Being in your 80th year does not do good things for your memory. On the other hand you don't have to remember details to be aware of what your mother meant to you and how she helped shape your life.
My mom was the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants. My maternal grandparents were basically peasants and grandpa was basically illiterate. I grew up in Chicago on the South Side and we lived in a bungalow converted into a duplex from when I was in First Grade until the middle of my second year of high school.
Grandpa worked in the Chicago Stockyards like the people Upton Sinclair wrote about in The Jungle:
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities.However, most readers were more concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper.
The book depicts working class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery"
Our life was a good step above the worst cases in sinclair's book. My Grandparents owned the house we shared with them and Grandpa had an old Buick that he drove very rarely.
We were nominally Catholic and Mom was very much into memories of that upbringing even after I was born. My parents went to Church on Christmas and Easter and that was the extent of it.
I was an only child and have all the empty places that those who had siblings have filled with those experiences. I guess that is one reason why my times with my mother were so important for me.
The relationship between my parents was the only kind I knew in any detail and it was only much later in life that I came to realize how important a part of me it became. Read on below and I'll explain.
Whenever my mother spoke about my father it was with total gratitude for all he did for her. Now I find this strange since he was not that good to her as far as I know. Let me explain. Pardon my own naivety about life when I was young. I left home at 17 to go to college in Chicago and it was like I was first really introduced to the world then.
My best memories of time spent with my mother were those years when I was in grammar school. She took me to movies and took me shopping to places like Goldblatt's on 22nd Street.
My favorite interaction with my dad was weekend fishing trips. We could sit together all day and have little more conversation than "pass the worms". We usually did well which meant coming home to clean fish for a while. Then mom took over when she cooked them later.
Mom used to spoil me with good food. Smoked fish and jaternice, a Czech sausage that were among my favorites. Dad was Bohemian so we ate a lot of Czech food as well as Lithuanian. When I was very young mom was a housekeeper for folks in the Jewish neighborhood in which we lived. That added a lot of other ethnic food to my list of favorites.
Mom read the Chicago Papers every day. Grandma was literate enough to read a local Lithuanian paper. News was a big part of my growing up. Unfortunately, my mom and her parents only spoke Lithuanian when they either did not care if I was part of the conversation or they wanted me out of it.
Both mom and dad were FDR democrats and one day I'll never forget was when we came out of the movies and saw a headline on the news stand that FDR had died. Mom cried her eyes out. It was April12th, her birthday.
Mom never drove a car which to me was no big deal because we had great public transportation in Chicago. I never drove a car until I was 21.
My grandmother and mom were into sickness a lot when I was young. My mother claimed that she never really recovered from giving birth to me.
As a kid I was often taunted by playmates because they saw my mother as what we would now call "neurotic". I never really understood this. Looking back I see it pretty clearly.
She was very strict about cleanliness and we had slipcovers on the furniture and plastic covers over those. The rugs had runners on them which were covered with newspapers. If I had a drink in a glass she took it as soon as I was done and washed it and put it away. None of this seemed odd to me at the time even though it was very different from any other household I visited.
I also never felt that odd about never having a friend come in the house. Only later did I begin to realize that our home life was not typical in any way.
After I left home at 17 I began to understand that my childhood might have been a bit weird. Whatever. I surely never felt a lack of love and caring.
When I had trouble finding a way to finance college I applied for and got a NROTC scholarship that did the trick. She was devastated that I would go into the military. She hated war and everything about it. I am grateful for those feelings on her part for I am now a pacifist.
In 1965 I cut my postdoc in Israel short and cam home to get involved in the anti-war movement. I also had a natural instinct to get involved in the growing feminist movements of that time. Once again it took me a while to put it all together, but I now am sure that what I learned about the way men and women related told me that our home life was not that great for my mother. After I left home she had two rounds of electric shock therapy and another of Insulin shock.
Looking back with what I learned about how women were routinely oppressed in that era I can understand what her life was really like. I am ashamed to have to admit that it took me so long to figure things out.
So it seems appropriate to reflect on those days as we watch men continue to destroy women with the same kind of mindless insensitivity that my father's generation had. My mother was a bright woman but never went beyond eighth grade. Today women are kept back from opportunities like they were then.
It is ironic how many men could read this today and think I am all wet. They celebrate "Mother's day" with a clean conscience.
Then there is our mother Earth. They also have no idea what they have done to foul the nest.
I wrote this because I am grateful to my mother for all she did for me. I know understand how valuable it was especially since it must have been a struggle.
I wish I had shown more gratitude and understanding while she was alive. Better late than never?
I hope you will join me in reflecting on the society that our mother's have had to cope with. If you have even a little understanding you will be even more grateful for your mother.
Sun May 10, 2015 at 7:33 PM PT: Wow! I didn't expect this to make the rec list. I did it mainly for myself. Thanks again.