Mothers Are People, Too

"Mothers Are People, Too

Genesis 3:20

How do you define, "mother"?

In some respects that has been done for us, way back when the first people were put upon the earth.  The name of the first woman had to do more with her role as mother than anything else:  "...Eve, because she was the mother of all the living."

In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, each word has a root or base word.  The root word for "mother" in Hebrew literally means, "to be wide, or roomy."  Isn't that an uplifting thought?  It had to do with pregnancy and child-bearing.  Although I'm sure there must have been some less roomy women who wished another root word would be chosen.

So, since the Garden of Eden, child-bearing is the main prerequisite for motherhood.  A group of first graders were asked by their teacher to draw a portrait of their mother as they saw her.  The art was displayed at an open house. One mother was drawn standing on a sailboat.  Others were hauling groceries, cutting grass, or talking on the telephone.  In each picture, the mothers had one thing in common:  they were all pregnant.  Even kids seem to recognize the age old association.

Peter De Vries once described the mother's lot by saying, "A mother's role is to deliver children--obstetrically once and by car forever after."

But most women would not want themselves defined by child-bearing alone.  It is not the only thing that makes a woman, and on some days, is not the most favorite thing.  Like one woman who was getting on the bus with 11 children.  The bus driver looked at her and her brood and said, "Lady, are they all yours, or are you going on a picnic?"

"They are all mine," she replied, "and believe me, it's no picnic."

On good days and bad, part of how we define womanhood is going to do with child-bearing.  Not only child-bearing, but also child raising.  Certainly the dreams begin early concerning "what this child will grow up to be."

Some mothers are good at putting their intuitions to work about how their kids will turn out.  Others aren't quite that perceptive.  For example, one day, Mrs. Washington was overheard saying, "George never did have a head for money."  And Mrs. Morse finally got fed up one day and said, "Samuel, stop tapping your fingers on the the table--it's driving me crazy!"  And Mrs. Armstrong once said, "Neil has no more business taking flying lessons than the man on the moon!"

We could adapt the old saying to read, "Behind every great man is a great...mother."  Always pushing, always prodding their children, mothers want the best for their kids--to grow up to be decent human beings who wear clean underwear everyday.

I like the story of the mother who accompanied her son to his college registration.  She wanted to make sure that he had the right kind of roommate.  She also wanted to make sure that the college didn't tolerate foul language, dirty movies, or alcoholic beverages.  She wanted to make sure that her son was exposed to a totally wholesome atmosphere, she told the registrar.  "After all," the mother continued, "this is the first time he's ever been away from home, except for the four years he spent in the Navy."

Now, as we are trying to define what a mother is, we need to remember from whose perspective we are talking.  I think, so far, the definitions have been from an adult perspective.  But there are some variations when motherhood is looked at from a kids perspective.

I think one of the ways kids view their mothers is as a cook.  Certainly she is the one who hears the familiar lines from children and husbands alike, "What's for dinner?"  Or, "What's there to eat?"  From a kid's perspective, it is sometimes amazing how simply a mother can supply that request.

Once when the power went off at the elementary school, the cook couldn't serve a hot meal in the cafeteria.  She had to feed the children something, so at the last minute she whipped up great stacks of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.  As one little boy filled his plate, he said to a friend, "It's about time.  At last--a home-cooked meal."

Other kids, now grown, look back at the mothering they got and think of all the little wise sayings that spilled forth from mother's lips.  Motherhood, in this kind of remembering, is defined more with a very specialized brand of parental wisdom, accompanied, but not always, with a smattering of guilt.  One woman has recently capitalized on this by compiling a publishing what she calls, "momalies."

There's all kinds of these forms of momalies, often having to do with punishing a child.  One of the oldies but goodies, for example is, "This is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you."  Another one along those lines is, "I'll give you something to really cry about."  Or, "I brought you into this world; I can take you out."  One that became familiar in my house, bringing on the coldest shudders a child can feel, was, "Just wait till your father comes home."  Among the more philosophical double-binds is the classic, "If you fall off that swing and break your leg, don't come running to me."  Another good one along this line is, "Didn't I tell you not to talk with your mouth full!?  Answer me!"

A lot of the momalies had to do with the fine art of producing guilt in their children.  "I'm going to send all that food you left on your plate to all the starving children in China" has got to be the all time classic.  Probably a close second is the often used, "I'm only one person!"  Or, "I've only got two hands."  One mother, trying to work the Jewish mother routine on her son, said, "Every time you're naughty I get another gray hair."

To which the son, with a snappy comeback, answered, "Gee, Mom, you must have been a terror when you were young.  Just look at Grandma."

Even though some mothers may well be defined as those who inflict feelings of guilt, there is another side to that coin that children hardly ever see.  That is that mothers also feel guilt from just being a mother.  It is a side they seldom let their children see.  One mother wrote a poem and sent it in to Ann Landers.  It was titled, "To My Grown-Up Son."  It read:

My hands were busy through the day

I didn't have much time to play

The little games you asked me to

I didn't have much time for you.

