This Mother's Day, recognizing the trials, triumphs of the modern mom

Happy Mothers Day.
So what, apart from passing a new law making it compulsory for every American to eat one a week 'till they become extinct, can be done?  Captain Christian Davies, master of fishing vessel Itwasthisbig, reported a mutiny in his family home when, yet again, he put these crustaceans on the kitchen table. The cry went up "O no!!!! Not another Prawn Again, Christian!"

The Case of the Switching Topics. Paul Drake, Della Street & I are on it. First there are pics of Giant Cannibal Like Oriental Shrimp apparently thriving in the midst of the oil spill, then in the blink of an "Eye" whilst I fill the coffee maker the endearing Mother's Day topic appears and a posting about a 12 inch Po Boy goes poof. By the Beard of The Latter Raymond Burr! A mystery of "mom" entous proportion. On topic I've often been told I have a mug only a mother could love. She did Thank Goodness in various and sundry ways and I was blessed for it.

I like mothers. Ours, of course, was the gold standard by which all others have been measured.
The mother of our children has met that standard and does some of her best work in the furtherance her relationship with our children and theirs.
Young mothers are often appealing to the eye and they like me back because of an obvious interest in and devotion (I would forego nonelective surgery to hold one while Mom rummaged around in her purse) to their babies: within minutes of entering a restaurant, I know the name, gender and age (often in days) of every tiny person in the place.
But old mothers, and the older the better, are where to turn to listen, to laugh and to learn.
So, if you had one, are one, or have aspirations, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Hazel ~
Eating a mother a week is going to cause discrimination complaints among those women who cannot or have not borne children and, no doubt, single women, some of whom seem ready for market, as well.

Hazel, Stoney - Thanks for the good MD wishes!

TT- somehow I missed the allusion to the giant prawns (jumbo shrimp - isn't that an oxymoron?), but here we are on the morn of another Mother's Day, so I am looking out on drenching rain and dreading the hour's drive on wet highways into the city, but go I must, as I promised the kids to come to their house this time.

The bacon-broccoli-onion quiche is already in the new RAV4 (yes, I finally traded in the 12 yr. old Corolla), the bag of Vidalia onions for them and 4 new DVD's on the seat, and I am drinking my coffee.

It will be a heartwarming day with my daughter and granddaughter....Don't know where the son is, as I did not hear from him...yet. It is due to rain all day.
Stay dry, warm, and enjoy your families....Everyone have a good Mom's Day!

To all the moms, Happy Mother's Day.  And a special day for all those who are mothers to children of others.  The kiddles know who you are.

If you still have your mother here, please make sure you really appreciate the time you have with her.  One never knows when it will be your last time you see or speak with her.  Make sure you vocalize your love for her, and learn all you can about her and from for one day those stories will be gone.

In the days when life was physically laborious and the labor was divided between the sexes, there were still challenges.  Mom took care of the house, the vegetable and herb garden near the house, other odds and ends like making all the clothes, and the children, both bearing and raising.  Dad plowed and planted the fields, took care of the animals, and provided protection as needed.  If a trip into town was necessary, he did it.  That could leave Mom quite isolated and one problem on homesteads which is not talked about is severe depression.  This was no treatment for it in those days before psychotherapy or antidepressants.  If the depression got severe enough, the woman was institutionalized as insane - and could spend the rest of her life there.  That was the fate of one of my great-great-grandmothers.  Today we have the economy to deal with.  Those who demand that women stay home and raise children either live in Goatville or on Mars.  In this part of the country, houses (not mansions) cost $500,000 to $1,000,000.  Owning a house requires two incomes and has for decades.  Rent is comensurately high, and other costs are also elevated in metropolitan areas.  That is reality.  There is a move for men to pick up some of the childrearing and other household duties, but that is not universal or complete.  Housecleaning services are popular.  (So much for all you folks who rail against illegal immigrants - who do you think cleans the houses?  Who else would take such a low paying job?  And why do you think that issue is unpopular in metropolitan areas?  Illegal immigrants also mow lawn and do gardening.)  So, our issues are not harder than they were in the past, just different.  Every age has its challenges.  My mother died of lung cancer from smoking in 1991 - suicide by sloth if you wish since she could have quit 25 years before and perhaps lived.  To all other mothers, Happy Mother's Day.

