Getting real about Mother's Day

I gotta be really careful in this post. After all, I now know that my madre, my mom, reads my blog.

But I need to get this off my chest and this is MY blog so if you don't like what you read here, I can recommend many others.

And, I'm a Mom, too, and I think we should all unite and form a new movement -- the ANTI MOTHER'S DAY movement.

You know what I mean. I see you in those card shops, looking at those cards, trying to find the "right" one...the one that isn't "too" sappy, and the the one that isn't "too minimalistic."

What will I go with this year -- something simple with a "thinking of you" with my name scrawled inside? Or one that tries a little harder to make it sound like this relationship is what it it isn't?

Like I said, I gotta be careful here.

I think its time we let Mom's off the hook. Let's take them off the podium, give 'em a rest this year.

What Mom doesn't hang her head with guilt in all the things she ISN'T? That she isn't this idyllic image of the madonna and hearts and flowers and cookies and pta and all that stuff -- that really, doesn't seem to matter anyway?

My friend Peg, says we all "marry" our mothers. That is, whatever dysfunction we had in the hard wiring of our relationship with our moms is there in our marriages too. Which kinda explains the 4 out of 5 divorce thing.

I remember when we had our second child...I remember while in the first stages of labor, sitting at my son's bed while he was sleeping and praying that he'd forgive me for not being the kind of mother that he probably deserved to have. I knew then that I was at my "parenting quota" and that having just two kids would probably max me out.

SIDE NOTE - Wouldn't that be cool...getting a call from your "mother's resource card/office...'i'm sorry, ms. traylor, you are currently overextended and need to rethink or review your current reproductive path..." something like that? Now THAT'S a government program I might pay for.

What Peg is getting at is that the issues that we don't resolve in our childhood will inevitably follow us into other relationships. And the work gets harder and harder because the messes usually get bigger and bigger.

So, that's why I'm suggesting that we kick the mother's day thing. Let's get really honest with ourselves and our moms. Let's let people be real -- full of problems, complex and damaged. And let's let it go.

I don't want my kids to put me on a pedestal. Heck, I tell them "I'm sorry" more times than I can count. Right now, they seem rather well adjusted in spite of my foibles and my mistakes. I try really hard to let them see that I don't have all the answers (and by the way DON'T WANT ALL THE ANSWERS) and that they don't have a perfect mom.

If my kids remember me for anything, I hope it is this --
that I never squashed their dreams,
that I did what I could to prepare them for their own lives and that they never,
ever think of me as perfect or as a project that is finished.

My daughter is a better cook and better organized than I am. My son has more talent in his left pinky than I'll ever have and doesn't yet have a clue. My daughter is the most amazing friend to others and is more dedicated to her goals than anyone I've ever seen. They both are good kids and I just hope that, in spite of me, they have a chance at a life that is good.

By "good" I mean that they can face their own problems head on -- and not blame me for them. That they take responsibility for their lives and their mistakes and their own journeys. I hope that they will see me as always willing to listen but not always solve. I hope that they will know that I will always love them though not always agree with them. That they will always have "home" but that it may not always be with me.

That's all I can do. That's all any of us can do.

So save the candy and the cards and let's take a walk in the garden instead. Let me hear you tell me about YOU and all the things in your life.

And pray to God that I keep my mouth shut.

As the character in "Garden State" says to his dad in the final scenes of that really cool movie, "We have to be OK with things not being OK".

Now that's a card worth giving.