Are You My Mother?

I loved reading my children the story by Dr. Seuss, "Are You My Mother?".  They would read the question part.  They would also ask me in their little bird voices and I would say, "You know I'm your Momma!".  Apparently, so does everyone else.

What is a good mother?  The ability to love unconditionally and to nurture?  What makes a person a good mother?  This question has really been on my mind lately as I seem to always end up being a "mother" to everyone, including sometimes my own Mom.  I have this mode, the fix it, take care of you, make you feel better, take all your cares, clean up your messes, gloss over your faults, mode. People I deal with at work instantly connect to me and tell me about their history.  Clients tell me all about their son's crazy wife or the trouble they have with their spouse.  Grocery clerks, people waiting in line at the tag office, everyone everywhere seems to just know that I will care.  I will listen to them and if I can, try to help. I get a good feeling from this mode or I wouldn't do it, but sometimes I can't fix it.  Sometimes I can't take care of anybody, including myself, because I'm utterly exhausted and depressed.  Sometimes I just want to run away and never be anybody's Mom again.  Sometimes I go to far and take care of things that were never my responsibility to fix.  Sometimes I resent the hell out of people I love for abusing my kindness.  It is difficult to have personal boundaries when you are a Mom.  I want everyone to be happy.  I don't want to see my children unhappy, but there is the crux.  All children are unhappy sometimes.  We all are.  That is life.  Life is happy, sad, messed up, perfect, confusing, boring, exciting and always changing!  What I really want is to control my life, but I can't and it doesn't make me a good Mother by trying.  I can't control anyone's life, only my behavior.  Wanting to control everything makes me a fearful Mother, a doubting in my child's ability to handle their life kind of Mother.  It makes me my Mother about 40 years ago.  I want to be good Mother, not a control freak.  So I step back, regroup, look at what is really bothering me, listen to what my children are telling me is bothering them, and then if action is required I take it.  If it is something they just needed me to listen to, then mission accomplished.  If my friends seek me out to tell me their issues and commiserate on their latest attempts to get a life, I really don't even have to listen.  I will, because I have a tough time being rude, but I don't HAVE to.  I have been doing this a bunch lately with all my relationships.  I don't think as Mom's we understand the emotional toll it takes on us when we don't be ourselves and get trapped in Mommy Mode.  A good mother knows when to separate her responsibility from her child's.  A good mother knows how to let go and make you feel good.

What is it that makes people see you as a good Mom?  Is it my ability to listen?  Is it my ability to empathize?  Do we all just really want someone to try and fix it?  I think so.  I think we all want that cup of soup, hand on our back while we puke, soft voice as we fall asleep, hug so tight we feel like we are gonna pop feeling.  You never love or hate anybody quite like your own Mother, except maybe your Step-Mother.  I have had a couple Step-Mothers in my childhood and they were the most loving, caring and patient people.  I was very lucky.  I think they had to be to want to marry the train wreck of a biological father I had, but they had something in common with me.  They were fixers.  They were optimistic about their ability to love.  They were most likely co-dependents.  In the end they were sad, depressed, used up and alone.  I never saw them again.  I was extremely angry at my Father for that.  Later my Mother told me that she talked to both my Father's ex-wives and that they were extremely emotionally connected with me and felt horrible loss and pain at the prospect of leaving him and what it would do to me.  My Mother assured them I would be fine and I was, but it hurt.  I hope my own children don't see the men in their lives as disposable.  Even at age ten I knew anybody in my Father's life was going to be temporary.  He was a temporary kind of guy, but it is hard to spend a year with a Step-Mother type person in your life and not become attached.  It is also hard to grow up in a temporary environment, a scary environment with a scared Mother and not long to get some control over your little life.

