On this day when we honor our mothers, I can't stop thinking about the many times I irritated, angered, frustrated and perplexed my mom.
I was a difficult child. Headstrong, willful. Never obedient. Because I was firstborn it's amazing, really, that my folks had any more! Luckily Pam, Paula, Pat, Penny, Piper and Perry who were born after, gave them hope.
How lucky I am to have grown up in the 60s and 70s...a time when feminism bloomed and my life choices were much wider than Mom's. When she was growing up, women who worked outside the home were teachers or nurses.
Mom always supported my choices, even when she didn't agree with them.
Like when I moved to Reno to follow a boyfriend, leaving my stunned family behind in December, 1978. My hand-written notes, attached to the Christmas tree, just made it worse. My co-habitation with a man fifteen years my senior horrified Mom but she was never judgmental.
Or when I married a man she had not even met. I know she celebrates, as do I, our Carly who was the fruit of that union.
Or my politics, which are almost always the polar opposite of hers.
Today, I read an op-ed piece in the NYTimes entitled "When We Hated Mom."
This piece does not describe our life on the farm north of Wagner, South Dakota. Mom and Dad were ahead of the curve; they shared the responsibility of raising all seven of us. However, one thing does ring true: "...in the 1960s, full time homemakers spent 55 hours a week on domestic chores, much more than they do today."
I am grateful for the efforts my mom put into raising her seven children. Especially, the difficult one. Me.
