Relationships are hard. Period. No matter what relationship we speak about it turns out so much harder than it should be. But why? Most relationships are developed because two people have love for each other. Passionate-romantic love, platonic love, love of common interest; no matter the relationship the root of it all is love.
However, no other relationships compare to the love a Mother has for her children. A love that is earth-shattering, mind-numbing, life-altering. Love that knows absolutely no bounds. Love that is so deep it can be mistaken for annoyance, overbearing and ignorance. As a dog mom and mom to two angels in heaven, I haven’t even scratched the surface of how profound a mother’s love goes. Instead, I have been on the other end, I’ve been the recipient of this love. With today being Mother’s day, it really got me thinking about my mom.
My mom, Jean; aka Momma Jean, aka Gangster Jean, aka the baddest bitch out there, has dedicated her whole life to loving my brothers and I wholeheartedly. Even on the days, we fucked up. And let me tell you we did. But on those days when we were not the people she raised, she was still there with open, but angry, arms. Which made me start thinking. Why or should I say how do Mothers still love their children when they disagree with their choices, disagree with their actions? And then taking it one step further, why do mothers and daughters rarely see eye to eye?
It’s a tail as long as time; mothers and daughters always LOVE each other but for a few years *cough – the teenaged years – cough* they rarely LIKE each other. In my family, this happened like clockwork. The minute I started liking boys, getting a rush of annoying hormones and bleeding every damn month my mom became my enemy. She was so “uncool,” so dumb and frankly so damn old. All the advice she gave me was obviously so outdated. She COULDN’T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND WHAT I WAS GOING THROUGH. My life was just that hard. My high school days were obviously more stressful than her days. All she had to do was go to work, get paid for going there, and then come home and relax. — Or so I (a hormonally unbalanced teenager) thought. (Let me state that now that I am a working adult with my own home to take care of I realize just how wrong I was). This all came to a head when my mom finally realized Shaine, and I had been having sex.
I don’t what finally made her confront me but whatever it was, was very poor timing. Shaine was over to our house one night. We were innocently in my room watching a movie, literally watching a movie when she flashed the lights to my bedroom. (My bedroom was in the basement, so that was our signal to get my ass upstairs.) I wandered up there not thinking anything about it until she instantly started lecturing me about sex. Right then I knew my day was not going to end well. She demanded that I go back downstairs get Shaine and bring him up. *Ummm NO thanks* not doing that. However, our house was an older style home so while my mom and I continued to yell at each other Shaine just sat downstairs listening to every single word we said. After 20 minutes of straight screaming at each other, I finally gave in and marched down there, to return with Shaine.
I was mortified. Shaine however, he thought it was funny. He followed me up the stairs ready for whatever my mom had to say. Lucky for him, she never got the chance to talk. We (my mom and I) instantly went back to yelling. Instead of going home, or back downstairs, he did the complete opposite. He went into the living room, sat on the couch and drank a beer with my dad. Yes, that’s right, him and MY FATHER cheers to the fact that my dad now knew that his daughter was no longer a virgin. And his exact words to Shaine were ” I guess if it had to be someone, I’m glad it was you…”. My mom and I, on the other hand, were still in the kitchen, cackling at each other like stray cats.
Which brings me back to my point, what is it about mother and daughter relationships that makes them so fragile, so dramatic? If I had to guess, which mind you, I’m not a mother to a daughter, just a daughter with a great mother, I would say control. I understood my mom was just trying to protect me, educate me, save me from making a mistake. However myself a strong-willed teenager, I wanted to make my own decisions, my own mistakes. I have always been a person who no matter the choice, I understand the consequences that come with it. Which I attest to my mom. She raised me to be an honest, strong, self-sufficient person but to her, she couldn’t see that yet. She still saw me as a little girl she needed to protect. Even to this day, twenty-nine years later, she still sees me as a little girl who can find her way through this world, but still needs her mom to check in on her. The lack of being able to let go of control is the most significant thing I see that gets in the way of mothers and daughters. Mothers and sons, they are different. Mother’s raise their sons, to be strong, to take care of the women in their life, so the control with boys is different. Boy mom’s trust their parenting skills more because society thinks boys aren’t as fragile as females. — (No, this is not about to turn into a women empowerment blog, more of a statement.)
My mom and I have very little in common, I prefer to watch ESPN over sewing, I would rather be outside playing sports than being inside cooking. Even though we are different, and have to work to find common ground I know she will always be there. She was there this past October, when I called her to tell her about my surgery, she dropped everything to drive to Grand Rapids at 5 am to be one of the first ones to greet me when I came out-out. She picked up the phone at 3 am when I started a small fire in my German apartment. And most of all she was there the other 10,586 days I’ve been alive. — Today, on Mother’s Day, I want you all to take a second and think back about all the good times and even some of the bad with your mom. Not all mothers are perfect, not all mothers are always there, some mothers have unfortunately passed but the one thing they all have in common is their love. A love that is unmeasurable, unpredictable and most importantly unconditionally.
Thank you to all the Mothers out there, today is your day, take full advantage. | And to my mom, Thank you for being YOU. Yes we fight, yes we drive each other crazy, but I honestly can’t imagine living on this earth without you. One day, I will show you just how great of a mother you were, by showing you how great of a mother I will be. I love you. 😘