Yesterday would have been my mom’s 85th birthday. I miss her often, but I wonder if our relationship with each other would be any different if she were still alive today. If I’m being honest, I have to say the answer is probably not. When she died, we knew we loved each other–that was the last lucid thing she said to me. I like to think it’s the last thing she remembered me saying to her, too. That’s what I hold on to, when I’m feeling sad about our relationship.
Because the truth of the matter is, my mom and I didn’t connect very well. Much of that had to do with the fact that she was born in 1932 and found herself raising children in the 1960’s. We weren’t just generations apart–we were planets apart. Very few of the things she believed made any sense to me. I often tell people I was raised by depression-era parents in the age of Dr. Spock parenting, but that just barely scratches the surface of the distance between my mom and me.
And even so, when I think about how I managed to grow up and become a feminist, I realize it has a lot to do with her. Whether she meant to or not–and I’m certain she absolutely did not–she taught me many of the things that I consider to be fundamental parts of my world view.
For instance:
She taught me that all human beings deserve respect.
Though my mom was devoted to the idea that men should be in charge of things and women should be their support system, her faith made it impossible for her to see men as more human than women. She would never have described it this way, but it’s clear to me that she believed in human rights above all else. Gender was not an issue when someone’s fundamental human integrity was at stake.
A belief in the basic humanity of all people–and the idea that women are people who deserve to be treated with respect–is, of course, the foundation of feminism. I got that foundation from my mom.
She taught me that women can be really tough.
My mom dealt with a lot of hardship in her life. She lost her firstborn child to cancer before she turned 30. She was a military wife, which meant she put up with a lot of uncertainty and long periods of being separated from a husband she depended on in many ways. (My mom didn’t learn to drive until she was in her 30’s. When I say she depended on my dad, I mean that very literally.) Perhaps most importantly, she lived with clinical depression for many years before anyone understood that depression existed.
And somehow, she survived. Darkness shaped her life in significant ways, and still she lived to be 83 years old. She gave birth to two more children after losing one. She cared for my dad through many years of dementia and ill health, though it took a toll on her. Whenever I’m facing a dark moment, I remember that my mom worked through difficult things with much less support than I’ve had all my life. Raising two children while working toward a Ph.D.–no question, that was hard. But it was nothing compared to raising a child in the wake of another child’s death while the husband on whom you depend for your livelihood is at a war on another continent and may or may not come back alive.
My mom was tough–so I’ve always known that I was, too.
She taught me that the world belongs to everyone.
We went camping pretty much every weekend, when I was a kid. This was my dad’s choice, but my mom didn’t object: she packed up the camper and went along. She could have declined–other moms did–and stayed in town. If she had, I think my dad and brother would have gone camping alone.
But she didn’t. And as a result, I grew up knowing the peace of being in the Idaho outdoors. I saw the Milky Way for the first time during one of those camping trips. I learned to catch my own fish. I saw how small and insignificant human beings are, in the greater scheme of things. I usually attribute my love of the outdoors to my dad, but credit for being allowed to develop that love belongs to my mom. She’s the one who made it possible for me to know that the world–the whole world–belongs to everyone. My love of solo travel began with that lesson.
I wish my mom and I had been able to build a different kind of relationship with each other. The hardest part of losing her was knowing that would never happen. But when I consider the ways in which she is built into my life, her absence isn’t quite as sad. So much of her, as it turns out, is still with me.
3 Comments
I love this look at your mother. My mother and I are so incredibly different, but I know I am the way i am because of her.
This post makes me think of feminism in a different light. We are all products of the environment and situation we are born into and I don’t think we give enough credit to just how much it affects us and our choices. There are many many was to believe in women and to understand our “place in the world”. Appreciating your mother for her strengths makes me appreciate women all over the world who continue to get up in the morning and do what needs to be done in their own unique yet universal situations.
It took me a very long time to appreciate the ways in which my mom had shaped my outlook on life. And it makes me really happy that I’m able to see her influence as a positive thing now.