Becoming My Mother

So many moms today want to be different than their own mothers, and I am struggling to be just like mine. Now that I am a mom, I wish my mother had written a textbook. I don’t intend to put myself on a pedestal, but I turned out great. I never did drugs, I never drank under-age. I went to a college where there were less than seventy women in a sea of 900 men, and I held my own. I studied on board a ship that traveled to the Mediterranean Sea, and up the Mississippi River. I felt confident going into a male dominated career. I was strong enough to take the pay cut when the health of my unborn children became a factor in my field. I am sure I wasn’t a dream child, but I definitely wasn’t a bad kid.

I recall a key moment in my relationship with my mother, that occurred my senior year in high school. There was a party at a friend’s house with alcohol and no parents. I had told my mom about going over there earlier in the week, and she thought nothing of it, I hung out with this girl all the time. As I got ready for the party that night, I battled in my mind … do I tell my mom? I can still see the scene play out so clearly … I stepped around the corner to look at my mom reading on the couch. I told her flat out that Erica’s parents weren’t going to be home, and I knew she had someone bringing beer. My mom’s response was not what I had expected. She put down the book, looked me right in the eye and said, “I have faith in you. You were mature enough to tell me about tonight, I think you are mature enough to handle yourself appropriately.” She told me if I made a mistake to call, then she picked her book up and continued reading. No arguing, no yelling, no lecturing, no forbidding me to go. I remember thinking, what got me to this point? What made me tell my mom? It was because she trusted me that I had to tell her. The risk of disappointing her was far greater than the risk of being forced to stay home. The question then was: How did she have so much trust in me?