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The Root has a set of takes on motherhood today (and yesterday, and tomorrow). We’ve allowed four women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s riff on just how significant is it is that someone, somewhere, grinned and bore it—literally—pushing a football-sized version of themselves out into the world.
They’re all great pieces. I notice that in the younger ages, there is downward pressure—the being-a-daughter part takes center stage. In your 30s, there may be kids, but things turn inward—Rebecca Walker sums up mothering at that age as being “about getting your proverbial sh*t together.” Forty-something Salatheia Bryant-Honors, who lost her mother, feels both at once. But of course, the tale with which I identify most closely is from my friend Helena Andrews, who writes from her 20s with the specter of maternity breathing down her neck:
If you’ve ever been to a wedding, funeral or father-daughter purity ball, then you’ve sat—perhaps teary-eyed—through John Mayer’s “Daughters.” The song is the audio version of a Lifetime movie event. Basically it’s about how some girl got so messed up by her parents that now she can’t truly love the man standing on her steps with his heart in his hand.
The last two lines of the hook are something like a eulogy: “Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers. So mothers, be good to your daughters, too.” Why not “girls become lovers who turn into. ...” something other than mothers?
Why, indeed? I’m certainly not averse to motherhood—I’ve seen some pretty great examples of it in my life. But like Helena’s, my own wonderful mother has also suddenly been afflicted with “a crazy case of the ‘grandbabies.’” At dinner in Washington this week to celebrate our mutual birthdays, she was way unsubtle about her desire for me to get hitched and start cranking out some grandkids. She jabbed me and said that I was “ready.” I got up to go to the bathroom. She waxed nostalgic about the joys of raising me and my sister—Irish (or Nigerian) twins—while my dad completed his medical residency 300 miles away. I swapped my empty wine glass for hers. She described what sounded like awful sacrifices and stresses. I joked about how lame it must have been to be pregnant-to-bursting with me on her 28th birthday. Still, she persisted in her relentless advocacy for early marriage, and little ones for her to go all Marion Robinson on.
This is all by way of saying that Mireille Grangenois has singlehandedly made me reconsider my glib eye-rolling. All of The Root’s storytellers do wonderful jobs of explaining their lives as women and mothers, but Grangenois, a media executive, gives a particularly honest take on what it’s like to have an 11-year-old at age 53—just as everyone else seems to be having all the fun. “I am flanked on both sides by the comparatively carefree existence of two other women in my peripheral orbit. My husband Steve’s ex-wife celebrated her 60th birthday in December with surfing lessons in Costa Rica as she vacationed with their adult daughter.” My mom is no M.I.A., but she couldn’t be more excited to be empty-nesting at 52 (sorry, mom!), sipping wine at a trendy out-of-town restaurant, instead of changing diapers or, heaven forbid, still wrangling my hair.
She really needs to stop being right all the time.
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The Root has a set of takes on motherhood today (and yesterday, and tomorrow). We’ve allowed four women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s riff on just how significant is it is that someone, somewhere, grinned and bore it—literally—pushing a football-sized version of themselves out into the world.
They’re all great pieces. I notice that in the younger ages, there is downward pressure—the being-a-daughter part takes center stage. In your 30s, there may be kids, but things turn inward—Rebecca Walker sums up mothering at that age as being “about getting your proverbial sh*t together.” Forty-something Salatheia Bryant-Honors, who lost her mother, feels both at once. But of course, the tale with which I identify most closely is from my friend Helena Andrews, who writes from her 20s with the specter of maternity breathing down her neck:
If you’ve ever been to a wedding, funeral or father-daughter purity ball, then you’ve sat—perhaps teary-eyed—through John Mayer’s “Daughters.” The song is the audio version of a Lifetime movie event. Basically it’s about how some girl got so messed up by her parents that now she can’t truly love the man standing on her steps with his heart in his hand.
The last two lines of the hook are something like a eulogy: “Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers. So mothers, be good to your daughters, too.” Why not “girls become lovers who turn into. ...” something other than mothers?
Why, indeed? I’m certainly not averse to motherhood—I’ve seen some pretty great examples of it in my life. But like Helena’s, my own wonderful mother has also suddenly been afflicted with “a crazy case of the ‘grandbabies.’” At dinner in Washington this week to celebrate our mutual birthdays, she was way unsubtle about her desire for me to get hitched and start cranking out some grandkids. She jabbed me and said that I was “ready.” I got up to go to the bathroom. She waxed nostalgic about the joys of raising me and my sister—Irish (or Nigerian) twins—while my dad completed his medical residency 300 miles away. I swapped my empty wine glass for hers. She described what sounded like awful sacrifices and stresses. I joked about how lame it must have been to be pregnant-to-bursting with me on her 28th birthday. Still, she persisted in her relentless advocacy for early marriage, and little ones for her to go all Marion Robinson on.
