Mother’s Day is a great thing if you are a mom or if you have a mom. But if your mom is not in your life for any reason, Mother’s Day can be…tough. As Mother’s Day approaches, I think of my adoptive mother, who raised me until she died from pancreatic cancer when I was 24 and she was only 62. I’ve officially witnessed 20 Mother’s Days without her. I don’t remember the sound of her voice anymore. I don’t remember what perfume she wore or what she wanted to be when she grew up.
But I remember that she made me baths when I was sick or felt sad. I remember she never owned a pair of jeans and wore a size 8 wide shoe. I remember that she always told me I could go to college – when no one else in our family, including her, ever did. I remember that she made maroon and white pom-poms for my cheerleading team to put on our shoes for competitions in grade school. I remember that she was the kind of person who lit candles for special events and believed that homemade chicken noodle soup could cure anything. I remember that she wanted me to be a flight attendant and get married and have ‘something to fall back on’ in case the whole marriage thing (which I couldn’t do soon enough) didn’t work out. I remember that she was sad a lot. And I wanted so badly to make her happy. I tried all the time. And then she died.
my babies
She never got to live the life she really wanted – I’m not sure she really knew what that was until it was too late. She never met my children. She never saw me finish graduate school. She never got to know me when I got my head out of my butt and stopped being a stupid teenager. But I think of her every day and try to make my life count twice – once for me, and once for her. I owe her that.
I also think of my birth mom, who I was lucky enough to meet and get to know for two years. I wish her life had been easier. I wish her life had been better because she gave me up for adoption, which was a great choice since I am here to write this blog. 
But she struggled, too. I think of both of my mothers’ struggles,their lives, their hopes and dreams – and I feel very lucky to be here. My birth mom shared with me that she considered aborting me, among other options. But here I am today – a mom myself to a 13-year-old boy and a 11-year-old girl. I feel grateful to be here every day. I can’t tell you enough what a gift it is to be alive. But you’re here – you’re reading this. You know. Right?!
And I will tell you a secret, too: I was terrified to be a mother. I never thought about kids or getting married when I was growing up. I never thought I would be a ‘good mom.’ I’m still not sure that I am. None of us has a roadmap; kids don’t come with instructions. All we can do is what the poet Maya Angelou said: “When you know better, you do better.” She also said this:
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
I will tell you this: I make my husband do the Christmas lights. I cried the first time United lost my luggage (after I’d gotten stuck in Germany on a work trip and missed my 18th wedding anniversary last year); but lord knows I absolutely love a rainy day. I even have a rainy day playlist! I hope my mom understands that I never wanted to make a living and have something to fall back on – I wanted to make a life. I knew it when I was 5 years old and I know it now. I feel it in my bones. I hope I can give that to my children too and help them make a life. It’s what I live for.
I really try every day to do better. Some days I do better than others. I am trying to show my children what it means to be strong. To live. To be grateful. I am trying. The greatest gift I have received from being a mother? Understanding the gift of forgiveness and patience. We are all doing the best we can with what we have at any given moment. I always tell my kids – you never know what someone is dealing with ‘behind the scenes.’ We are all human. We are all good people who sometimes do bad things. This is life. And we are all in it together.
This is what I tell my children because it is what I know, what I believe in my heart to be true. I am a mother. This is what we do. We try. We love, despite. We never give up. We are tough. We believe in our children and want them to have better than we did. But mostly, we never, ever, ever give up.
To all your moms out there – xoxo. Be good to yourself, ladies. You deserve it.
Why are girls so mean?!
Published April 19, 2012 Creative Families , Creative Life , Creativity Coaching , Essays , Kids , Social Commentary 7 CommentsTags: bullying, friend drama, girl bullying, mean girls, mothers and daughters, popular girls, raising daughters
Tonight I comforted my 1o-year-old daughter – again – about her break-up with her best friend. It wasn’t her idea. So while she is struggling to understand why her best friend no longer wants to be her best friend, her former best friend has moved on and is doing just fine with her new best friend. And it is getting uglier every day. I hug her as she sobs and describes in painstaking detail about the latest transgression with the ‘new best friend.’ And I feel completely, utterly at a loss to explain to her what is happening and why.
My daughter is on the far right. This is not the best friend she broke up with. It is someone she met once, one hour earlier...at an age before girls start turning on each other.
