All I wanted to do was make Mommy happy, which seemed to be a hard thing for me to do. She always seemed to be upset with me for something; I didn’t make my bed the right way, I got in her way when she was cooking dinner, I walked home from school to slowly, I asked too many questions, I didn’t go to sleep when she put me to bed. I knew Mommy did not feel good because her back hurt her all the time, so I just wanted to do something to make her happy and proud of me.
I thought making her a Valentine’s heart in her favorite color would make her happy. I asked Mommy what her favorite color was, and set to work coloring the heart. I worked slowly, coloring with little strokes, making sure the edges of the heart were even. I signed my name on the heart in my best printing, and excitedly handed it to her.
Mommy cried. Then she got angry. Then she threw the card on the table and told me “thanks for letting me know I break your heart!”
Mommy’s favorite color was blue. I didn’t know it then, and didn’t understand until many years later, that blue hearts meant broken hearts.
But at seven years old – all I knew was Mommy’s favorite color was blue and I wanted to make her a heart in her favorite color. Once again, I had failed my mother.
I loved my mother dearly, but she had expectations that I just couldn't live up to. Mom saw life in black and white; I saw life as a rainbow of colors. Even though on most days she could barely move because of intense back pain, she still cleaned, cooked, did laundry, etc. And she did these chores within standards she set for herself, and expected me to follow. Towels folded a certain way, bedspreads tucked neatly under, then over pillows. Dishes were to be dried by towel, not left on the counter to air dry. When Mom was baking for a holiday, I was not allowed to help – she wanted it done her way. I was constantly afraid that I would do something wrong and become the focus of Mom’s Irish temper, or worse, she would take me for another long ride on one of her guilt trips.
As an adult, I understand that much of my mother’s need for perfection came from 1) learned behavior, 2) frustration from being in constant pain, and 3) emotional abuse she suffered from my father. Not long before Mom died, she asked me why I always felt like everything was my fault. Out of nowhere the image of that blue Valentine surfaced, and I realized that was where the feeling began. Yet, I didn’t have the courage to tell Mom this because it would open a Pandora’s Box of hurt feelings between both of us.
Mothers nurture their babies in their wombs for nine months. When these tiny, innocent beings are placed in their mother’s arms for the first time, they only expect to be loved and cared for. By the time mothers hold their baby, they already have a long list of how this child is going to meet their expectations. It’s very sad that we try to turn these innocent little babies into clones of what we want them to be.
I’m not sure how my daughters grade me as a mother, but I’m certain that as moms themselves there are things I did or said to them that they have vowed not to do with their own children. However, I do know that my daughters are not afraid to talk to me, disagree with me, or follow their own path in life, whether I like it or not. For this, I am proud, and feel good about the job I did as their mom.
It’s taken me a long time to be proud of myself, and I realized not too long ago that I wanted to instill the sense of being proud into my children and grandchildren’s mind. I now tell them, you should be proud of yourself for…because I believe that it is more important they learn to be proud of themselves then to worry about making others proud of them.
I say this constantly to my grandchildren, but last week for the first time, I said it to my daughter, Hollie, author of the blog, “Treehugging Redhead.”
[http://treehuggingredhead.blogspot.com] Hollie went on a ‘sugarless” diet for a month to see what it was like and wrote about it on her blog. Truthfully, this is not a challenge I would have taken on (the Ice Cream diet is more my speed) but this was Hollie, one of my three daughters that I pledged to make independent and creative. Hollie went through the whole month cutting out as much sugar as the food industry allows, and instead of writing “I’m proud of you” I wrote, “You should be very proud of yourself!”
I also want my oldest daughter, Jennifer, to be very proud of herself for handling two active toddlers with patience and grace. And Amy, my youngest, who thought she would "kill" every flower she touched, be proud of yourself for growing such beautiful flowers in your front flower garden!
Sometime in life, we are going to run into people who will always find fault with what we do. Sadly, some of us will meet these people when we are children and they will be the people that we will try the hardest to please: parents, teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends. Hopefully these children will have a encouraging person in their lives who loves them unconditionally, and will not only tell the child how proud they are of the child’s accomplishments, but will also remind the child that, “You should be very proud of yourself!”
