Hands down, “My Mother!”

My mother is, and always has been, the most important, most influential person in my life. My father died when I was 6 years old but don’t feel sorry for me. He was mentally ill and made life for my mother a terrible struggle. He ended up taking his own life (only after terrorizing my mother with threats to kill each of their kids while she watched, and then kill her). Here was this woman: 29 years old, a widow with 6 children whose ages ranged from 2 - 12. My mother not only survived, she endured all the while never losing her faith in the kindness of people. She is the type of person who draws people in … with only a smile. And after they get to know her they want to be a part of her life always. I remember when I was about 5 years old looking up at my mother in church as she sang from the hymnal. I thought she was an angel and her voice was the most beautiful sound on earth. (Of course, I now know that love is not only blind it is deaf because my mother has never been able to carry a tune.) And when my mother would visit my school during the day for a parent-teacher or volunteer event I would get all excited and gather my friends around to show her off. She says I was her only kid who actually got excited when she came to school. And when I was about 14 years of age I overheard my mother and a close neighbor talking (they didn’t know I was under the porch). The neighbor was saying that her kids were ungrateful and would not be there for them in their old age. I was filled with pride when I heard my mother say, “I would never want to be a burden on my kids but I know that Tammy would take care of me.” I was filled with pride that she knew how much I loved her and would definitely take care of her even though I was the 4th child out of her 6. My mother is my idol and role model. Even though her entire life has been such a struggle, from infancy to 70 years old, she is the most happy person I know. She sees the best in everyone and judges no one. My mother is 73 years young, and I’m 50, and we talk on the phone several times a week laughing like teen-agers. And when she visits me in NC I’m hard pressed to keep up with her. She has endless energy and wants to see everything. I pray that I can have her energy can passion for people some day.

Who was more important to me? Well…it depends. As a young girl I thought my Daddy was Superman and Elvis all rolled into one. He was fun-loving and he really loved me and my brother. He also had a lot of money and due to the divorce his house was more attractive than my mom’s where I spent the majority of my time. Of course I grew up and learned my own truths about both of my parents. They were young and impetuous and were doing the best they could. With the birth of my only child I had what I could only describe as overnight respect for my mother. Looking down at my baby I wondered if anyone could love something so much and it occurred to me instantly…YES…my mother. My dad instilled qualities as never quit. My mom instilled the quality of negotiation. Both of them allowed me to dream as big as I dared. I don’t love one more than the other but I love them different.

When I was young, I went through phases. As a small child, my father was my hero and could do no wrong. When I was a teenager, believe it or not, my mom and I became very good friends. I was old enough to understand her as a woman and began to truly look up to the woman she was. Now that I’m much older, my relationship with both of my parents is strong, with neither being stronger than the other. I am an only child, and we joke that I am my mother’s daughter and my father’s son. My relationship with both are very different but both are as special to me as the other. I love them both very much, and have been a very lucky and blessed person to have had such a wonderful relationship with both.

Barry Manilow I Am Your Child I am your child. Wherever you go, you take me, too. Whatever I know, I learn from you. Whatever I do, you taught me to do. I am your child. And I am your chance. Whatever will come, will come from me. Tomorrow is won, by winning me. Whatever I am, you taught me to be. I am your hope, I am your chance, I am your child.

My mother…my father has never been stable in my life and while the obvious choice IS my mother for sticking around she’s more than made up for the role of two parents. She doesn’t do it to make up for my father, necessarily, but because you can tell from her soul, from everything in her, that she loves being the mom of a single girl-child and always has since the day I was born. She has a great time doing it and so the tremendousness of her parenting comes quite naturally and not at all out of pity. I’ve grown up being disappointed that my father couldn’t or wouldn’t love me and care for me correctly rather than flat-out hating him for being sub-par. I feel like he could really do a good job if he just made the effort. But I don’t regret being raised by a single mother. On the flip side I don’t necessarily want my kid growing up with a single parent but I know if I had to do it, well…I’d do it.

Wowowow this was a good one, eh? I was really fascinated by nearly every response.

