For me, Mother’s Day is a day of remembrance. During a visit
to New England last summer, I caught up with my mom’s old college roommate. I
love to hear people’s stories about my mom.
Her friend Kaye told me how excited my mom was to become a mother—how
there “never was a more wanted child.” Mom’s
former co-workers have told me how she displayed my report cards at work, kept everyone
apprised of any athletic accomplishments, and how she always called me “my Billie.”
My mom herself told me that when she encountered my dad at a
bar in Hailey, Idaho, the booming of her biological clock was deafening . After meeting his children from his second
marriage, she decided he “had good enough genes,” and they were married six
weeks later at the Elko, Nevada court house.
I came along three and a half years into their marriage and they
divorced before I turned four.
Although I saw my dad
maybe one weekend a month, my mom had full custody and was the parent. I really just played when I hung out with my dad. Mom
did all the school shopping. She took me to school. She picked me up from
daycare. She cooked dinner until I was old enough to scramble eggs and master
Hamburger Helper. She held the stress when I outgrew shoes and had to wait
until payday to get a new pair, and she handled all the questions about God and
sex and politics with candor and a comfort that led me to think everyone talked
like we talked.
One of my favorite things my Mom ever made me do was in the
days before Mother’s Day when I was six years old. She had me pick out a
Mother’s Day Card for my first grade teacher. I thought it was weird at first, but then she
explained. Who did I spend my days with? Who was helping her raise me the most?
She sat me down and had me write in my best D'Nealian handwriting, “Happy
Mother’s Day to my other mother.” I can
remember giving them to a couple other teachers and the lady who ran my daycare
over the years.
I thought this was normal. I thought everyone, too, viewed
teachers and other childcare works as secondary parents, but the older I get,
the more unique I realize my mom’s perspective was. Mom viewed her relationship
with my teachers as a joint venture. They were in it together. Raising me to be
a happy, healthy, confident, contributing member of society, although it truly
fell on her shoulders, was a mission assumed by every adult who worked with me.
She knew she couldn’t do it alone, and she sure as heck knew they couldn’t do
their jobs without her doing hers.
It was a brilliant motherly move. We want kids to feel loved
and nurtured and constantly supported, and in framing my teachers as part of a
mothering network, I never felt alone. Another element of this brilliance was
what a diverse group of “other mothers” I had. Some were more nurturing than
others. Some more disciplining. Some imparted humor through their teaching
while others focused on harsh realities of the world I was growing up to live
in. I consider myself to have had some of the best “parents”, and since most of
them were women, “mothers” in the world.
I’m sure an internet search could let me know the origins of
Mother’s Day in May in seconds, but I think it’s uncanny that it occurs toward
the end of the school year. Moms and teachers always love to hear a grateful or
encouraging word, and at this time of year, it’s especially appreciated.
I naturally miss my mom each Mother’s Day, but I know I’m
surrounded by so many other mothers who continue to nurture and scold and
coddle and correct when we need it, just like she did. Happy Mother’s Day to
all the other Mothers out there.
