I realized something about motherhood this week, that I think is good for grown children to know.
My Mom was unable to attend our Mother’s Day barbecue, and I missed her. In our call, she reminisced happily about when I was a child: I had gone through a chef stage when I was about 9 or 10, and omelets were my gourmet obsession. Omelets with cheese, omelets with mushrooms. . .with spam or olives or pearl onions or pickles, all definitely (over) spiced. Whatever happened to be in the kitchen that I found inspiring was folded (clumsily) into a pan of half-beaten eggs. I recall distinctly enjoying that feeling of creativity. And I would serve these creations to Mom before she was even awake.
One morning, I mixed one with Spaghettios. I had been so talented and awesome with all the others (as evident in her praise), but this time, though she did her best to hide it, she couldn’t bring herself to eat more than one eensy bite; of course she hurt my feelings.
Somehow this moment is one of her favorite memories: The plate filled with undercooked egg, that stringy white bit that is attached to the yoke, still lying there like a bleached worm, jiggling with runny Spaghettios. It made her want to vomit, yet she laughs about it now.
Yeah. Sure. Hilarious.
But this Mother’s day, I realized something: somehow some mothers seem to remember our failures as fondly as they recall our success. Of course, Mom is very happy I have degrees, a warm, happy home, a good job, healthy, happy children, a good marriage. Yes, she trusts that I will take care of her in her old age, all things a Mom can be proud of. But she joyfully recalls the time I shattered the front window of the Chevy with a stone I was throwing at a kid’s head, or the time I made another neighbor hatefully angry when I took him up on a dare to paint his house with rainbows. How was I to know he wasn’t serious. I was only eleven.
She giggles hysterically about once feeding my oldest child pickles or lemons (because he demanded them, that’s why) before he was old enough to know what they were and that he wouldn’t want them. The faces he made! What about the ridiculous waaay-tooo-old for me high heels I had convinced my grandmother to buy when I was thirteen that I could barely walk in, stumbling about like a cartoon. Or how about the time I didn’t bother to check if I-75 went all the way to Virginia, and ended up driving straight on to Kentucky. I am great with maps, but I was going from memory, arrogant me. So who cares that at eighteen years old, I could navigate myself from one end of the country to the other. The resounding memory for Mom is that I ended up in Kentucky by accident. Oh, she loves that one.
Until this weekend, it irked me that she enjoys rifling through her memory bank for my failures. What is wrong with this woman? Does it make her feel superior? But then, I thought about my own sons. I don’t only love reminiscing about the first time I held them, or any time they have behaved nobly. It was also sweet when my oldest was still only able to crawl; the dryer bell buzzed abruptly while he was nearby. He almost stood up and ran down the hall and into my arms, it frightened him so much. When he was six and pretty disinterested in his soccer team, whenever the ball came his way, he’d squat down like a frog and leap over it, much to the horror of his coaches. My youngest son, when he was five, threw a butter knife at a friend’s sleazy boyfriend, and shattered a window pane. (Like mother, like son). He thinks long and hard about his Christmas gifts, and has given me bracelets that are child-sized, purses the size of Montana. I don’t care. I love telling those stories. Just like my Mom didn’t care that she had to try her very best to swallow a gelatinous mouthful of Spaghettios, oozing raw egg whites.
As her memory is beginning to fail, it matters to me more that she recalls me as I really was, has always loved me as I am. I think more than anything our children’s “misses” expose our true parenting more than their successes. How I handled Graham failing math in the ninth grade, or how I handled Evan’s temper tantrum over his GiGi’s Christmas gift, says more about my parenting than their trophies, their excellent grades, their scores. Children are imperfect, just as we, their parents, are. To pretend they are perfect is to ignore who they fully are. It is with great love and pride that each Mother’s day, my Mom thinks back to herself lying sleepy under covers one morning, my shining face waking her to deliver yet another masterpiece of an omelette.
Steering with My Elbows 