My Mom is a Person!

We celebrated my mom's birthday this week.  As we tend to do on our loved ones' birthdays, I thought about how blessed I am to have her in my life.  I began to think about the amazing journey we experience as mothers and daughters.

We begin completely dependent upon our mothers. They absolutely define love for us by meeting our most basic needs, gaining our complete trust, and keeping that trust unbroken and sacred.  They are our first protectors and teachers.  They are our everything.  They are the prisms through which we will see our world.

They support and guide us through school, learning to ride a bike, and making friends.  They make our bloody knees and hurt feelings all better. They reluctantly let us become more independent in the big world.

Then suddenly our mothers become stupid.  At around 13, our bodies are taken over by estrogen-feeding aliens.  Our minds can only focus on boys and clothes.  Our girl drama consumes us.  And our mothers are clueless.  They don't get us.  They don't understand us.  They don't let us do the things we want to do, like stay out all night or date the "boy" with the five o'clock shadow.  They give us the earliest curfew of everyone we know.  They are so uncool.  We roll our eyes, slam our bedroom doors, and let out the most exasperated sighs.  We say things we don't mean.  It's the alien talking.

They embarrass us with their singing and small talk with our friends in the car.  At this age, we prefer that people think we have no parents.  So we have them drop us off a block from the movie theater.

We emerge from that particular hormone haze with a tad more appreciation for our mothers.  At around 15, we figure out that they hold the power.  They have the keys to the car.  They are the arbiters of our social lives.  We need them on our side and we know that now.

We go to college.  We have some space and distance from our mothers.  We begin to learn about ourselves at an alarming rate.  We go home for Thanksgiving and we see our mothers in a whole new light.  They are fun, interesting, knowledgeable, charming people.  We can see that they have layers.  They have history.  They have wisdom to share.  What a revelation!  It took growing up and moving away to truly value our mothers.  We realize that this new friendship is like no other.  It has a depth and a bond that are unmatched.

We survive the craziness of wedding planning with our mothers.  We really appreciate the sacrifices they have made so that we can build our lives.  We begin to "get" that, all this time, they were not just our mothers.  They were wives as well.  And we respect them even more.

Oh boy - when our first babies arrive - this is the moment our mothers officially become geniuses.  I mean, they know everything.  They know how to bathe, burp, and soothe these frighteningly helpless little bundles.  When we are overwhelmed, questioning our mothering abilities, or are just plain overcome with exhaustion, our mothers know just what to say.  They have been there.  They hug us, wipe our tears from our weary eyes, and stick around so that we can take a nap.  They still know how to make it all better.

If we are blessed enough to have our mothers around when our own daughters are growing up, they remind us how awful we were at that age.  They impart their wisdom and tell us that "this too shall pass".  One day our daughters will come out on the other side, just as we did.  My sincerest hope is that - after all of the eye rolls, tears, and battles - my daughter will look at me and see a dear, true friend that has been with her all along.