I am a Mother…..most women are really, whether they have children or not. It is a genetic curse that we all aspire to make everyone and everything in the world happier, and a little more loved. I was not a ‘Brady mom’ – my children used to beg me to change clothes before we went out in public so that I would look like the ‘other moms’. They also encouraged me NOT to cook or try and cut their hair. I became a mother at 16, and a single mother at 26. I was usually the youngest parent at various school functions, which always seemed a little odd. The other parents steered clear of me, so I felt like a bit of an outcast.
It was tough being a young mother, but one upside was that me, and my boys liked a lot of the same music (played at the same loud volume), and we watched a lot of the same movies too!
I also completely understood the importance of fitting in with the others in school, and that they needed to wear the ‘right’ clothes, because I wasn’t much older than them myself.
The downside to being a young, single mom by the age of 26, was having no male resource to answer my sons’ very personal questions over the years. I remember one day my youngest was being particularly difficult. I said something like “When are you going to stop being so much work?” He looked at me quite innocently and said seriously “Don’t worry mom, once my balls drop, I’ll settle down and be much better.” I called a good friend of mine, and nervously I asked him if I should start to look for little body-parts rolling across the floor? Once he stopped laughing, he explained that particular male phenomenom……… I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day! Jude