Mugsy, me too. It occurs to me that we are children of pioneers. In us all runs the blood of men and women who by wagon train or by foot, set off to settle a country and find a new way. We also, are pioneers. Our psychological countries are the ones we are now exploring and unveiling. We have reached the boundaries of our terrrestrial outer limits. I have read that Carl Jung said, “The happiest person is the one without history.” I do believe we have entered the post-historical age. Thank you all for sharing your stories, your pains, your loves, support and perspective. WOW is right!

PS. I refused to be photographed as the Infantile Paralysis Poster Child because they wouldn’t let me take off those horrid brown high-top Oxfords, or my braces. There was no way I could understand why my picture would be taken with them on me … no way. I was 10. I’m still the same way!

I would definately say it was my mother. She was an incredible woman. She taught my sister and I that the most important thing in life is respect. As long as you are respectful to others, everything will fall into place. She was right. She passed away 16 years ago from Breast Cancer, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I dont think about her and miss her terribly. There are days when I have just had enough and don’t even want to get up in the morning, then I think about her, and her strength and it helps me to get moving.

My Dad! I am the oldest of six girls, the second oldest of ten children! I thought when I was growing up my father was the smartest man in the world. He grew up without a father and was determined to make sure his children were close, we are to this day! I developed a love for travel from my Dad, he was only able to travel while in the military. He was a great reader and a chess player. One of his favorite mantras was ” develope a sense of reference”….he had many, but he taught us to break out from our comfort zone. He taught us to try new things, food, music….I can go on. He’s hardly perfect…but I love him to death. No reflection on my Mom, she’s great too ( and the best cook I know!)

My mother was more important. We were not close when I was young. I think it was her way of making me strong. As a mother of five now I understand her better. My mother stayed the course, my father left us and that was it. He did not stay for the long haul. I appreciate her more and more now.

I was my father’s intellectual protegee and learned much from him - also from his stories around the dinner table about his life and his business career. It was hard to break away and become my own person, though…While I was living at home I was never emotionally close to my mother, although she also taught me a lot -like crafts, cooking, sewing and so on. I learned to be resourceful from her. In her later years, through therapy I seem to have managed to re-mother myself and established an adult relationship with my mother, which was very close for both of us. I am so grateful that I was able to do this, for both of us…

My father, who decided early in my life that it was okay for me to be educated and independent. He really laid the groundwork for what I have become, while making my mother into a Jewish princess who suffered from migraines and waited for him to get home at night to entertain her. I also felt she had children because that’s what everyone did, and she really enjoyed being my dad’s wife more than being our mother. We were “outsourced” to a succession of housekeepers. When my father died, I was already married, and then she tried to come back into my life, but I had long outgrown her. The last straw for a significant relationship came when I got pregnant and she and her high powered white collar criminal boyfriend came to Arizona to persuade me to abort the child because the father was “only” a college professor and we weren’t married. Detect some anger here? I am a far more integral part of my daughters’ lives than my mother was of mine.

both of my parents were significant to me in opposite ways. my father was the one who challenged me to be a better individual - he would tell me “you can’t” and i would! years after being awarded a full 4 year scholarship in senior year and being denied the opportunity by his “girls didnt go to college” attitude he apologized to me. i had traveled the challenge and became a mall property manager without the book knowledge. he regretted his decision by saying “i often wonder what you would have become with the education”. he had the ability to push, to teach me “common sense” and logic yet was man enough to say when he had made a mistake. my mom was always there - and today i listen to her tales of the past …they are jaded, often embellished but deep inside i always knew she had my interest at heart and loved - loves me still unconditionally. funny, my sisters remember their childhoods with sadness, parents arguing and dysfunctional family events. they have shunned my mother completely leaving her alone and without the companionship of grandchildren/great grandchild in her later years. i foo recall the ups and downs but then again didnt everyone have something in their past that may have fared better - gone smoother or had the picture perfect family on the outside only? time moves forward - forget the bad i say and look only at the positive. none of us are perfect - that includes parents….