 
I'm… all misty.


George T., just about the hairiest homo sapien ever (he had the barber run the clipper around his wrist so he could find his watch) used an interesting phrase whenever the topic of his late mother came up: "M is for the million…"
He was not particularly sentimental, that was how much she had left him.

Now, that was sneaky, switching topics.
Our Mothers Day is earlier in the year, so that stuff is done. On sentimental days such as Mothers Day, there is an assumption that all mothers are wonderful. Not true. Big hug to those who find it difficult to love and forgive their mothers.

Happy Mom's day -  This year I found the perfect card. It's just says you're Awesome! simple & sweet.

Last year Mom was on a Mom's weekend so I snuck the card into her luggage. The other Mom's were Impressed by my thoughtfullness. Their children on the other hand, not so happy with me.

Am off for a grill out at Mom & Dad's today. along with my Nephew Quasi & Niece Little Miss B, who has informed me that she has a jump rope & Auntie Rings has to teach her how to use it :-)

Always something new to stigmatize. suicide by sloth? As a person with lung cancer that's hard to take.

And the inaugural Mother's Day Dink trophy goes to...

Moose- I was a bit mysterious. To clarify, I awoke to see the topic was Tiger Prawns "invading" the Gulf and when  I came back the topic was Mother's Day. The Switcheroo amused me and thus I reported it. Haze can attest to the anomaly.

As I think back I'm grateful to have lived long enough to tell my mother how much I loved and admired her and thank her for the influence she had on me and my five broyhers and sisters. There are reams of stories behind that statement but they'll wait for another day.

The beer is chilled, the Filets on the grill are sizzling, the tropical fruit salad and Hawaiian Bread awaits and the remains of that Bailey's Cheesecake from Friday night is moistening as we speak, It's raining felines and mongrels and yet it is a gorgeous day as my wife's mom who has graciously adopted this 58 year old orphan tries to figure out the iPhone we got her. And I sit here singing Donovan. In all fair forms it is the hidden grace in all I love, a something that escapes me. Flies by pursuit and ever visits face...

My mom isn't here on earth anymore, but I still thanked her for loving me and raising me along with my daddy, and for my three wonderful daughters that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't been born.  

I went to sleep after posting Po Boy sammies for giant prawns. And awoke to a glorious Mom's Day, and,as all Y'alls must know by now, my own Mom lives with me, and I have made her the breakfast she likes. How lucky I am to be able to return the care. She breathed life into me,twice. I had a rhumatic fever episode as a babe, and when I stopped breathing,turning blue, the operator (remember when you could talk to an operator?) told her to blow into my mouth untill the Pull Motor (remember that phrase?)arrived.  Now Mom tells me I have given her a second life, she says shecertainly would have perished without my help rehabbing,and all.  But truely, it is I who luxuriate in having her companionship. Happy Mother's Day to all, for even if you are not a Mother, you'd not be here without one.

A lifetime of birthday and Christmas gifts hasn't left my sister and I much to surprise our mother with. Over the years, we've learned that personal time with her and the memories that those personal experiences create is most important, and to that end, last Christmas, we gave her the wonderfully inventive gift of a personal biographer. As a result, I have been knee-deep in research for the last four months and that research has been life changing.

Cindy and I had always thought she was a typical Mom.....until we were old enough to visit friends' homes without her around. It was then that we noticed that not all moms dressed like she did every day - stockings, a beautiful day dress, hair and make-up perfectly done, sensible shoes. Not all moms cooked like she did - that beef tongue laying on the kitchen counter, complete with all those icky papillae sticking up and all those frayed muscles at the cut end, all waiting to be covered later with that sickly cream sauce and paired with those horrible Brussels sprouts that had been boiling on top of the stove when we got home from school. Not all moms continually scraped their plate like they had been starved during a war. Not all moms insisted on formalities at family dinner every night - linen tablecloth and napkins, milk never in the carton but always decanted into a pitcher, sterling napkin rings and flatware, heirloom Meissen china (although every now and then coupled with a dish or bowl out of the Fab soap powder box).

