It seems appropriate that the first day of my third trimester falls on Mother’s Day. While I don’t get to officially celebrate it as a mother, I do get to take today to prepare for motherhood, and look back on 34 years of a relationship with my own mom.
My mom grew up as the oldest of three girls in Los Angeles, the daughter of a quiet Rabbi who survived The Holocaust (while he left Hungary before WWII, many of his family members including parents, brothers, and sisters did not and were killed) and a woman, 20 years his junior, who could be described best as a classic narcissist and non-nurturing type with a host of mental illnesses. In short, my mother never experienced love as a child, because her mother was incapable of it and her father was, as fathers were at the time, older, busy working, and less involved with the family.
When she had me in 1983, she had already married the man she met at 17 when she moved out to New York to study fashion design. In their 20s, they moved from an apartment in The City to a house in the New Jersey suburbs and prepared for life as parents. She never loved being a fashion designer anyway (she wanted to be an art historian but her mother vetoed that in favor of a more business-oriented major and sent her across the country to college) and I’m sure was a bit relieved when I came along and gave her an excuse to quit her job as a children’s pajama designer.
My mother, at that point, became a mother. Her identity became being my mom (and seven years later, also my sister’s mom.) Her accomplishments, hopes and dreams became finely intertwined with ours. She spent a ridiculous amount of hours supporting my interests in art, theatre, swim team, and other random pursuits. She was always there when I left for the day and came back from school at night. She made every parent teacher conference, every school play, every small assembly where I had one word to recite. She made breakfast, lunch and dinner, and invested most of her energy into ensuring we took photographs to document every moment of life with massive smiles on our faces. And this was pre-dating digital photography.
My mother, as daughters of narcissists most often do, married a man with similar traits. It passes from one generation to the next as one feels most comfortable in a relationship where the other person has complete control of all opinions and decisions (the other person always thinks they are “right” so all choices have a clear “right” or “wrong” and one does not have to think for themselves or fail via having an “incorrect” instinct or thought — which, since growing up you were not allowed to have your own opinions or thoughts, feels by far the traits that are unhealthfully comforting in a partner.)
Let’s just say she has put up with a lot over the years (which I won’t detail here, but anyone who has seen my parents interact with each other know exactly what I mean, minus the closed door interactions)— despite having her own quirks (and extreme challenge with empathy due to her upbringing) — really has tried to be a good mother and give of herself in the ways she knew how — and much of that was, and remains, ensuring that everything looks like it’s ok, even when it may be a bit off kilter.
As a daughter, it takes many years to understand that your mother is just a scared and confused little girl who has, more due to the nature of time than anything else, grown up.
While having one of those “always there for you emotionally” mothers and/or “it’s ok to let go and have a good time” mothers may have its benefits, my mother taught me a lot about resilience and how to make sure everything looks ok to the outside world, even though it’s not. To put on makeup and fix your hair and wear a nice dress and smile for that camera. It may not be the healthiest of ways to handle life, but there is certainly a strength I learned from her — a strength of keeping yourself so busy that you don’t have time to feel anything. To make sure everything is in its perfect place from the view of the outside, even if the reality is piles and piles of junk are thrown into boxes hidden in organized stacks in closets and in the corner.
There are many things I plan to do differently than my mother when it comes to becoming a mom, but I know I will hear her voice in my head when I’m trying to figure out what to do in any given mom-ing scenario. I may not agree with it, or act on it, but it will be there. And soon she’ll be a grandmother, hopefully giving her some happiness in having a cute little blob of a person she doesn’t have to deal with other than to take pictures of and, if said kid is one day interested, take to the theatre and museums and such. I have a feeling grandma will suit her well.
I hope for my mom that the next many years of life bring her happiness and freedom. I don’t think she’ll ever be able to slow down enough to allow herself to feel, but I do hope the busyness is filled with things that are personally rewarding for her — like returning to drawing and painting, as she has done a bit of in her Florida 55+ community in her “snowbird” winters, and taking on a new identity beyond that of “her mother’s daughter” or “mom.”
On this mother’s day, I’m grateful for all she has done in this life, and how she taught me so many things, even if the greatest teachings were not so much on purpose. Happy Mother’s Day, mom.
life with interest 