This is all by way of saying that Mireille Grangenois has singlehandedly made me reconsider my glib eye-rolling. All of The Root’s storytellers do wonderful jobs of explaining their lives as women and mothers, but Grangenois, a media executive, gives a particularly honest take on what it’s like to have an 11-year-old at age 53—just as everyone else seems to be having all the fun. “I am flanked on both sides by the comparatively carefree existence of two other women in my peripheral orbit. My husband Steve’s ex-wife celebrated her 60th birthday in December with surfing lessons in Costa Rica as she vacationed with their adult daughter.” My mom is no M.I.A., but she couldn’t be more excited to be empty-nesting at 52 (sorry, mom!), sipping wine at a trendy out-of-town restaurant, instead of changing diapers or, heaven forbid, still wrangling my hair.
She really needs to stop being right all the time.
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On this Mother's Day weekend, here's a shout out to Jessica Grose's mother who as Jess writes, "didn't want to get in the way" of her college age son's and daughter's independence so she would never call them, though they could call her whenever they wanted. It takes a lot of self-discipline to not call an adult daughter. A lot. As I confessed in Slate last year, being available to our grown children without inserting ourselves into their lives is a very tough balance beam to walk. One of the hardest tasks a mother has is recognizing when the job is done. Congratulations to all the moms who have graduated to being the person who can still listen, cheer, and celebrate but somehow refrain from meddling.
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Bonnie, Jess, I confess I haven't been able to read Jess's piece about talking to her mom yet; I started to, and it brought tears to my eyes. Like Jess, I used to talk to my mom all the time, about matters large and small. (Should I refrigerate peanut butter? Should I take that job? Who are you voting for?) But my mother passed away on Christmas Day of 2008. And so I can't talk to her. I didn't think that Mother's Day was going to hit home at all, because my mother, a wry pragmatist, considered it a fake holiday. In her view, it was more about Hallmark than her. Still, we often gave her flowers, or, in the past few years, when she was sick, made a point of seeing her. One reason that Mother's Day is hard, though, is that I see all these other daughters talking about their mothers. The hardest part about losing her are times when I realize that the unique mother-daughter relationship is one I will never again experience—not as a daughter, at least. And frankly, the idea of having children without her around to impart her wisdom makes the whole enterprise seem a lot less appealing. I'm sure that will change over time, but the pain won't. In fact, there's a moving piece about this over on the New York Times parenting blog. So this Mother's Day, I will be thinking most about daughters and sons; the motherless ones.
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Bonnie, Jess, I confess I haven't been able to read Jess's piece about talking to her mom yet; I started to, and it brought tears to my eyes. Like Jess, I used to talk to my mom all the time, about matters large and small. (Should I refrigerate peanut butter? Should I take that job? Who are you voting for?) But my mother passed away on Christmas Day of 2008. And so I can't talk to her. I didn't think that Mother's Day was going to hit home at all, because my mother, a wry pragmatist, considered it a fake holiday. In her view, it was more about Hallmark than her. Still, we often gave her flowers, or, in the past few years, when she was sick, made a point of seeing her. One reason that Mother's Day is hard, though, is that I see all these other daughters talking about their mothers. The hardest part about losing her are times when I realize that the unique mother-daughter relationship is one I will never again experience—not as a daughter, at least. And frankly, the idea of having children without her around to impart her wisdom makes the whole enterprise seem a lot less appealing. I'm sure that will change over time, but the pain won't. In fact, there's a moving piece about this over on the New York Times parenting blog. So this Mother's Day, I will be thinking most about daughters and sons; the motherless ones.
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Meghan, I so feel your pain about being motherless on Mother's Day. I lost my mother last October and have felt unmoored ever since. Losing my mother was like losing my sense of place in the world; the sense that I belonged to this one person in way that I could never belong to anyone else.
Still, instead of trying to avoid everything Mother's Day-related, I planned to embrace the day and comfort myself with good memories of good times with my mother. Until a few days ago, I was certain I would face down Mother's Day with aplomb and sail through the schmaltzy television commercials and radio promotions for floral arrangements, Sunday brunch reservations, and all other manner of consumerism pushed on us in the name of showing our mammas love and gratitude—without being overwhelmed by grief. I didn't mind hearing about my friends' plans for their mothers and I didn't avoid walking through the aisle bursting with Mother's Day cards at the local CVS. I read dozens of first-person pieces by writers writing about their mothers and even wrote one of my own about my mother's late-in-life-journey to feminism.
