Some ten years ago my father told me that his first wife – my mother – had confided in him that she very much regretted losing her temper and yelling at her young kids. My mom felt as if she had done damage to us by screaming. My father never repeated the story, but I never forgot it. Now he is almost 84-years old and has forgotten most details from those days. But I do not doubt my mom told him that, as nobody would make up such a story.
My mom died back in 1996 when I was 29-years old. But I remember back in the early 1970s when Margaret Mary was a stay-at-home mother in suburban Milwaukee with three young children (me the oldest) at home and no help. Look at us here:
My parents were thousands of miles away from their own parents and extended family; my mom felt alone and overwhelmed, which is understandable. My mom was a native Californian who found the Wisconsin winters overly long and bitterly cold. She was an extroverted beauty who was gregarious and outgoing, and now she spent her days surrounded by dirty diapers and toddler toys. My dad was a supportive and loving father and husband, and as a young lawyer he was making good money. But my mom was at home with us all day everyday. I later learned she had a cousin in town who was an emotional lifeline to her during those grueling years of parenting young kids. My mom struggled.
My mom would lose her cool occasionally and yell at us. She would scream at her misbehaving kids. Later she would regret it. She told my dad later that she felt guilty about the screaming. Decades later he told me.
I faintly remember my mom yelling at us. It was far from an everyday thing, and my mom was generally a grounded, patient, and loving parent. But your kids can get on your last nerve. As I well know as a parent myself, occasionally you lose it. I am famous among my peers for being calm and almost unflappable. But I have raised my voice with my children, for sure.
I have forgotten the stress-filled moments with my mom yelling during the early 1970s, to the extent they happened. My mom was surely more cognizant of her losing her cool than I was. And I suspect she judges herself much more harshly than I or my siblings would. I remember bored days trapped inside by the snow, and my mom always there day after day. With her well-educated, well-paid young husband her life as a housewife was more materially comfortable than it was for many other mothers, but it was still draining and unremitting. And if she loved her kids, the labor was often boring. My mom did all the hard and thankless labor taking care of us during the day, and then my dad would come home at night and be the “fun parent” as we wrestled and played hide-and-seek for hours. My mom endured the long days of caregiving, and I would wait at the end of the driveway for my dad to return from work in the late afternoons. It was hard for her. I get it.
My mother was a stable, loving, supportive presence in my life, and I don’t have much to reproach her with – I am appreciative. And I don’t remember the yelling much. It was a very minor part of my generally happy childhood. Even “happy childhoods” see those messy moments where everyone is enraged and acting badly. There are the ugly moments born from an ugly mood. If you are not up for the ugly along with the good-and-the-bad, you should not become a parent. You have to be down for the good, the bad, and the ugly. That is how it works.
“Give yourself a break, Mom!” I would tell her now, if I could. “You did fine. You were a great mother!” Hopefully she can hear me wherever she is. “To the extent you feel you need forgiveness, I forgive you.”
I would also ask her forgiveness in turn.
There was a time somewhere around 1975. My mom loved nothing more than playing music on the stereo and dancing with her young children. She would blast Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!” at full volume and dance with abandon and experience joy, in a way that folding loads of laundry or cleaning up the spills from sippy cups on the kitchen floor did not. She loved it! And I used to dance and sing with my mom, although those memories are among the fuzziest ones I have from my earliest days.
But I do remember when I was around seven years old I stopped. I remember clearly the day when I told my mom I was no longer interested in jumping up and down on the couch and singing with her. She was crestfallen. I remember the look of pain (betrayal?) on her face.
This is the way it works. At a certain time growing up, you are just done with certain activities, having aged out of them. My wife and I drive down the street where the AYSO youth soccer games take place, and we remember when we used to do that, even though it was long ago. Or you notice that your child’s enthusiasm for something – Angelina Ballerina videos, Harry Potter books, complicated Lego toysets, or whatever – which they used to live for no longer holds any interest for them. “I guess we aged out of that,” my wife says to me as we box it up to donate to charity. Kids mature out of their “soft pants” and wear blue jeans, like everyone else. Their Velcro shoes are replaced by ones with shoelaces. And for me I finally was old enough where I did not want to jump around like a crazy person and sing feminist power anthems with my mom. I was becoming a young man in 1975.
And I have no apologies for that.
But I still feel the pain in the look of disappointment (betrayal?) on my mom’s face. She was hurt. She pleaded with me. I was unmovable. I was done.
What would I say to her now?
“I’m sorry, mom. That is what I had to do at the time. But I am willing to dance and sing with you now, if it is important to you. I am old enough now not to care if I act the fool.”
But, alas, it is too late.
The day is gone, as is my mom. At this point it is all ancient history. That was some 47 years ago!
But it still matters to me.
So I will write these thoughts down here; I would air out these old feelings now; and that is the point of this essay.
“I forgive you, mom.”
Rest easy, Margaret Mary.
You were a wonderful mom, and I’m grateful.
I have had occasion in my life to encounter thousands of families of all stripes and shapes, and so I know the luck I had in mine.
Thank you.
I’m sorry for not dancing with you.
All these long years later, I love you and don’t forget.
