Casey Anthony, Jaycee Dugard and my mom
Sometimes when I'm doing something utterly mindless—like walking Gus-the-Newfoundland on the beach in the morning my mind begins to play what I call the puzzle game. Here's how it goes: something catches my eye and a random thought sticks to it like a piece of carpet fuzz to the bottom of your foot. And that leads to another and then another—well you get the idea.
Such was the case this morning as I watched Gus lope over the sandy shoreline in search of elusive sand crabs. As I mulled over the responsibilities of this particular day, I spotted a woman and two small children at the water's edge. The sun was just rising—a big red ball threatening scorched bare feet and peeling shoulders later on. The little girl, no more than four or five found a shell and rushed to show her mom who crouched in the surf a short distance away. Before she could reach her however, the little boy (no doubt her older brother judging by the resemblance) grabbed the shell and threw it into the waves. Observing all of this, the mom rose to her feet and approached the children. The boy hung his head and the girl howled. Mom reached out to both children and bent to speak to them.
I'll never know what she said, but both children raised their faces up to her like newly formed flowers turning toward the sun. In a few short words, she'd managed to solve the issue without so much as a furrowed brow. Saintly mother..? The stuff of greeting cards? I doubt very much that she'd agree. She was what she was—a mom.
And then the fuzz, those random thoughts that plague me and worry a topic to death until they've run their course set in. No, not all moms are created equal. To lump them into two camps is not only incorrect, it's insulting. Motherhood is not a job—it's a vocation and a tough one at that. But too often we want to slap a tag; "Bad Mom," and "Good Mom" on the backs of those we know nothing about. Oh, we think we do because the omnipotent Media tells us we do.
So what is your take? Is Casey Anthony the quintessential "Bad Mom?" Did she kill her tiny daughter and then go partying..? Did she..do you know for sure? And what about Jaycee Dugard? She told Dianne Sawyer that she stayed in that dreadful situation for so many years—not trying to escape—because she was worried about her daughters. What tag should she wear? "Brave?" "Devoted?" "Cowardly?" "Nuts?"
Rachel Jankovic says it best in her new book, Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches. "This is not a tender reminiscence from someone who had children so long ago that she only remembers the sweet parts. At the time of writing this, I have three children in diapers, and I can recognize the sound of hundreds of toothpicks being dumped out in the hall.
This is a small collection of thoughts on mothering young children for when you are motivated, for when you are discouraged, for the times when discipline seems fruitless, and for when you are just plain old tired."
And then I think of my own mom. She bestowed a good portion of her life and love on all seven of us. I wonder what tag she's wearing now, in that great beyond? The last time I visited the only tag I have left of her—I placed flowers on the ground before it, then read the message we all chipped in to have inscribed upon it. In the end I suppose that's the only tag that matters.
