Friday, May 6, 2011

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! AND MOST OF ALL, THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR MISTAKES.

Being a mother is a lot of hard work.  It is so much more than just starting your little ones out in the right direction, and then taking care of all their bumps and bruises, both physically and emotionally, along the way.  I think, in fact, that is probably the easiest part.  The hard stuff starts when you have to let go of them.  When you have to stand aside, as they go off in their OWN direction, even if you're worried that it might be the wrong one.  You know in your heart, that you won't always be around to take care of those bumps and bruises; the ones that you are afraid they are going to end up with, on that particular path.  So all of us, in our own way, strive to give our children the tools, for the "picking yourself back up and dusting yourself off" parts of life, and then just hold our collective breaths and watch our babies go.  It's brutal, but, hopefully, we know they are going to be okay in the end....even if we find ourselves humming the lyrics from Cat Stevens', "Wild World" all the time we are watching them from the distance.

You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do
And it's breakin' my heart in two
Because I never wanna see you a sad girl
Don't be a bad girl
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware.

The two best tools my own mother gave me, and the ones that I hope that I, too, passed on to my children are a sense of humor, and the gift of knowing all about the mistakes that their mother made in life.  It is so easy as a parent to share all of our triumphs and successes, and it is human nature to be little more reticent about all of our own bumps and bruises that we have endured along the way... those are embarrassing.  Those mistakes my mother made though, along with the sense of humor that she viewed them with, are the very things  that sustained me the most during my own times of hardship.  Knowing, that even my mom, a woman that I hold in  the highest regard, could, occasionally, be pretty darn dumb, yet still laugh about it later, provided me with the courage to do the same.  It was in those moments, after I had run as fast as I could, directly into a pile of stupidity, that her honesty about her own mistakes gave me the strength to go on again.  I never doubted for a minute that my mother was a success; that was a given.  The thing I was the most grateful for though, was knowing that she wasn't ALWAYS a success, and, that not being one every time, did nothing to diminish the way I felt about her.  I hope I have given the same gifts to my own daughters.  In fact, I believe I have been even MORE generous than my own mother, in providing them with a multitude of mistakes and missteps that I, myself, have made along the journey. Frankly, I  have given them a veritable treasure trove of cautionary tales from which to draw upon, as well as to laugh about.  Hopefully now, when they are running into their own roadblocks in life they won't get too discouraged.  They can think of their mother and say, "You know, I remember something stupid like this that my mother did, and I still loved her.  In fact, we laughed together about it....I guess I will make it through this, after all."
Happy Mother's Day everyone!  May God Bless each of you, and all of your beautiful families!  And, on behalf of children everywhere, thank you for all of your mistakes!

1 comment:

  1. ONce again Amy , I am so impressed by your words. Needless to say humor MUST be a part of everyones life !!! I am not a mother myself but I have one and what you say is so very true!!!!

    ReplyDelete