Many of us imagine the\u00a0perfect mother as some combination of TV matriarchs June Cleaver and Marion Cunningham. Those mothers and the ones so often portrayed in film and literature are happy, well adjusted souls. They act as the rudder, steering the family through the choppy waters of life. Society's image of \"the perfect mother\" is someone who puts aside her wants and wishes, her goals and ambitions, and focuses on those of her children or her spouse. In other words, to fit the mold, the perfect mother must be the perfect martyr.<\/p>\n
I've never been much for molds. I don't like them for my characters and I don't like them in my reality. I've also never been much for martyrdom. If I'm nailed to a cross then I can't hug my kids. Hands down, I think hugging and frequent reminders that my love\u00a0and\u00a0my support are unconditional beats trying to guilt my\u00a0two phenomenal sons\u00a0(Zack -18- and Sam -11) into doing \"the right thing.\" Who says it's the right thing anyway? The phrase makes my point - social norms make mothers into judges who decide absolute right and absolute wrong, who know that Junior must do this or that to be happy and productive but that doing the other thing would not only be wrong, it would make him miserable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My image for the perfect mother isn't the judge, it's the artist. The same creative spirit that puts word to paper, paint to canvas, and insanity to Youtube videos, acts as a guide to show our children that life, like literature or art, can take many forms and\u00a0many paths. If I'm a good mother, I show my kids the roads and cheer for them on their way, support them when they stumble and remind them that there is no shame in starting over along a new path. My kids may take paths I never walked, but it doesn't make their choices right or wrong. It means they chose, they decided.\u00a0 It\u00a0means I did my job.<\/p>\n
I've written one mother in my books that I adore. Violet Crandle in Faerie<\/a><\/em> is Heather's Aunt Vi who guides her tranformation.\u00a0 In Golden<\/a><\/em> she is Viv's mum who\u00a0sends her daughter out in the wee hours of night to save the man who saved Viv.\u00a0 This is one of my favorite scenes with Violet Crandle from Golden<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n \"And you men say women are illogical,\" Vi threw her hands up as though giving up on the whole sex. \"She showed him what she thought. She thought he\u2019d just done the most heroic thing a man could ever do for a woman and she was amazed to see proof positive that the man loved her more than himself. What did her hero do? He shoved her away.\"<\/em><\/p>\n Trying to defend his friend, Boz said, \"He was trying to protect her. He wouldn\u2019t want her to feel obligated to him based on guilt or pity.\"<\/em><\/p>\n \"Trying to protect her from her own feelings? Did he ever bother to ask her first what those feelings were?\" Now Vi was striding around the room, swinging her arms wildly. Peter ducked and grabbed a vase but couldn\u2019t save a small statue that crashed to the floor. \"I\u2019ll tell you, he did not. He decided what she was feeling and now he is despondent over what he decided her feelings were.\"<\/em><\/p>\n \"This is why women talk about what we're feeling. It\u2019s so we know where we stand.\" She shook her head as she continued, \"How like a man to decide he knows what a woman is feeling without ever bothering to ask.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Boz reacts to the goings on a bit later and gets a reply from Viv's brother, Peter. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \"I\u2019m not sure if this house is backwards or if it\u2019s the rest of the world that\u2019s confused,\" Boz said as he got up to follow Viv.<\/em><\/p>\n \"We\u2019re never sure either,\" Peter replied.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Good mothers\u00a0provide guidance.\u00a0 If\u00a0they do it right, they don't have to provide direction.\u00a0 With the foundation of proper guidance, love and support, the children will direct themselves on their journey to adulthood.\u00a0 Whether their mother is the judge or the artist, growing young people will model themselves after what they know, what they see.\u00a0 If their mother is the artist, they will see how\u00a0chaos creates its own order.\u00a0 They will see joy and sorrow and the turmoil of the creative process.\u00a0 In the long run, what they will see most is growth.\u00a0 From\u00a0certifiable (or nearly so) mothers, they will see that\u00a0we can embrace the insanity of life with dedication and humor. From\u00a0mother, the artist, they will learn that we create our destinies.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n With apologies to June Cleaver and Marion Cunningham,\u00a0the best mothers are not rudders at all.\u00a0They are sails.\u00a0<\/p>\n Happy Mother's Day!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many of us imagine the\u00a0perfect mother as some combination of TV matriarchs June Cleaver and Marion Cunningham. Those mothers and the ones so often portrayed in film and literature are happy, well adjusted souls. They act as the rudder, steering the family through the choppy waters of life. Society's image of \"the perfect mother\" is ...continue reading \"The Best Mothers Are Certifiable\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}