It was only much later, when we were both grown and out of the house, when I met General Jimmy Doolittle and casually asked him to autograph a picture for my mother "whom he had bombed in Tokyo when she was 17", that I fully realized that all the stories we had been told as throw-away tales were actually true! And this tale of a little German girl, who came to be living in Munich and Tokyo during incredibly tumultuous times and eventually became a US citizen, turns out to be the incredible story of our very a-typical mom.

My research for her book has included reading and translating 70 year old letters from my German grandparents. Doing that opened my eyes to a world I'd heard of, but never really understood.As I read these letters in date order, I was overwhelmed by two main themes - firstly, by the arc of personal and world history that they cover and secondly, by the personal insight they both bring to those events. No matter how much I may have learned during my own schooling, even through university, these letters truly brought the personal successes and joys and the historical horror of those times to life for me. Through the writing of Mom's book, I'm beginning to learn the details of her life during the war in Japan, but now I'm able to look through a crack in the door to what it must have been like for my family in Germany. These letters have been a real joy for me to read, as they bring my German grandparents to life again for me now and, most importantly, I begin to understand and appreciate what all of them must have had to sacrifice to continue any semblance of life during those difficult times. Family, friends, food, safety, normalcy - everything was at risk. Without personal letters like these, my generation, and certainly my son's generation, would never really be able to believe that their very own family experienced such horrible times. Amazing!

The book is well underway now, but just to whet your whistle until it's finally published, here's a summary of her book -- Helga.

She was born in 1925 in Germany, her father a published pediatrician (the family story is that he was a doctor to high Nazi officials' children in Berlin at one time). Her parents divorced when she was 3. Her new stepfather and mother sailed for Japan in late 1931, leaving her for four years with relatives in Munich when she was only 6. Her stepfather was eventually asked to work in the German Embassy's Naval Attache office as Paymaster/Purchasing Agent by Admiral Paul Wenneker and he started work there in the mid-30s.
Mom followed, at age 10, on a steamship from Hamburg to Tokyo in 1935 - strangers hired to accompany her. She lived there, a German in Japan, from 1935 to 1948. Little food, terrible times and, as a "gaijin", always on the wrong side. She was on the train to her best friend Ulla Ott's (daughter of the German Ambassador to Japan) birthday party when the train was stopped for Doolittle's Raid, and everyone was told to take shelter. As she was only a very naive 17 years old, she tells me that she and her friends went to a nearby ice cream shop for a snack until the bombing was over (!!!). Geez!!

She survived her family home being burned to the ground during the March 10, 1945 fire-bombing of Tokyo, and was again on the train when the Emperor spoke to his public after Hiroshima. Her family had their summer house in Hakone, near where she met her first American GIs staying at the Myanoshita Hotel. She met my Dad, a Cajun from Louisiana, on a blind date in Tokyo very soon after his arrival in Japan as part of the USAF occupation troops.

Mom's parents were repatriated to Germany in 1947, but Mom accepted sponsorship by an American Army officer, Lt Col Albert Watson, and family to come to the US on their dime. She contracted to work out that payment as their nanny and I still have the original "contract" they all signed in January 1948.. She sailed alone into San Francisco in February 1948, surprised to find nothing bombed. She spent 1948 as a nanny for the Army family. In December of that year, Dad finished his tour of duty in Japan, arrived in San Diego, paid off her indenture and married Mom three days later.....and then took her to his home in the bayous of Louisiana to "meet the parents", then to Omaha, to his next PCS assignment. After one year at Offutt AFB, she then returned to the bayous for one year, alone with me, an infant, while Dad went on an unaccompanied tour for one year to the nuclear testing site of Eniwetok Island in the South Pacific. She became a naturalized US citizen while in Louisiana. I still have the original newspaper articles from the local paper.

I continue to be amazed at her life - first as the child of an affluent and intellectual family, then as a German in Japan during the war, then working as a nanny, then living, yet again as a foreigner, in a very conservative small bayou town in Louisiana on her own with an infant. Although I've heard many, many of her stories, I am still surprised at the resilience, poise, and lady-like demeanor she retained throughout her life. One day, when I finally grow up, I want to be just like that!

comfortable1Wow!! What a story.....how very fortunate you are to be able to capture it all before it's too late!  You and your sister are wonderful to have thought of it. *****I've told my daughter that someone needs to capture her father in law's life---his stories of being dirt poor in Arkansas and the things that are just second nature to him because of it all..but his kids and grandkids don't pay that much attention to it.  Finally I think my son in law is beginning to see the light, but since he and my daughter are childless those stories won't go far now.  The grandkids that he does have should really treasure him, but alas..............Again, comfortable1....good for you!

c1- An enthralling story. While most strive to live comfortable normal lives, the juggernaut of history shapes the intrepid and provides mighty tales. Good luck with your project. Keep the faith and the passion. That generation passeth away so quickly.

