7 posts tagged “mothers”

1. If you see a pair of shoes tied together and thrown over power lines it means that the area is one where dugs are sold (someone just told them too). I always thought it was just mean bullies who stole peoples shoes.

2.There is a gadget that one can buy to turn the television off at a predetermined time. One of their friends lives with someone who insists on keeping the television on to all hours of the night even if they fall alseep on the couch. So friend attached one of the cut off devices and the TV goes off at 1 am every night. Roomie can't work out what is happening and has now connected TV to another power point thinking the power point is the problem.

3.That it is entirely possible to put the filer in the Britta water jug upside down and still have it click into place as the directions said it must if it was in the correct position. Daughter 2 was able to show me, as apparently I had managed to do just that...and I followed the instructions very closely to achieve it too. No one was surprised.

4. That a girl who can do multi million dollar deals and negoiations can be brought to the state of a blithering idiot over which lock, keyed or combination, to buy for her suitcase. We also had to choose a "secret" document holder, a carry on bag, a small back pack, a travel clothesline and some underwear. Now I know why 2 year olds throw themselves down in supermarket aisles and scream. I envied them the privilege today.

5. That mothers of grown daughters do not have the right to decide on their own hair styles....total grey is going to be a little way off it appears. In fact they do not have the right to decide much at all, except how much guilt they will take upon themselves for ruining their children's lives. You are never too old to blame your parents...I know, I am still doing it!

6. That it is possible to con one of your children into taking your car and filling it with fuel every week. Of course you still pay but they will do the physical side of pumping the petrol. Even if a daughter lives away from home, they contiue thinking you are so incompetent that they offer to take you car and fill it. Putting the filter in the Britta jug probably helps to prolong that opinion.

7. That sitting in a booth at Gloria Jeans for an hour with a daughter can be the best fun in the whole world. Having little daughters is wonderful but having grown daughters makes your heart sing.

Daughter 2 and I went to visit my mother yesterday. We took the  wheel chair and we actually got her to sit in it for a few minutes while my sister tried pushing her through the house. She has accepted it quite well, but of course in her mind she thinks she will never use it. She instructed my sister that she could not be seen sitting in a chair one day and standing somewhere the next, so we have a way to go. Nature takes care of these things often though - the need becomes too great to deny.

I had asked my mother if I could have her old black and white family photos, many taken with a little box brownie camera. She also has copies of old family group photos with my great-grandparents and their families. Mum has just had them lying around in a box and I want to get them and put them into archive albums to preserve them for the future. Luckily she agreed - she usually doesn't like to part with anything that is "hers".

Daughter 2 and I were looking at the photos and she would ask me who the people were and most of the time I knew as I had seen the photos so many times over the years, but with 10 children on mother's side and 18 children on my Dad's side sometimes I had to stop and think - is that Uncle Michael or Uncle Martin? Especially when they were very young and looked so much alike.  Whenever I hesitated my Mum would say, give it to me I will tell you in a split second, and then we would hand it over and then sit there trying not to smile as she said, is that Michael or Martin? It was a fun afternoon.

Now of course I have to live up to my promise and actually put them in archive albums, with correct details! I will have to live to be a spry 102 to do all the things I say I am going to do...but not tonight. Tired.

2 am in the Flamingo Dancer household.

Scene: the master bedroom belonging to Mr and Mrs Flamingo Dancer

He says “I can’t wear these pants they have no button”

She says “ I was asleep”

He says “ I have to pack, I have to leave at 4am for the airport”

She, thinking to herself Shit, he waits until 2 am to come to bed and then tells me about a missing button. She says “I will find my sewing basket” Said sewing basket last sighted in 2003.

She sews a non matching button back on – hey his belt will hide it.

He starts fiddling with dual alarm clock. “I am getting up at 4am. Will I set yours to the usual 5.30? “

She says “Yes, make sure it is am not pm”

He snorts with contempt, “Of course”

He departs nosily at 4 am.

Bedroom door opens.

Daughter 1 “Are you staying home from work today, Mum?”

She says “What? No. Shit, what time is it?”            [Shit is a favourite word]

Daughter “After 7 am”

Alarm was set on pm not am…..

Previously the night before Mrs FD had put through a load of laundry to be hung out in the morning. A rare occurrence on a working day. She rushes to put washing out.

Mystery of life No. 1: Why is it that when you use a Kleenex tissue to blow your nose the tissue always seems to be so small, but when one gets into the washing it becomes vast and litters tissue fiber onto every article of clothing, mostly on the black items?

Spend extra time delinting wet clothes as pegging them on the clothes line.

Spend final moments discovering that the lunch Daughter kindly made for you the night before and packed in a lovely container wont fit into the insulated bag that you carry your lunch in to work and so repack lunch so that it will fit (after waiting for Daughter to leave so she doesn’t know). Precaution to stop people stealing lunch. When you have casual staff who are students living away from home food theft is a daily occurrence.

Cannot locate a full pair of sockettes to wear with shoes and must go through several baskets of clean laundry to locate non matching pair which wear as passed the point of caring. [Note to self: remember to hire sorting fairy]. 

