The woman who bore me was a member of the endangered species known as mothers.
She was a loving, nurturing, independent figure, a person of many parts.
In illness, she was a great comfort. (I could have done without the milk toast, though.) She was always making cookies and candy, and she encouraged my brother and me to join her in the fun. She was good at Parker House rolls, and she occasionally made bread. (Otherwise, her culinary gifts were unexceptional.) When I was four, I let a screen door slam on my kitten, breaking its neck, and sending it into convulsions. Mother held me as long as it took for the tears to subside, then we made a cross with popsicle sticks and gave it a proper burial. During the years when we had a piano, she sat by me on the bench and taught me the rudiments of musical notation – not in hopes that I would become a great performer but because she found musical training enjoyable and enriching.
She made the rules of childhood behavior clear without much overt teaching. I learned to read in part from our repeatedly going over an illustrated book entitled Manners Can Be Fun. Nothing much beyond that. My brother and I just knew. We were not supposed to insert ourselves into adult conversation without being invited, we were never, ever, to show disrespect for our parents or, for that matter, any adults, and so forth.
She was quite comfortable as an authority figure; it came to her naturally. Any other way of rearing us never occurred to her. Negotiating with us about some direction we didn’t care for was not on offer.
This power dynamic was encouraged by her having a life apart from being a parent. She played violin in community orchestras until a conductor told her she had “geriatric fingers.” She turned her hobby of making hooked rugs into a cottage industry. She enjoyed close friendships that existed somewhere outside of child rearing.
She managed the household budget, shopped, cooked, made many of our clothes, cleaned house, and provided structure, which gave us all, my father included, certainty that things were under control.
She was as proud as any “mom” is when my brother or I accomplished something noteworthy, but unlike “moms,” her self-esteem was only moderately boosted by our successes. She (and my father, of course) instilled early on the values we were to live by, then they let us find our way. We were allowed to grow up and become who we are with only what direction was critically necessary. She did this naturally; she was an independent self who happened to have children.
I can’t prove it, but I think her way was the norm back then. The way of “moms” seems to be the dominant mode these days, and moms are unlike mothers in many ways. Moms dote on their children. The child-centered household advocated by Dr. Spock has come to pass. Children’s needs are more important than anything. When an undercover Trumpista ran for governor of Virginia recently, he won by whipping up antagonism between moms and school authorities over mask requirements and nonexistent brainwashing with Critical Race Theory. Environmental problems, voting rights, economic issues, racism – none of these critical issues mattered so much as keeping mom in control of junior’s every school moment.
Momism and opposition to the least hint of hierarchy and authority feed on each other. All too frequently, reasonable actions of duly elected school boards are thwarted by parents, maybe especially moms, who are unwilling to delegate management of the classroom to teachers and administrators. Pursuit of the common good – notably vaccinations and gun regulation – is rejected as a diminution of personal liberty. Such measures would be restrictive; that’s the point of having them. I suspect a causal link between antipathy to the common good and the sign on the school bathroom mirror that says, “you are looking at the most important person in the world” and kindergartners being encouraged to address teachers by their first names and the rarity of “because I said so” in child rearing. And doesn’t the January 6 insurrection attempt fit in this pattern?
My sense that the widespread use of “Mom” in everyday speech is part of a larger social development may be off the mark, but it’s surely inarguable that “Mom” is becoming ever more common. College fraternities used to have housemothers. Now they have housemoms. What’s next? Is Mother Theresa going to become Mom Theresa? Is Mother Russia soon to be Mom Russia? Will the Angelus be changed to include Holy Mary, Mom of God? Will poor Bambi cry out “Mom” in a remake of the film?
This may seem like an argument for a long-rejected way of being a parent – authoritative, cold, highly structured, remote, and sometimes including corporal punishment. It is not. I am making a case against helicopter “moming” and tiger “moming.” In my view, those ways are not good for children or adults. Wouldn’t we all be better off if children were treated more like children and less like either adult equals or puppets? And something like that is being encouraged when “Mom” replaces “Mother.”
Amen! There were no equal rights in my childhood home unless delegated by my mother. She was the rule maker, keeper and enforcer. It was easy to understand the hierarchy at home and my sister and brother and I understood our places. There was much love and laughter and freedom to roam until the street lights came on. I too am a mother. My sons made sure to explain Mother to their friends when they came to visit and many kids visited…”My mother is not your friend, she’s my mother and she doesn’t play.” I think I’m close to extinction…
Loved the post!
Wow! Sounds like my step-mother!
Very interesting piece. These are important topics, which are frequently brushed over, even in the best media.
Your mother and mine were cut from the same cloth, even though we addressed her as “Mom” rather than “Mother” or “Mommy.”. I had never thought of “mom” to characterize the current views on parenting, but maybe that’s a good word. The characterization, however, is right, and it’s one of the things that made teaching so difficult for me, even though it wasn’t the only thing that caused me to choose to tutor adults in ESL rather than young children in music. My own view is that most of today’s parents (fathers included) are wimps. My post (below) is an attempt to understand why so many adults these days have a sense of entitlement: mom never made them write thank-you notes.
Aye! Aye Geezer! DITTO! DITTO! DITTO! As Mary Jane alluded above, your mother and my grandmother, were “cut from the same cloth!” I don’t think I’d have enough space and time to mention the similarities between your mother and my grandmother’s style of raising a child, lovingly, and, who, by the way, raised me since I was 8 months old until I left home at almost 18! In the era that I was born and raised in, the village raised the children! When we are sent off to school, we are usually sent to the mothers and fathers away from home. The home and school, and in between, the village, work hand in hand, we couldn’t escape! I raised by child similarly! I have often stated, and (have asked for forgiveness, if it is sin) that I’m glad I’m not raising a child at this time and in these environments. Why have innocent kindergarteners become pawns!? May God help us, and, our future generation, if there’ll ever be a future generation. P.S.: re Mary Jane’s “……attempt to understand why so many adults these days have a sense of entitlement…..” I’ll say, it’s materialism; lack of hard work and lack of knowing the existence of God!
My four children would not listen to me read the six page (or so) rip-proof, moisture-proof childrens’ manners book that I thought so “educational.” It is not too late, though. I am going to rummage through the old baby toys and toddler shoes to find that book and I will be heard loud and clear whilst I read it to my grandchildren.