Carol et al- As discussed here a few days ago I feel the great novel lives among us. The oral tradition is also an art form that is falling to the wayside.

Dear Carol and Tommy - it is only because of this very forum that I began to even think about writing her story! Several years ago, Mr Peterman asked us for our preferred subject of a documentary - I chose Mom and shared a portion of her story here. Her tale was well received and I was given great encouragement to continue with her story. So here I am, this far down the path now. What I first thought was going to be a gift for her has turned out to be a gift for me!! Another thank you to all the members of Peterman's Eye!

Lynn, Hazel, and others who cannot put their moms on a pedestal -- I am in that club....Mine was a bit into herself, smoked til her dying day, and not a warm and fuzzy kind of lady. She was so OCD that it was hard to be around her. However, in her younger years as a high school teacher, coach, sponsor, she did get a lot done....although most of it with the teens in her school, not with me.

No great Mom-Memories here.....Some I'd rather forget....She died in 1990 after a stroke or two and 9 yrs. in a wheelchair, giving orders to all in hearing distance. My plan has been to be as different as a mother as possible,a nd I did have a good day with my girls, and the son even dropped in unexpectedly! It was a blessing to be with all of them today...I feel so grateful for what has turned out to be right in life! So, kindest thoughts to those who have to endure Mother's Day with bitter thoughts of the mom that was not all she could be. We have to get our succor elsewhere....I have praised other ladies, aunts, older friends, and mentors who taught me and played a "mom" role for me!Love -expecially mother-love -- Get it where you can!

Moose- i think it's a powerful testament to you that you have been able to grow and flourish as a loving mom to and for your own children- and all in spite of the incredibly rocky road you've had to travel. Discipline and the determination to "rise above" are tough lessons to have to learn and you seem to have done so beautifully via your mentoring moms. Brava for setting a wonderful new example for your own children! Well done!

I am forever grateful for the sacrafices she made on my behalf, for the unconditional love she gave me, for all of lifes lessons she taught me by word and especially example, and for doing all she could to make me feel that being the last of six children born later in her life, and that the extra burden she carried because of the polio that caught made me special.........instead of different and isolated.

I was a handful yet she never gave up on me.

That's my Mom. She had a heart of gold.

It has been a long time since I've see the 'handleI' Comfortable1, so I did a little back-tracking. (play the sounds of movie flash back music in your minds, )and if you have a few moments for some excellent reading, may I direct your attention to :http://www.petermanseye.com/curiosities/notables-gossip/332-an-extreme-price

http://www.petermanseye.com/curiosities/notables-gossip/332-an-extreme-price

ChefDeb, consider the source of those thoughtless words.....from the back end of an ass......and take no heed.

You be well!

What wonderful words.......................I sadly could not be w/ my mother today, but my brother & his fiancee took both moms out for brunch & then chocolate...................had long phone calls all over.......................
 
CHEFD.......................I have no words except, you are a delight, one of the funniest people I know, a fabulous chef, and a person whom I look forward to seeing every day. How lucky your children are to have YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are equally lucky chickletta....................

Thank you, Road Yacht -

Yes. I have been very lucky to have such an abundance of wonderful people in my life. My Bob was the best and his son, our one and only, continues to thrive. He will be swimming, biking and running his first full Ironman triathlon this coming Saturday in Houston. I'll be there cheering him on and crying with pride at the finish line.

btw - I learned two things when Bob died - tell everyone you love, every day, that you live them and ...... If you do on line banking, know the passwords! ;-)

Thanks PL & darling BEBE--STONEY, too. We won't speak of it again but I appreciate your love.

COMFORTABLE1-kudos.

MOOSELOOP- Commiserations...we did it! History did not repeat!

Happy Mother's Day to All....