Celebrate Moms!
Being a mom is a practice of living out one cliché after another. Starting with pregnancy — the cravings, arched-back walk and swollen ankles — all the way to the empty nest syndrome, it seems as a mom I’ve never utter a single original phrase to my kids.
In the last 24-hours I’ve said to my two kids:
“Don’t make me come in there!”
“Who tracked in all of this mud?”
“I don’t wont either of you to talk, touch or even look at each other the rest of the day.”
“I have told you a million time not to (…eat gold fish out of the box, watch TV while doing homework, take the dog on the trampoline). “
It just happens. I’m a better person for it.
When I was pregnant with my first child, Emily, my girlfriend Jill said to me, “I’m happy for you, but I’m also sad,” Um, what? Everyone else was showering congratulations. Jill, always coming through with great perspective, continued: “As soon as you hold your baby in your arms for the first time your heart will forever be open to the most imence joy ever, but also be open to the most pain.”
She was so right. Motherhood can be enormously gratifying and has given me more happiness than I could have ever imagined, but the worry can be crippling at time and the sacrifice and patience required can sometimes feel too much to bear. Even through all of that it’s the best job I ever had…and there is another cliché that rings true.
This month’s Celebrate Mom’s issue is the first of what we hope will be an annual issue. The ten moms featured in this issue are super moms or better than any other mom, they are simply local moms who we hope will inspire and encourage others who are working in the field of motherhood.
We will be taking nominations all year at OCFamily.com or moms who you think deserve to be celebrated. Please share your stories of motherhood by choosing the Celebrate Moms button on our website and submitting your nominee.
My Mother, Marie Jaeger, lived through the depression. Like millions of other moms, she knew hard times throughout most of her life. She never learned to drive, never got beyond eighth grade, and rode a bus for an hour to work in a garment factory in St. Louis to provide for her four children after divorcing twice. Mother wanted nothing to do with the welfare system, which they called “relief” back then. I vividly recall moving almost constantly, from one furnished apartment to another, and not in the better parts of town.
Despite all this, I recall her as always being loving and happy. Her easy laughter contrasted starkly with our perpetually dire situation.
After my beloved Brother Gene, a Marine at El Toro, sent me a one-way bus ticket to California, I slept on his couch and started junior college, ultimately earning both BA and MBA degrees. Nobody else in my family had previously attended college, much less graduated. My wife and I took Mother to Europe, Hawaii, and the Caribbean on a cruise. She deserved it after what she had given me and my brothers and sister.
It took me years to finally grasp the occasional pearls of wisdom she had expressed but I had summarily rejected at that time. One of her acts I believe saved the life of my wife when an intruder threatened while I was gone. Her alertness chased him away. Now I realize that she was right – that intruder was most likely a neighbor she suspected. So what I pass on to you in the name of my own Mother are these pieces of advice.
- Listen to her very carefully. You will almost certainly learn something you didn’t think about.
- Give her something big. Then repeat. You can never give as big as she has given you. She’s a far better investment than a new car.
- Compliment and love your Mother while you can.
After she’s gone, you won’t be able to listen, love, thank or give to her any more. And you’ll probably wish you had. I know I do. God bless you, Mom.
Well said John.