Mom

    I was talking to mom the other day and she said something that really hit me hard in the gut. She said that since she didn't have a college degree or went to school that she felt that she was not as accomplished or successful as dad or any of her children. And my first thought is that she had no idea what she has done in her life that carried as much importance to the world as the rest of us. 

    My mom set her lot in life to be a homemaker and there was a time in which this was kind of looked down upon. But you know what? Look at how our society is like now with all these working women. Look at how feminism and economy has driven the mother out of the house into the work place. I don't think the average person has any idea of how pivotal that change in our social values, that being a stay at home mom being frowned upon, has on the health of our society. 

    This entry though is about my mom. And even amongst all the moms in the world, she really is one of a kind. 

     I have been fortunate to experience parents that are very different from each other in their approach to raising their kids. I have posted about dad already and this one will be about mom. As I was growing up, ma was a stay-at-home mom and she not only took care of my brother, two sisters, and I, she also sitted for about ten to 13 other kids during the summer. So, she was a mom to lots of other kids. Ma understood the uniqueness of each of us and also took a lot of time to work out how each of us "ticked."

    My brother needed a firm hand and needed a lot of tools to control and regulate his anger and emotions. Ma really had a knack on him with that. My sisters had a lot of restrictions on them. One needed to understand that being strong willed and stubborn did not mean that you could just go all wild and do what you wanted. The other struggled with esteem and motivation which required a whole other set of tools to deal with. 

    And then there was me. I was the black sheep of the kids. Seriously, ma said that she would have thought I was switched at birth if my brother and I were not the only ones in the nursery at the time. I was the one that had a brain that never stopped thinking and wondering and exploring. I think Ma loved to just watch me do my thing and really enjoyed seeing how my mind worked. She is often heard saying, "Before you get mad at him, you need to ask him why he was doing what he was doing. Because he always had a reason and his reasons usually made sensed to a little boy even if they were not right." That is where my mom really was set apart from other moms. She knew her kids and she knew that they all had different needs and boundaries. And I can't thank her and appreciate her enough for never putting me in a mold. She let us carve out the mold that suited us best. 

    As I grew older, I found that ma (and dad too) was always going to listen and hear me out.  I would call her at all times of the day. She would listen to me vent and yell and cuss and cry my frustrations out. She would listen to all my excitement and giddiness for some nerdy thing or other. She never rushed or avoided us at all. She always had the time and now that I look back, I really needed that. I needed her a lot to bump me onto the right path and to guide my thinking and actions so that I could figure out my world. I needed her to listen and not mock anything I was curious about until I learned how to find out stuff for myself. 

My mom is a unicorn now and I don't think there are enough of us left that know the value of a mom like her. It is very rare to have a mom that is kind, intuitive, nurturing, loving, and best of all . . . . present. And that is truly a missing part of our society that is telling when you look at our youth today.