Please don’t ask mothers to stand, please don’t ask mothers to stand, I thought over and over this past Sunday morning. I would not stand, even though I’ve been like a mother most of my life.
When I was young, and my mom only had five or six children, I remember looking forward to each Mother’s Day. At the time, we attended a very large southern church and each year without fail, the pastor would ask mothers to stand. To make things interesting, he would say something like, “If you have more than three children, please remain standing.” This continued until there were only one or two women standing; they were usually in their eighties and had between twelve and thirteen children.
Every year, my mom would proudly stand and wait as the numbers of women standing dwindled. As a kid, I felt so much pride that this was my mother. In my eyes, she was a super hero. I loved the gasps that swirled around us as she continued to stand. It wasn’t lost on me though, that the admiration for five turned into incredulity of her sanity by six. The blessed “quiver full of arrows,” came to be seen as being placed in the hands of mad men.
And each year, my mother scanned the large congregation for her personal rival, Mrs. Merriweather.* It began with child #5 and continued through until Mom eventually took the lead at #9, nine years later. Looking back, Mrs. Merriweather may never have known that their birthing of children was a competition, but in my mother’s mind, she not only knew, but was a bitter rival. Sneers, slights and unkind looks were reported by my mother on a regular basis. But I digress.
It was between child #6 and #7 that pride for my mother on this day, turned to one of conflicted shame. It was the shame of a partial lie. It really began with Mom’s depression that began before the birth of my sister (child #5), but being only six years old myself, I did not fully grasp the situation. I remember making the conscious decision that Mom needed help, but did not realize until later that she needed much more than that. By child #7, my innocent understanding of life had crumbled like a sandcastle in the tide. My eyes were wide open to reality. Mom was so busy trying to cope with her own deep depression, that she was unable to be a mom except to the babies. She loved and cared for the babies because they fulfilled her need to be completely needed, but as soon as they became remotely independent, they became my children to take care of.
I remember wanting children when I was really young, but after basically raising my younger siblings, I realized that I never even wanted to marry, much less have kids. These are the things that I thought about as my mother stood so proudly each year on Mother’s Day. I loved her and I knew that she was trying, and yet, I couldn’t help feeling sick to my stomach that she was not the only mother. It felt like a lie. Mom birthed them, I took care of them. I sat silent, covered in the shadow of her standing figure. I never stood.
So this year, as Mother’s Day came around, I thought back to those days; especially now, raising Nicolas. When I mention that I became my brother’s guardian and I am back in the role of raising him, most people are very supportive. However, there was one particular woman who took me back to my shadow days. She vehemently told me, “You’re not his mother. You’ll never be his mother. It’s not the same, so don’t try to compare yourself to one when you don’t know what you’re talking about.” I was stunned to silence. It took me back to one of my most painful memories as a teenager. Most painful because it was the quintessential example of how adults who didn’t know my situation, viewed me.
Mom had 9 kids by this point, and she had just had her second miscarriage in a row. She was devastated. The house was a wreck and as usual, I was doing my best to keep everything under control. An older, well-meaning couple from our church came over to bring words of comfort to Mom. After the wife prayed with my mom in a caring tone of voice, I showed the husband and wife to the front door. With a child on one hip and a laundry basket on the other, I thanked them for coming. But instead of leaving, the husband turned to me and said, “Your yard is a wreck. You really should get a handle on the poison ivy outside.”
“I know,” I was embarrassed. “I’ve tried but I’m really allergic, and it keeps coming back, so it’s difficult.”
“That’s no excuse,” he said. He proceeded to tell me how to do it.
At that point, the wife chimed in, stepping close to my face and sticking an angry finger a few inches from my nose. “You’re lazy,” she said. Her gentle tone of voice she’d used with mom was gone. In it’s place was a hard, steely one. “You need to help your mom. This place is a mess. She has taken care of all of you, and what do you do when she’s in need? Nothing, from what I can tell.” With that, they turned and left without looking back. Every time I think back to that moment, and even now as I write, I shake with how ashamed I felt. It was being told that my sacrifice of my life up to that point was nothing. It was not good enough. I understand that they had no idea, but it still cut deep.
So as these memories and thoughts came back to me, I was relieved that although mothers were thanked and acknowledged, this Sunday, there was no standing involved. I don’t ever want Nicolas to think that I’m trying to replace Mom. I’m not. I will always be his sister and I will always love Mom. So thank you to the thoughtful people who whispered a happy Mother’s Day to me when he was not around. It meant so much to me that you were thinking not only of me but of him as well.
