Pants and Ponytails
It's Mother's Day and I need to apologize to my boys for not being the mother on the Hallmark cards. Motherhood was not something I dreamed about. When I was 30, my dad called me at work concerned because I told him during a visit home that I didn't want to have kids. He told me the things I would miss if I didn't have them.
He was right. I am thankful for Hamp and Jake and everything they have brought to my life. However, my parents didn't tell me that mothering instincts and parenting tools don't automatically come with childbirth. My mother made it look easy. It took years of guilt, shame and trying to be something I am not to realize my kids will turn out okay even if they were raised without music lessons and structure, in a cluttered house eating pizza rolls and pop tarts.
Personal flaws, imperfections and failures are hard to accept while living in a town where everything seems perfect, from seasonal flowers on every corner to moms in pristine white pants and straight, smooth ponytails.
I am learning to live with my imperfections and quit trying to be a perfect women. A perfect mother. Motherhood is joy and fulfillment that give me pride as well as dark times and making mistakes that I want to hide. It’s not just me. I hear it over and over during interviews for Our Southern Souls.
Souls is filled with inspirational stories of motherhood. A 38-year-old woman about to have the baby she prayed for all her life, or a single mom starting an organic snacks’ business with her kids. A woman with Cerebral Palsy fighting for the rights of the disabled because her mother taught her to be independent and to not think she was less than anyone else. An “old mama” fighting for air conditioning on BRAT so her child with Rett Syndrome and others with disabilities can comfortably ride the bus.
A family working with their mother at T.P. Crockmier’s for 40 years (mama is 80 and still working there). Women who left families in Mexico, Peru, Darfur, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iran and Palestine for a better life in Mobile for their husbands and kids -- mothers wanting to give their daughters the education they never got. Or the mama who went back to high school with her son after he returned home from the Army. She sat in the front of the class and made As and Bs. He sat in the back of the class and made Bs and Cs.
"Everybody teased me. How is your mama making better grades than you? She went home and hit the books and I went out the back door to chase girls. She rubbed it in. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have gone back. We spoil mama rotten now. Sometimes she is wrong, but we always let her be right.”
Souls also shares the pain. A stay-at-home mom who is lonely taking care of three young children while her husband works out of town, or a heartbroken woman walking in the sand and praying for help.
"I have six kids, a rocky marriage, and just got bad news from one of my oldest daughters," she said. "I want to get into a boat and sail away to find myself. I am a pleaser and do a lot for my family. There is so much pressure and each morning I have to put on my combat boots and survive one more day."
Some stories of surviving one more day are hard to hear. Women becoming mothers a second time because their daughters abandoned young children, died from cancer, or were murdered by boyfriends or husbands. Grandmothers not only raising another generation but struggling with the guilt of raising daughters who got into bad situations.
There are homeless women living on the streets or in their cars in Mobile and Baldwin counties because they don't want to be a burden on their children.
Going back through the stories, I found an interview that started with, "Mama, you aren't going to like this...but." I interviewed Lynn before she got on her motorcycle for Angel Ride. Her only child, Amy, died from an allergic reaction to spiked punch at a party. No one called for help and they left her there to die. Amy was 26.
"My baby died afraid and alone by herself. I closed off the world and hit the couch for six months until I woke up and realized I had to get up and go on. I regretted the years I worked late and missed the Saturdays that I should have been with her. I was at Waffle House the other day and watched a mama with two small children. They were starved for attention and she looked up twice. Once to tell them to ‘Stop’ and the other to tell them to ‘Shut Up.’ That mama had no idea of the moments and memories she was missing. At another table, the whole family had phones in their hands and there was no interaction. I wanted to take their phones away from them. Cherish those moments and memories.
"Two weeks before Amy passed, she called and said we need to go to lunch. We never got that lunch because we were both busy. You always think you have another day. Sometimes you don’t. If she went a week without calling me, I would go out to the stars and say, ‘Amy Lynn, you better call your mama’ and the next day I would get the phone call. Those calls often started with ‘You aren’t going to like this, but…’
"Darlin’ I would give anything in the world to hear ‘Mama, you aren’t going to like this, but…’ one more time.”
This Mother's Day, we are given one more day. One more time to love our kids and our mamas. Or love someone else's kids and someone else's mama.
More importantly, this is a day to love yourself. To accept that you aren't perfect and neither is any other mama.
No matter what color their pants are or how smooth their ponytail may be.