I was good until about Thursday when the sense of loss returned to me with such force that it surprised me, and deeply saddened me. Then I reminded myself that although Mother's Day will obviously never be the same for me, there is no rule that restricts the day to celebrating only the living. We can still honor our departed mothers by remembering the life lessons they taught us, by living up to the moral code they gave us, by modeling the limitless love they showed us—whether or not we are ourselves mothers.
Mother's Day belong to us all, mother's past and present and the children who love them. I, for one, am not giving it up.
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Meghan, I so feel your pain about being motherless on Mother's Day. I lost my mother last October and have felt unmoored ever since. Losing my mother was like losing my sense of place in the world; the sense that I belonged to this one person in way that I could never belong to anyone else.
Still, instead of trying to avoid everything Mother's Day-related, I planned to embrace the day and comfort myself with good memories of good times with my mother. Until a few days ago, I was certain I would face down Mother's Day with aplomb and sail through the schmaltzy television commercials and radio promotions for floral arrangements, Sunday brunch reservations, and all other manner of consumerism pushed on us in the name of showing our mammas love and gratitude—without being overwhelmed by grief. I didn't mind hearing about my friends' plans for their mothers and I didn't avoid walking through the aisle bursting with Mother's Day cards at the local CVS. I read dozens of first-person pieces by writers writing about their mothers and even wrote one of my own about my mother's late-in-life-journey to feminism.
I was good until about Thursday when the sense of loss returned to me with such force that it surprised me, and deeply saddened me. Then I reminded myself that although Mother's Day will obviously never be the same for me, there is no rule that restricts the day to celebrating only the living. We can still honor our departed mothers by remembering the life lessons they taught us, by living up to the moral code they gave us, by modeling the limitless love they showed us—whether or not we are ourselves mothers.
Mother's Day belong to us all, mother's past and present and the children who love them. I, for one, am not giving it up.
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Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, the duo responsible for Saturday Night Live's viral video "Dick in A Box," were at it again this weekend, pasting on absurd facial hair and recording "Motherlover," a spoof song in honor of Mother's Day about two friends who really want to love each other's mothers (played, in the video, by Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson). Like really, really: "We both love our moms, women with grown women needs/ I say we break ‘em off/Show ‘em how much they really mean/'cause I'm a Mother Lover/ you're a Mother Lover/ We should fuck each other's mothers/ 'cause every Mother's Day needs a Mother's Night," and so on.
Written out, the lyrics read raunchy, but the overall effect was... sweet. (Not so sweet that you would actually send this to your mother, but sweet enough that you theoretically could). These are two absurd dudes trying to do a solid for their moms, and sometimes that means considering, as they say, "that place that you came out as a baby," which, let's be honest, very few children willingly do. Happy belated mother's day!
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Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, the duo responsible for Saturday Night Live's viral video "Dick in A Box," were at it again this weekend, pasting on absurd facial hair and recording "Motherlover," a spoof song in honor of Mother's Day about two friends who really want to love each other's mothers (played, in the video, by Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson). Like really, really: "We both love our moms, women with grown women needs/ I say we break ‘em off/Show ‘em how much they really mean/'cause I'm a Mother Lover/ you're a Mother Lover/ We should fuck each other's mothers/ 'cause every Mother's Day needs a Mother's Night," and so on.
Written out, the lyrics read raunchy, but the overall effect was... sweet. (Not so sweet that you would actually send this to your mother, but sweet enough that you theoretically could). These are two absurd dudes trying to do a solid for their moms, and sometimes that means considering, as they say, "that place that you came out as a baby," which, let's be honest, very few children willingly do. Happy belated mother's day!
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In honor of Mother's Day, XX Factor contributors discuss the moment they first realized that their moms had an identity in the world outside their place in the family. We invite you to join in the discussion and share your story below.
June Thomas: My mom left school at 15. This was typical in our town, but she had been expected to pass her 11-plus, the exam that, back then, decided if kids went on to an academic or a practical secondary education, so there was always an air of thwarted ambition about her. When I was growing up, she was a dinner lady at the school at the end of our street, and when I enrolled, I saw her rule the dining hall and playground with a will of iron. Some of her rules were random—kids could be sent to the corner for stirring jam into their rice pudding rather than taking dainty bites of each, as she insisted—but every dictator knows that instilling fear is far more important than being consistent.
