- Infancy and Early Childhood: Mom can do no wrong. She feeds us; bathes us; clothes us; protects us; comforts us; encourages us; gives us ice cream and animal crackers and above all else, believes in us.
- Adolescence: Except for the bathing part (other than when she threatens to do it herself if we don't), repeat bullet #1, and add in a healthy dose of what we now come to view more as nagging.
- Pre-Teen (or what these days is the new euphemism, "tween"): Our viewpoint is totally skewed, thanks to the onslaught of puberty and raging hormones, so there's no question it's all about the nagging (even though the points in bullet #1 still apply).
- Teenager: Face it, parents are just lame - Mom, Dad (and usually any siblings, for that matter). All Mom does is try to make us feel guilty. Hormones are out of control. We're so self-centered we can't see straight (or is that the weed?) Just get out of our faces and leave us alone already! What do you mean, did I do my homework? Duuuuhhhhh! Why is my door locked? Read the sign, people: "Parental Units, Teachers and Sisters Verboten!" 11:00? You're joking, right? Hello, it's Friday and ALL my friends get to stay out until midnight! Heck, Steven doesn't have to be home until 1:00 and his parents are freaking ministers! This sucks! You have no idea what it's like to be me! You're repressing my individuality; stifling my self-expression. And on, and on, and on . . .
- Early Adulthood: Still waaaaaayyy too self-centered, but now thoughts begin to creep into our amped-up little noggins that maybe, just maybe, Mom knew what she was doing - sort of, anyway (occasionally Dad did too, I guess). Geez, we were obnoxious little bastards, weren't we? How did she put up with us? Remember the time Dad was ready to draw-and-quarter us for sneaking out in the middle of the night and totaling the car? (Was that really projectile spittle coming from his mouth as he screamed at us?) Or how about the time Dad found pot in our closet? (Exactly, what was he doing in there anyway? The sign did say "Parents Verboten.") Mom always managed to bring the temperature down in those situations and made us feel like we weren't quite as derelict as Dad would have us believe, didn't she. We could be salvaged. We had value. We could still amount to something - some day. We really were good kids. She still believed in us.
So, here we are in adulthood, suffering through the worst recession since the The Great One, and thinking, "You know, Momma said there'd be days like this." Even if she didn't really say that (the song did), you know what I mean. It's like, now that we've reached this age, we've learned - hopefully - that there were no promises, and there were no guarantees. Life didn't come with an extended warranty. Mom always said to just do our best; show up on time; wear clean underwear; wash behind our ears; say please and thank-you, and be nice to people. The rest will take care of itself. There's some genuine wisdom there if we take the time to think about it.
If we all could believe in ourselves the way Mom believed in us, and set out each day to be nice to people, imagine what the world would be like! We have a bi-racial president, who, despite being without a father for much of his formative years, had a mother who stood by him, taught him, guided him, encouraged him, challenged him, supported him, and most of all, loved him and believed in him. Against unfathomable odds, he went on to be elected president of the United States of America. Did any of us honestly think that would happen in our liftetimes?
My mom told me I could do anything I wanted; be anything I wanted, as long as I was willing to work at it. She sat with me on the front steps of our house when I was four and five years old as my sisters went off to school each day and read books and did flash cards with me before she had to go off to work herself. She bugged me about my homework as I got older. She gave me "the look" when I brought home a C in math. She cut me slack when she thought I deserved it, and she gave no quarter when she thought I didn't. But above all else, she believed in me. I lost my mother to Alzheimers when I was 39 years old, but in actuality, she was lost to us ten years earlier when the disease rapidly began to steal her mind. At 29, I was equipped to deal with this world motherless, because she and my father had prepared me. I was fortunate to have 29 quality years with Mom. Some people are not so fortunate. What would Mom tell me now, if she were here?
As I sit and ponder how I'm going to fix this all-too-common mess I've gotten myself into these past few years with a maxed-out home equity loan and credit card balances out the wazoo that I can't pay off, I take comfort in the knowledge that Mom truly believed that I could do anything I put my mind to. So why shouldn't I be able to fix this? After all, there's another mom, and a couple future moms (and a future dad) in my house who are pretty special, and they've always believed in me too. I owe it to them, if not myself, to get us out of this hole. With love and support, and the will to get it done, anything is possible, right? (Besides, I'm an American; I'm an optimist!) And as importantly, I've got Mom(s) on my side.
I was thinking about this the other day as I opened what seemed like the 57th bill to come in the mail that day alone, and then my mind began to drift off, and I found myself . . .
. . . Wishing I Was Fishing
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