What kind of mom are you? The other day, Little Miss was talking of all the things we could do if mom wasn’t down in her back. I kind of jokingly said, “Yeah, I ruin everything.” And she in all honesty and innocence said, “You sure do.” OK, I am not Mary freakin Poppins but I ain’t Hannibal Lector either. (Is that the guy from Silence of the Lambs) I do admit my being down in my back does say limit the company she can have and family activities, but her and her father seem to do just fine without me. But anyway it got me to thinking. What kind of moms have been in my family.
On my dad’s side, it is somewhat of a mystery. My great-grandmother on his dad’s side I never heard a lot about. I know that she waited on my great-grandfather hand and foot. He was blind (he could see shadows but he never told her that.) and upon her passing he was shipped from child to child and he was a handful. (I loved him dearly, I was the only great-grandchild he had anything to do with. I saw him 3 times my entire life.) But as far as hearing about her as a mother, I never heard word one.
My great-grandmother on his mom’s side, I never heard much of her either. I know that she came with her husband and first child from Hungary and that she was Catholic to the extreme. When my grandma married outside of the church they held a funeral for her and never spoke to or of her again. I was always told my grandma had a grave site in New Jersey, but I never knew if it was a tale or truth.
My Dad never speaks much of his childhood. I know he got into a lot of trouble and grew up in Ohio, apparently a not so nice side of Ohio. I know that my granddaddy was a abusive man. I have heard that he would beat her and blame her for it. I also know that after one of those beatings, she stood with black eyes, and chopped a carrot for soup and told him, that if knew what was good for him he would not go to sleep that night. I am told he not only didn’t sleep for the next week, but he never laid another hand on her in anger. So I have to believe that she was a strong woman.
She cussed like a sailor and drank like a man. She even threatened to push my aunt’s abusive, soon to be ex, husband off the 3rd floor balcony of the courthouse. Growing up I knew she worked as a waitress at the country club, she served drinks in the golf lounge. And without a doubt was the coolest grandma in the world. She called us “little shits” with so much love sugar dripped off her tongue. heh! I knew her as a grandma, but never heard how she was as a mom.
My mom’s side of the family is somewhat different. My granddaddy’s mom was 3/4 Indian (rumored as Cherokee or Creek, the Blackfoot tribe has been mentioned, but my granddaddy won’t say what tribe she was descended from. Strange isn’t it? I understand they were mean as snakes and that he wasn’t proud of what the tribe was rumored to have done. I guess it will remain a mystery.) He never mentions much of her. Only that at her death she had Jet black hair and not one grey hair. I know that they were dirt poor when he was growing up. But he never really spoke of her, after his aneurysm, he often told my grandma that her cooking wasn’t as good as his mom’s but otherwise nothing.
My grandma’s mother died when she was young and her dad remarried quickly so that his 4 children would have a mom. Her step-mom was, I am told, the mean stepmother. Her and her sisters ate only after everyone else was finished eating and she never had a kind word for them. They were told they weren’t her children and she would only do what was absolutely necessary. She used them as maids, housekeepers and babysitters. My grandma knew little of her own mother and knew that her father allowed his wife to treat them that way so that they would have a mother. I remember Granny B, she was a mean old woman! And she never apologized for the way she treated anyone. My grandma didn’t talk about her childhood much, when she did speak of how she was treated it was never in anger, it was as if that was the way it was suppose to be.
My mom’s mom was a saint. I never heard a lot of how she was as a mother, but momma said she was the same with them as she was with her grand kids. Which would make her a saint in the highest order. I understand if her step mom did it, she didn’t. I guess she learned what not to do. She was a great cook and a patient lady. You could talk to her about anything, she never judged and she was always there to let you cry on her shoulder. I never felt like she was my grandma, but more of another mother. I didn’t have to tell her I was pregnant, she just knew. She hugged me and told me I would be a great mom, that I had learned from the best.
My mom was a great mom, she learned from the best I guess. She was the kind of mom that made cookies and had them ready after school, she had tea parties with me and played cars with my brother. She shielded us from the horrors in the world and taught us that we could do anything we set our minds to. My dad worked away from home a lot and she was mother and father a good deal of the time. My dad drank a lot when we were young, but she shielded us from it, I didn’t know until I was much older that dad was an alcoholic. And he was the one to say it, not my mom. She never spoke badly of anyone, if we pointed out something, she would point out we knew nothing of their lives and it might be what they were raised to believe was right. She was the mom I wanted to be.
So what kind of mom did I end up being? Somewhere between Hannibal Lector and Mary Poppins. I love my children and would do anything for them. I cook for them, I clean for them, I wash their clothes. I take care of them. They know I am here for them and would do anything in my power to help them in anyway that I can. They know I will keep them safe and keep their secrets. That would be my Mary freakin Poppins side. The other side well, sometimes I want to rip their little heads off for the stupid things they do. I scream bloody murder at them when they have trampled my last nerve. I often call them my demon spawn. When they do something completely stupid, I call them on it. I walk a fine line and they never know what side I may land on.
So maybe I ruin their lives when I get down. And maybe I don’t float in to the room singing and holding a dumb ass umbrella……But they are still alive and well. Sometimes I get why some animals eat their young. heh! Until next time……….
HAVE A GREAT DAY AND THANKS FOR VISITING!!!!!!!!!!
