By Tina
I remember when I was in the third grade, I accidentally called my teacher, Mrs. Robinson, mom. If one could die of embarrassment, I would have. And how would they have explained that to the police? "I don't know officer, she raised her hand, called me mom and now all we have left of her is this pile of dust, a ponytail holder and few Frito crumbs under her desk. Pity. She wasn't all that bright but she could have had a career in dodge ball."
Later that same school year, my mom and I ran into Mrs. Robinson in the grocery store. At my eye level, I could see food in her cart -- lunchmeat and milk and stuff that real people eat. It was a little jarring to see all that food in her cart because it made the leap to other humanly activities in which she might engage all too easy. Ugh! And then, as if that image weren't enough, my mom chatted her up and called her by her first name! She poops AND has a first name! Yuck!
It was just too much information. I would never be able to think of Mrs. Robinson in the same reverential third-grader way. Now she was Rusty, who eats lunchmeat and poops. Now she was real. And that ruined third grade for me.
My mom became real to me when I was about five years old. We were all in the family car on our way to church. Dad pulled into a parking space but then thought better of it and chose another. That space wasn't just right either and so he began to shop around for juuuust the right spot. (The parking gods don't love my daddy like they do me.) At that point, my mom hissed through clenched teeth, "Dammit Ed, will you just park the car!?" GULP! My mom used a cuss word! In the CHURCH parking lot! Cool!
From that day forward, I realized my mom was indeed human. That she sometimes got angry, sometimes cried, sometimes failed, sometimes didn't care, sometimes cared too much, sometimes didn't like any of us and sometimes wanted my dad to park the damn car. It doesn't get any more real than that.
I'm a mom too now and I feel all those same things, yet I suspect that for my three-year-old Sean, I'm still not quite real yet. I suspect that he still views me as more than I actually am. I'd like to hold on to that for as long as I can.
But I could blow it in the church parking lot on any given Sunday.
Tina is a post mid-40s mom to 3-year-old Sean who can outwit, outsmart and outplay her on any given day.
I think Lillianna has always thought of me as real. I told her early on that this was the first time I was a mom and since she didn't come with instructions,I was just winging it. She thought that was funny that I admitted I didn't know everything.
Nine years later,I'm still wondering how I got this far!
Posted by: Robin P | January 17, 2007 at 08:00 AM
Yes it's a sad and clarifying moment when you realise as a child that your mother is not the all seeing / all powerful being that you had assumed.
Best wishes
Posted by: mcewen | January 16, 2007 at 07:26 PM