Good news though. The brown shoe didn’t go to Slovenia after all. It was lurking in the shadows near the front door hidden by the boxes of books I am about to donate to Lifeline. It was there with a black shoe. One right, one left. I suspect Mr Flamingo wore my shoes outside to collect newspaper and selected an odd pair and as wet from the morning dew left inside the front door, where they sort refuge from their traumatic cross dressing experience. There are sides of Mr FD even I don’t understand.

Have start of massive migraine so take medication that makes me more dazed and confused than usual. Mixes with other medication and puts me into hyperdrive so have more verbal diarrhea than usual. Yes it is possible.

Arrive at office. Ask for sympathy from coworkers for morning and the fact that I have had 3 phone calls with my mother this week and it is driving me around the bend. Daughter 2 had given her Grandmother a subscription to a gardening magazine for Christmas. I gave Grandmother a $50 gift certificate to a mail order garden nursery. Grandmother informed me that she had just used the voucher that the magazine people had sent her. She thought that the publishers of the magazine had also sent her a $50 gift voucher….had to explain it was my gift….We are at that stage when one feels compelled to do the right thing, but one suspects that if one didn’t she is so confused that she wouldn’t notice anymore. We will miss her when she is gone...but some days…..

We are also going to my sister’s to celebrate her birthday on Saturday. I said I would bring birthday cake and we would have afternoon tea. Mother has called – do we want to come for lunch [no, she can’t cope] will Daughter 1 be coming for a few days over her holidays [school semester break starts this weekend, and so she has 3 weeks off]. I expect so but I don’t know when. Mother is getting a load of garden soil delivered, should she get it put in the yard or in the driveway…why does an 81 year woman think she can move garden soil around her garden, so obviously going to be a job for sister and long suffering brother-in-law.

Mother is also confused as recently got a letter from the aged pension department asking what she and dear departed Dad did with the money they got for selling their car. Poor Father died in 2000. Said car was sold about 14 years ago for a very small $3000. 14 years later she gets a follow up? I told her to tell them she spent it on sex tours and going to Man Power shows (well, Jaime Durie needed someone to start off his career!). She refuses, but accepts my second suggestion of saying that she spent it on Father’s funeral…. She is sneaky. When she has to deal with a government department she tells them she is 81 and has a touch of Alzheimer’s, so she gets gentler treatment. If my sister or I suggested to her that this was not far off the truth she would bites our heads off….

Settled at work desk and realize that all tasks are up to date and it is a lull period before the storm. Have nothing to do but have to appear to have things to do as have delegated work to others and they have work to do so can’t be seen to be doing nothing. But am doing nothing….It has long day written all over it.

Driving to work there was some footpath working taking place that forced walkers to walk in the bike lane. A couple were walking along in the bike lane with their dog. They fitted side by side in the bike lane, but dog on leash walked in the car lane. Did that make him open season? I hesitated only due to consideration to my car. I needed a victim badly but managed to work through the moment…

Ms Work Colleague of the golden heart and frenzied desk cleaning, had left two lettuce seedlings on my desk this morning. I mentioned yesterday that we were about to create a new vegetable garden to combat rising food costs. Hence the donation. We haven’t made the garden yet and in Flamingo Dancer world it might be a month or two before we do, longer if left to just Mr FD…. I guess I can grow them in planters for now. Bless her. Her goodness is going to kill me, but bless her.

Daughter 1 has been invited to a colleague’s wedding. The only one from their school to be invited. She does not have a current male, but is being pressured to take someone. She asked her sister to go with her….made it sound as though it was ok not to go…and as Daughter 2 has never met the couple she thought it was a bit odd and declined. Now she appears to be in Daughter 1’s bad books. Daughter 1 is a Gemini, if you believe in those types of things, and she can switch personalities in an instant. I advised Daughter 2 to flee the country. God knows I wish I could.

Son has first exam tomorrow. He does not appear to be studying. I am a basket case of worry, but he just grunts at me when I say STUDY! I should be saying STUDY! And stop running your father and I into debt and finish your studies and get a real job….but he is my little boy and of course I don’t. I just worry like a mad woman. The question now is will alcohol mix with my pain medication. If there are side effects would they be a plus or a minus?

Have you heard of KIPPERS – kids in parents pockets eroding retirement savings? Those 20 -29 years old still living at home. I have a couple. I love them to death but I do dream of just me and he at home one day. I guess then I will look wistfully out the window waiting for a visit from them. Up the medication and enjoy the day I guess.

The End

mother's ahha! moment

I had one of those life moments this morning when the passing of time and generations catches you by surprise and hits you so hard in the face that it takes your breath away.

Daughter came over for a short visit this morning. I was telling her about my poster saga, about how the National Gallery had contacted me and I was getting my poster after all the trial and rudeness. She listened to me very intently and then said "What a funny little story".

At that moment I realised that we no longer lived in the same world. Somewhere, sometime, somehow, her world had separated from mine and we were now in different orbits. I suddenly felt empathy for my own Mother who must have had such a moment with me at some stage. That realisation that your child has grown, and left you behind, building their own world. A world that you may or may not understand in an everchanging world.

