Parenting

It is strange to me that so many of us talk about not wanting to be like our parents. And yet, how many of us recognize that tape recorder in our head playing out loud when we hear words coming out of our mouths that we had silently sworn to never say to our children.

It has taken me far too long to recognize that my Mom and Dad did the best they could with what life handed them. I have taken, during the course of my adult life, too much credit for the way I turned out and not given them nearly enough. What I thought was weakness in my Father I now recognize as great patience and tolerance. He was the first truly non-violent person I ever knew. What I thought of as impatience in my Mother was really a woman dealing with illness (she had breast cancer at the age of 32...in 1945. I was only about 2 years old.) She went through several years of pain and fear that the cancer would return. It must have been truly difficult for her to change her whole life. They had to leave the dairy farm and move several hundred miles away from her family...and start whole new lives.

My Dad has been dead for many years now. I still miss his quiet strength. Mom is now 97 and although her memory isn't very good, and she gets mixed up on her facts sometimes, she never fails to tell me to be careful when I am going somewhere and to be sure to call (collect if I am out of town...cell phones are still a mystery to her) if I need help and she will come..or find someone to help me....and that, my friend, is what motherhood is all about!