I'd wash your clothes, I'd sew and cook,

But when you'd bring your picture book

And ask me please to share your fun,

I'd say, "A little later, son."

I'd tuck you in all safe at night

And hear your prayers, turn out the light,

Then tiptoe softly to the door...

I wish I'd stayed a minute more.

For life is short, the year's rush past...

A little boy grows up so fast.

No longer is he at your side,

His precious secrets to confide.

The picture books are put away,

There are no longer games to play,

No good-night kiss, no prayers to hear...

That all belongs to yesteryear.

My hands, once busy, now are still.

The days are long and hard to fill.

I wish I could go back and do

The little things you asked me to.

To be a mother is to participate in an inexact science.  Or, it is to be an artist in a field where not everybody's tastes are the same.  Criticism comes from all directions, but mostly, I think, it is most cruelly and devastatingly self-inflicted.  Thus, guilt and the self-doubt will mushroom at times like an atomic cloud.  That is the ache of motherhood.  It is part of her definition, and it is not easily fixed, barely with the application of some kind of band aid.

Another way kids define mother is "the one who is supposed to find things."  If you have ever lost anything, or have looked for something for at least two seconds and can't find it, who is the best person to ask?  Mother, of course.  One female comedienne once made the jest that children (and husbands) think that a woman's uterus is some kind of homing device that mysteriously locates lost toys and shoes.

One last category of defining motherhood is mother-in-law hood.  A little boy said to his grandmother, "Oh, boy; I'm so glad you came for a visit.  Now maybe Daddy will do the trick he has been promising us."

The grandmother was curious, and asked, "What trick is that."

The little boy replied, "I heard him tell Mommy that if you came to visit again, he would climb the walls."

So, what is a mother?  Probably the wisest words came from the guru of motherhood, the late Erma Bombeck.  In her introduction to her book, Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, she wrote:

"Mother" has always been a generic term synonymous with love, devotion, and sacrifice.  There's always been something mystical and reverent about them...They're the Walter Cronkites of the human race...infallible, virtuous, without flaws and conceived without original sin, with no room for ambivalence.

Immediately following birth, every mother drags herself from her bed and awkwardly pulls herself up on the pedestal provided for her.

Some adjust easily to the saintly image.  They come to love the adulation and bask in the flocks that come to pay homage at their feet on Mother's Day.

Some can't stand the heights and jump off, never to be seen again...

Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world.  It never questions age,  height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience...

Motherhood is not a once-size-fits-all, a mold that is all-encompassing and means the same thing to all people...

Some mothers cry when their thirty-year-old daughters leave home and move to their own apartments.  Other mothers sell their twelve-year-old son's bed when he goes to a long scout meeting.

I've always felt uncomfortable about the articles that eulogized me as a nurse, chauffeur, cook, housekeeper, financier, counselor, philosopher, mistress, teacher, and hostess.  It seemed that I always read an article like this on the day when my kid was in a school play and I ironed only the leg of the trouser that faced the audience, knitted all morning, napped all afternoon, bought a pizza for dinner, and had a headache by 10:30...

Anticipating the question of which mother am I in this book, I will tell you.  There's a little bit of all of them in me...

All of them are real in every sense.  They are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how.

I like that last line. Let me read it again.

Mothers are first and foremost, women.  It seems it should be obvious to us, but we seldom see people beyond their roles.  Why should women be any different?  Eve was certainly the first woman, created in the image of God, filled with the breath of God, before she was ever the first mother.  Her identity, then, is primarily in personhood rather than in motherhood.

One mother was telling stories of the time she was a little girl.  Her son listened thoughtfully as she told of riding a pony, sliding down haystacks, and wading in the brook on the farm.  Finally her son said with a sigh, "I wish I had met you earlier, mom."

What that little boy found out, and what every son and daughter needs desperately to see, is that mother is a person, too.  She is a person who has a story of her own, including childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.  She is a woman who has hopes and dreams beyond motherhood; who has an identity beyond being a mother; and whose personhood is not determined solely through her physical attributes--being "wide and roomy"--which leads to child-bearing.

However we define them, we are making them less than they are if we do not see them as vital individuals, gifted by God for all kinds of living outside the realms of motherhood.  They deserve our respect not because of the roles they fulfill (mothers, wives, cooks, chauffeurs, homing devices), but because they have within them the image of God.  We can see the likeness of God in them, and that is the main definition of her personhood.  Having the likeness of God gives a woman a sure and certain dignity far above any role she may take upon herself or be given by others.  Her recognition should be everyday because of who she is rather than for what she does.

Women are the mothers of all the living, as Eve was.  Yes.  But mothers are people, too.