Mom & Me Journals Histories: 1999 - 2001

     While I am waiting for my mother to contemplate bathing, do the bathing then get ready to go to a steakhouse (I'm actually in the mood for steak, tonight) for her Mother's Day Dinner, I am thinking about what you said about how mothers should be celebrated on their children's birthdays and my response. I am also thinking about my own mother's style of mothering, which did not involve micro-management. Her style of mothering was very much like my father's initial driving instruction to those of us he taught to drive, "Correct it, don't drive it." She was a very low key mother just as she is now a very low key mother-in-law, grandmother and great grandmother. I think she views mothering as something you just do, like waking up, going to the bathroom, eating and sleeping; and, a label you wear. After all, it seems that the species is bound to continue, for awhile at least. So, one of the things you do as you are alive is you make other people and get them started; rear them, I love that word. It has never seemed to bother her that one of her daughters didn't do that. It isn't a particular pleasure either that three of her daughters did. I have heard people say that this casual, just-do-it style of mothering is what was wrong with the way their mothers or other mothers parented. I think, though, that it worked; a sort of mundane, get-the-kid-raised attitude. I think that when parents get too involved with parenting kids get too involved with being parented. I don't have any theories about to what this leads. Probably nothing specific, as usual. I suppose if I had been raised having play dates scheduled, overloaded with extracurricular activities and having my parent go to bat for me at school instead of having to go to bat for myself, micro-parent-managing would probably be a great way to be parented. I imagine it is helpful, at the very least, to have someone keep track of your schedule. I have nieces and nephews who are products of that type of parenting, they of the hypersocial future, where "private thoughts" is an oxymoron. I like that idea. When I was very young I expressed it as a drive to live "inside out", which I continue to do. I guess I'm surprised to find that one does not have to be an isolationist to do this.
     The bath water is draining so I'm off to put lotion on my mother then take her to dinner where we will probably discuss all the stuff above and more. My mother enjoys hearing about the parenting part of her life from her "victims'", as she says, point of view. That's one thing I like about being with her at this time in her life. I love watching her look back on her life and analyze it. It's surprising what matters to an 83 year old. It's also surprising what doesn't.