I have also been reading a great deal about Spoused Children.  From what I can tell, this happens when a parent gets divorced and makes their child into their spouse, confidant, friend, buddy, etc.  The parent leans on the child for emotional support like they would a spouse.They foster a "we're partners" kind of attitude.  While reading several parenting books,  I travel back and remember all the loving stories that my Mother tells about how it was just her and I living in this duplex or that apartment.  I don't actually recall most of that time in my life as I was only three, possibly four years old, but she does and paints a picture of the strongest bond between us.  To this day, she has described it as, "You and me against the world."  I am 41 and she is 58 and I still know her better than my now Ex-Step Father.  Half the time I think I know her better than she does.   I love sometimes that we are close, but other times it feels like the tie that binds is wrapped around my neck!  I do recall as a child feeling extreme resentment at her for pushing me over for my new Step-Father, but the same time it was nice not having to worry about money and moving to a new house with my own room.  The parenting books say that often a child can be un-spoused if a parent is aware they have fallen into this pit.  Let me just say that my Mother and I fell in the pit, she threw me a raft and then periodically swam out to wallow in the pit our disfuction.  My Mother and I have always been extremely close and skated in and out of the Mother/Daughter/Friend dynamic.  I knew most of what was going on in my Mom's life at all times and I certainly knew more than what was healthy for me.  Having boys it is still a huge task for me to keep a close mother/son relationship, and not spouse them.  I like to think that because I never lean on people in general, it has been easier for me to avoid spousing my children.  I guess there is one up side to not trusting anybody.  Now they are older and ask a lot of personal questions, it is more difficult.  The boys want to know how I handle my relationships, especially with the adults in their lives.   I find if I question more than talk and really listen, usually they are just searching for better ways to handle their relationships and truly don't need personal details about me.  I have always told them I can't be everywhere and everything, I'm just your Mom.  I make mistakes just like everybody else and they are perfectly capable of screwing up their own lives.   They don't need me to do it for them   I do believe that it is impossible to respect your parents if they are constantly looking to you (a child) for comfort, advise and acceptance.  Those things all come from within.  The only thing a child wants is love, not the weight of the world an adult carries around.  Our children don't want to be our friends, they want us to be Moms and Dads and model confidence that comes with working out our problems for ourselves.  Our children want to be themselves and feel safe to do so.

In reverse, I want to feel like my spouse, my friends, my co-workers, etc. don't need me to be their mother.  I expect people to be adults.  Possibly this expectation is my biggest mistake of all, but I also see my behavior allowing them to "Motherize" me.  We all have those people we run to when snot is running down our face and we just need to wipe it on them with no fear of being pushed back.  I let people wipe snot on me when I can see they are in pain.  I honestly don't have it in me sometimes to tell the clerk at the store, "You know what, maybe if you didn't look like a crack whore and work at a huge chain store and have five kids from different dads your life wouldn't suck ass."  I can say it to myself and be thankful that I have more sense and have made better choices, but I also get that this is a human being and she is hurting right in front of me and I have to care.  I have to.  I might even have to hug her, but at the very least I have to wish her a better day and an easier shift.  What I don't have to do is take responsibility for her.  I don't have to clean up after adults, or keep cleaning up my teenager's room, or keep giving my fiance a free pass on his share of the chores.  If I do choose to then I know it is more about control and fear than love.  A good mother doesn't take your responsibility away from you, she loves you in spite of your failure to see the consequences and respects herself enough to let you face them.  She trusts you to fix it, to look for answers, to grow and change.  She knows that no matter what there will always be love.

I guess what makes a good Mother, Father, or parent is providing a safe place for a child to develop, modeling good adult behaviors, accepting everyone makes mistakes, things change, and whether times are good or bad you will always be loved.  I always thought that it was so cruel that mother birds sometimes pushed their babies out of a nest, but if they never leave the nest they will never know what it's like to really fly.  Looking back I know my parents made their share of mistakes and I have made some along my journey, but my son put it best when he said, "My Mom is closest to my heart."  As long as I'm there, I'm good.  You know I'm your Momma!