Daughter was not being cruel or sarcastic. She lives in the world of corporate buisness and multimillion deals where $10 million can be spent on just a study with no expectation of return. I have some understanding of it, but I am aware that as time goes on she will tell me less and I will understand little. It is sad, but it is also the way of life. The circle of life. I have had my zenith and she is building to hers and that is how it should be.

It is still sad though. The child is gone and there is an adult in her place, and she has corners that I no longer access. I know her heart will always be mine, but I still feel a sense of loss.

I think I will go and phone my Mum.

Flamingo mother (me!) to 2nd daughter:

Every year I have the same dilemma - choosing a card for MIL, husband's mother. The evil accursed one. I refuse to give her one of those cards that say what a great mum you are and how much we all love you (my Mum gets that one) so I have to sift through endless cards until I find the one that I can give and still retain my self respect.

This year's effort simply said Mum on the front and inside it said "hope you have a nice Mother's Day".

Two wrongs may not make a right, but I don't have to like doing the right.

My first mother's day was spent in hospital lying on my left side trying to lower blood pressure so Baby could go the final month. A very shy little boy scout came into the room and gave me a white handkerchief as a Mother's Day gift. He was so sweet and I was so full of panic and hormones I burst into tears. At least I had a handkerchief for the tears!

This is an excerpt from an article written by Diana L. Gustafson.  It is such a beautiful and accurate portrayal of how mothers and daughters silently communicated, or miscommunicate,  their gender roles that I wanted to share it with you. I think the essence of truth in Gustafson's  words is embedded in all our lives.

…" As the sun melted into the horizon, I listened as my mother asked and answered questions about her life. For 25 years I knew my mother had criss-crossed Canada as my father's job took him from one military base to another. Fifteen times, Mom had re-established our family in a new home with new paint, new friends, and new schools. And with each move she left her part-time job as a teacher hoping she would be able to find another.

How I had tried to be like her, the perfect wife. And in so many ways I was not. I was tired of having to compromise my dreams for my husband's success. I was tired of uprooting my children and having to deal with their tears and tantrums as we prepared again to leave the familiar. I had felt like a failure for wanting to leave my marriage. And how I had tried to be like her, the perfect mother. And in so many big and little ways I was not. She had raised five kids when two exhausted me. She had designed and tailored all our clothes and I was ashamed to admit that I didn't even own a needle and thread.

When it was my turn I asked Mom to talk about her greatest achievement. She said there were many things of which she was proud. One of those things was that she had raised a daughter who had the courage to do something she needed to do. Did she know I was planning to leave my marriage? A good mother didn't end a marriage just because she was unhappy, did she? Had I heard her correctly? Did she think that was a courageous act? For a moment I glimpsed the woman beneath the mother clothes.

As I was growing up I had nurtured the myth of my mother and grandmother as uncomplaining and selfsacrificing, blanketing everything with love and forgiveness. I did so without realizing that I was making them invisible to me as women. In trying to live up to that myth of mother, I reproduced for my daughter the same unachievable image of mother. And I did so without realizing that I was making my self invisible to her.

Since that hot summer day some things have changed but many things remain the same. The day we left the reunion, Grandma leaned into the car to hug and kiss me and my children goodbye--just one more time--just in case it was the last time. And it was. When I want to recall that moment, and that last touch, I touch my own cheek, or the face of my daughter and I feel her soft skin again. From time to time I imagine her making cookies or driving her red Mustang convertible.

My mother and I have tried, each in our own way, to make ourselves more visible to each other as women. I want to be a woman in my mother's eyes and I want to see her as the woman she is. Yet, my old ways of thinking and behaving are so resistant to my deep desire for those ways to be different. The urge to maintain the priority of the mother-daughter relationship over the woman-woman relationship is compelling. When I am in pain, I turn to my mother, not as a woman in search of solace, but as her daughter in need of a mother's embrace. And she responds to me with her mother love and I feel healed.

This year my daughter turns 23. She has heard pieces of this story before and she will read this account too. I'm hoping it will make me ever more visible to her as a woman who is also her mother. I expect it will also initiate another of our dialogues about woman dreams.

That summer and still today, I am learning to recognize old patterns in my life and in the history of mothering in my family. A pattern of accepting the rules as sacred and unchangeable ... of learning to make the unacceptable invisible. A pattern of questions asked but seldom answered ... of woman dreams kept hidden from view. A pattern of being a woman subsumed by motherhood ... a destination that was expected of us and a destination we expect of ourselves.

That summer and still today, I am also learning to create new patterns in my life and in the history of mothering in my family--for my sake and for that of my daughter."

Full text of article Learning to wear mother clothes to cover women dreams by Diana L. Gustafson, available in  Canadian Woman Studies 18.2-3 (Summer-Fall 1998): p105-8. (3306 words)

Diana L. Gustafson is a Ph.D. student in Sociology and Equity Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and in the Collaborative Program for Women's Studies at the University of Toronto. Her current research interest is health care reform and its impact on women and families in Canada.