How do you explain to her that girls – all people – can be mean? Really really mean? That they don’t care that you go home at night and cry your heart out after holding in your feelings all day long? I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a mom. I’ve seen the movie “Mean Girls” and heard about the book “Queen Bees and Wannabees.” But sitting there on my daughter’s bed, seeing her lip quivering as she tried to hold back the tears, I could remember nothing from either the movie or the book in that moment.
It used to be so easy when she was younger. There was some drama, but now in fourth grade, it seems to have reached a new level. My first reaction is to comfort her and tell her I’m sorry she is having to go through this. I hug her. I listen to the stories. I empathize. I rack my brain to come up with something, anything, to tell her that will help. But I can’t fix it. I’m no expert on behavior. All I can do is tell her what I know to be true.
1. You don’t need 527 friends. Just one or two real ones. This is a tough one to explain when you are not the popular girl. My daughter has already been bullied in school and via text, though. She knows what it’s like every day to not be the popular girl – and what it’s like when the popular girl suddenly drops you. It’s a bitter, painful lesson and I hate to see her learn it. But I know she must. It’s part of growing up, made so much more complicated in our 24/7, always-on world full of technological ways to be bullied and reminded that you are on the outside looking in.
2. Own your part. I remind my girl of how she behaved badly at times when she was the best friend of the popular girl. She cries a little more, but I don’t let up on her. I remind her that others felt then just as badly as she feels now. Remember this, I tell her. Now that you know how it feels, you must be sure that you never, ever make anyone else feel the way you do right now. She nods. I know that I will need to remind her of this again. But I can see the seed is planted.
3. Be yourself. It’s hard to explain to a child that in a world where conformity is the norm, that it’s best to be your true self. When you do, you will make friends who see you for who you truly are and appreciate and love you for who you really are – warts, goofy humor, big feet and all. It may not happen tomorrow. It may not make you the most popular girl in school now. But you will have better, deeper friendships. You will be happier with who you are because you are not looking for someone else’s stamp of approval. You are the only one who give yourself that.
But my daughter is still learning who she is. She knows, but I think in weak moments like this, she forgets. So I remind her. I tell my daughter all that I know to be true about her: she is smart, creative, artistic, musical, funny, and sweet. I tell her she is an original and has a spark that lights her up inside. She listens to this very carefully. She desperately needs to hear this, to have herself mirrored back to her because right now she has lost sight of who she is. And at 10, she doesn’t know yet who she is, and the road before her to figure that out is long and hard. I want to make sure I give her the right tools for the journey.
4. You can’t control others, only how you react to them. I have to remind myself of this all the time, I tell her. You can drive yourself crazy trying to make someone like you or wishing they would change or treat you better or that things would go back to the way they were. But it is a waste of energy because you can’t change someone else. Never. Ever. So focus on what you can control and change: yourself.
5. Your feelings are perfectly normal. But it’s what you do with them that matters. I pull out the book I am reading, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and show her a picture of the brain that shows how feelings enter the limbic part of the brain first, where emotions are experienced. The picture shows that beyond that part of the brain is the rational center of the brain. Some people get stuck in the emotional part of the brain and don’t connect to the rational part, so that they can understand and analyze the feelings to try to make sense of them. Not all kids are into this kind of thing, but my daughter loves to see the science and order behind the chaos. She asks to see the book and studies the picture. And you know what? It calmed her. It made sense to her. She needed that because feelings don’t always make sense and they can be big and scary.
In the end, I turn to my words because as a writer, it is all I have. I ask my daughter: what is the center of the universe? And she says, the sun. And I ask her: who is the sun of your universe? She looks down at her stuffed bear. I tell her that right now, she is making her ex-friend the center of her universe. I tell her that she needs to be the center of her own universe. She looks up at me, hopeful, and I can see that she gets it.
I don’t tell her that someday she may have a child who will become the new center of her universe. There is time for that later. For now, tonight, she needs to know that making anyone else the center of your universe – whether it’s a best friend, a spouse, the popular girl in school – will throw your entire universe off balance. And you will cry yourself to sleep every night.
Be the center of your own universe, I tell my daughter. You are smart. You are funny. You are sweet. You are musical and artistic. You are an original. You are creative. You are loving. You are loved.
I only hope my words did not fail me tonight.