every scold, joke or counsel.

Even when the person who mothered you becomes too old or fragile to cook a really good dinner or read a favorite author without help, there will still be unknowns to explore in the woman who taught you to fake burp, to connect cables on a sound system, to ask your boss for more responsibility, to speak in many voices so your child giggles as you read Are You My Mother?.

 

Reprinted from cynthiakraack.com May 9, 2015

Signposts

Hemlock Trail

I pointed my cross country skis toward the 3.2 km green striding trail. What’s that …. about 1 ½ miles? I could do that.

If only I wouldn’t have missed my turn. At each intersection you need to stop, look and think. I did but I still went straight on Memory Lane instead of turning left to stay on Hemlock Trail.

Hemlock Trail was certainly beautiful with the pines, their branches cradling snow.

Memory Lane was a straight path to the evening before.

Last night it was dark outside Indian Mountainhead Resort main lodge. A sharp cold. Not cold enough that I couldn’t stop, gaze at the brilliant stars and marvel at the wonder. I filled with gratitude for this great universe of ours and my life.

I have a good life.

I had just left my 12-year old son in the swimming pool without even saying goodbye. He was with other Boy Scouts. Generally, Antonio and I bob heads, nod in acknowledgement to each other, or say a few words before I leave him. This time I didn’t. Not because I couldn’t see him in the fog that rose above the swimming pool, but because it wasn’t needed.

This was a first.

There was no signpost saying RITE OF PASSAGE. No moment of THIS IS IT.

It just happened.

Memory Lane

The entire weekend was like that. He was independent of his two moms and sister.

He chose to be with the group of boys even though we were an arm’s length away.

When I told a parent about this later, she mentioned that it was a bittersweet moment.

It didn’t feel bitter. There was no sadness. I used to be afraid Antonio would never leave my lap and that kids would make fun of him. Instead of pushing him off because that certainly didn’t feel right, I learned to enjoy his closeness.

When I reached the River House, I knew I was on the wrong trail. I turned around and went back to the intersection and took a right onto Hemlock.

Jody was already waiting for me in the warming cabin. She had gone further and faster than me. That’s not unusual.

The next day, I planned to ski Hemlock Trail again. And this time, I would know the signposts.

“Does Antonio Have A Dad?”

Antonio and Crystel – seven months old

“Does Antonio have a dad?” the five-year old boy holding Antonio’s hand asked me. I glanced down at him, and then looked at my son. He eyed me as if he was waiting for an answer, too.

I imagined Antonio’s friend asking him on the return bus to school from the spring field trip to the apple orchard. Maybe he asked him during the hay ride, while we bounced over ruts and down the dusty lane that left a cloud in our wake.

Aunt Amie and Antonio

Perhaps he knew better than the other children that the two women in the family picture taped to the kindergarten wall were not the same woman but two moms. Earlier, I had one child in his classroom attempt to convince me that I was the same person.

“It’s not me,” I said. “That other woman is a different person.”

But how do you argue with a five-year old who isn’t your own child and can’t conceive of anything but a mom and a dad in a household?

 

Aunt Kathy, Crystel, Aunt Pat, Antonio, Uncle Marty

I think he won the argument.

I imagined Antonio shrugging his small shoulders in response to his friend’s question. Did he look away from his pal and stare at the dust hanging in the air or at the apples ready to be picked?

I hope not.

Maybe the boy took it upon himself and said to Antonio, “I’ll find out for you.”

Aunt Cara and Antonio

While I was forming my answer, I thought about his classmate who sat next to me on the way home. His mom was dead, he said. After saying that I was sorry, I wondered about the children who called Antonio their friend. Maybe it was because of his very difference — being adopted and having two moms — that they thought that they too would be accepted.

 

Tia Anna, Antonio, Tio Scott

The two kindergarteners expected an answer from me. This was a yes or no question.

Yet, how to answer? Though Antonio will most likely never meet his dad, does that mean that he doesn’t have a dad? Does that mean we will never celebrate Father’s Day?

 

Aunt Pat, Antonio, Aunt Mary, Crystel

Jody and I had prepared for this very moment — this question — and created a village of chosen aunts and uncles who would stand in for the missing people in Antonio’s and Crystel’s life. This village was formed before they even came home.

So I said what any mom would, “Of course, silly. Everyone HAS a Mom and a Dad. You HAVE to have a mom and dad to be born.”

Uncle Marty

I poked Antonio. “He feels real to me.”

Antonio smiled. That was good enough for him.

These chosen aunts and uncles have accepted their roles seriously. That was part of the deal — to have play dates with the children regularly, as well as show up for birthdays, dances, pinewood derbies, and holidays.

We’ve never asked them to fill the ‘dad’s’ role. Though when Antonio was much younger, I woke one night in a panic, and at the first opportunity I asked Scott and Marty to take Antonio into public bathrooms to show him what a urinal was and to tell him NOT to touch the urinal cake.

Crystel, Sam (babysitter), Antonio, Charlie (babysitter)

I have asked Antonio on occasion if he would like me to ask one of his uncles to accompany him on a Scout trip (and take my place) but he’s always declined. Darn.

Even after the babies came home, Jody and I continued to intentionally bring males into their life. Charlie and then his brother Sam were their fulltime nannies until each boy graduated from highschool.

Charlie, Antonio, Crystel

I believe that all of the above people have brought so much love into Antonio and Crystel’s lives that they may really need to search for what’s missing when asked the question, Do you have a dad?