Cecile Dehesdin: As a little girl, I was reminded every day of the week that my mom had this other life outside of being a mother to me and my brother when she would get dressed for work. We spent a lot of time together on weekends where she was always—and still is—dressed very casually and wearing no makeup whatsoever. But Monday to Friday, as I was getting ready for school, she would don a skirt suit, sheer tights, and heels, and I still remember watching her put on blusher and mascara, marveling at the transformation of my mom into this businesswoman whose exact job description I had a hard time grasping until I was in my teen years.
Jessica Grose: I realized my mom was more than just "my mom" in the world when I was 13 and saw her standing up in front of a town-planning committee fighting to keep her home office. My village’s old guard was trying to outlaw home offices—the blue hairs said they brought too much traffic into residential neighborhoods. Watching her appear so poised in front of a crowd was thrilling. It was also the first time I remember feeling proud of her.
Amanda Marcotte: When my parents divorced when I was 9, it was a crash course in realizing my mom had a life outside of being our mom. It wasn't just that we had more exposure to her work life and finances. It was also the realization that my parents had adult romantic lives, needs, and desires that had nothing to do with us. It made it the transition to being her adult child much easier for both of us.
Emily Bazelon: When I was 10 or so, I went to my mom's office—a rare event—and saw a dollhouse that had belonged to my sisters and me. She's a child psychiatrist and she'd brought it over for her patients. We were done playing with it. But I realized: She thinks about other kids! I was sort of proud and sort of nonplused.
Amanda Fortini: I realized my mom was more than just a mom when I won a college scholarship from her company (nepotism? maybe...) and, one school-day afternoon, accompanied her to her office to receive the little award certificate that had been prepared for me. There, I met several men who reported to her and were obviously in awe of her, even a little scared of her. I was 17 years old, and though I’d known for years that went to an office everyday—in the evenings, she’d lounge on the couch in her suit and pantyhose, which was all the evidence I needed—I’d never seen her businesswoman-boss self in action. It made me proud, to see my mother like that. I didn’t know any other mothers who were also business executives, and I felt our family, which consisted of my mother, my two sisters, and me, was unique. In a larger sense, though I didn’t realize it at the time, and she would never have explicitly said this, seeing my mother at work showed me that the gender roles and hierarchies I saw out in the world could be overturned, reversed, tossed aside: that a woman could be the boss, too.
Ellen Tarlin: When I was younger, realizing my mom was more than just a mom came with resentment. She was a Boston schoolteacher and was very active in the teachers' union, which meant she was out at meetings a few nights a week, which I hated, but I do remember stuffing envelopes with flyers that bore her face when she was running to be an officer in the union. I suppose I finally realized she had an emotional life that had nothing to do with motherhood one day when we were talking about a couple that had broken up because of infidelity, and I said something to the effect that she and my dad never had a hard time being faithful to each other and she said, "Don't be so sure." Wow. (My parents have been married for 47 years.)
Ann Hulbert: I'll date myself here when I say my mother, like so many women starting families in the 1950s, quit her teaching job to be home with us kids. So there was no office where I could watch her in non-mom mode. It was in bringing my friends home and hearing them talk with her, and then about her, that I realized how much she transcended the usual role: Their mothers were, by comparison, just mothers—who showed little of her unself-conscious, direct interest in people younger than she was. This dawned on me, I would say, in early teenage-hood, and I remember it as a very useful jolt.
KJ Dell’Antonia: Maybe because I was an only child, I don't think it ever occurred to me that my mom was "just my mom." She went back to college when I was small, and then to work as a teacher. I loved going with her over the summer to watch her arrange her classroom and be the only kid in a strange school. We'd see her students at the store, and they'd wave, kind of timidly, and I would feel so proud that a teacher (I loved my teachers) was also my mom. It was such a big part of her life, and, by extension, of mine that I can't remember ever feeling like she wasn't bigger than just the person she was at home.
Jenny Rogers: When I was in the 4th grade, the principal came to talk to our class about how we all have to work to make the school better. She pointed to me and said, “This school couldn’t run without Jenny Rogers’ mom.” I was blown away. I knew my mom was always going to PTA functions, but I hadn’t realized her work was so meaningful.
Hanna Rosin: I still don't think I fully realize that my mom is something other than my mom. How else to explain my sulky explosive preteen behavior whenever she comes over? My endless stream of contradictory, unreasonable demands and objections? (Yes, that shirt you bought me is too big! No, I'm not in a bad mood.) Did I mention that I just turned 40?
