What a prompt!
I am FULL of messages. I can't help myself. I was raised by a headstrong, dynamic Woman who raised me to be just like her, despite the fact, that in that process, conflict ensued!
My mother was ahead of her time. She loved to play baseball, but in the '50s, Little League didn't allow Girls, so she cut her hair, strapped down her budding breasts with ACE bandages, so she could pose as a boy, and played anyway. She grew up in Phoenix, where pro-baseball teams went for spring training, and launched herself up and out of her seat to catch a foul ball hit by one of her "Heroes" (Willie Mays), breaking her collarbone in the process. We have the signed baseball and newspaper clipping to prove it. My Grandmother was not just embarrassed, but "horrified" by the photo, since Willie Mays was a "Negro." But my mother didn't care. Willie Mays was her Hero, and she didn't give a damn what her mother thought of that (or maybe she did, and that's exactly why she chose him to be one of her Heroes...)
My Mother was brilliant, vibrant, and outspoken during a time when that was not "acceptable" or "ladylike." My grandfather was the eldest of four boys who wound up being the father of three girls. My mother was the Son He Always Wanted, yet he could not look past her gender to see that. She spent not only her childhood and adolescence trying to prove herself to him, but also her entire adult life. All she ever wanted was his approval, and she never, EVER got it.
But, the effort she put into that thankless goal, made her into this amazing mother--not the kind of mother that most people get. Instead, she was this force for her two daughters--filled with Words of Wisdom and MESSAGES. When I was 7 years old, MY mother was reading the Once and Future King to my sister and me as a bedtime story. We were well-versed in Arthurian Legend, Greek and Roman Mythology, and plenty of other "Classic Literature." She was an avid reader (her "escape" from the mundane, repetitious, and isolating experience that Housewivery proved to be for her), and she launched a love of reading in my sister and me, introducing us to the genres that she knew would capture our individual interests and personalities.
As we got older, we recognized that "time around the dinner table," was a time for MESSAGES. That was the time when my mother "learned us."
Other people have "Momisms" that, while they can be "funny internet fodder" are actually, kind of stupid. Things like, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you OUT!" or "Don't make me come BACK there!"
NOT SO in my House. Idle threats involving physical violence were not her style. Instead, my Mother had REAL things to say, like: "Don't ever rely on a Man to support you," and "There is NO form of Birth Control that is 100% effective," and "You can't legislate morality." (I do the same with my kids today, and we all jokingly refer to this discipline technique as "Death By Lecture.")
Her MESSAGES involved application of logic and critical thinking, questioning authority, sticking up for yourself, personal accountability, accepting challenges, and striving for bigger and better goals.
My sister and I were her proudest achievements. But we didn't get where we are today without the sting and bite of her criticisms. She prodded us, pushed us, created us to be what she so very much wanted to be, but never really got the opportunity to be. She pushed us so hard, and sometimes it HURT. And it saddens me so much that she isn't here to see that I finally AM who she wanted me to be--a Woman at the pinnacle of her career, influencing policy and guiding decisions of Executives at the highest level of my Agency! And my sister, who is sacrificing HER career because she knows all too well, just how important it is for her son to have a mother who can "be there" at bedtime every night to read books and take him to the park on the weekends. SHE made US. We would not be the mothers/women that we are without her influence.
And, so, I find myself "channeling" her whenever I talk to my children. My Parenting Style is a little bit different, but I still funnel similar MESSAGES to them, and I can only hope that they will still "sink in" on some level, so they will become the kind of people their Grandmother would be proud of.
