The Pleasant Mom's Mom

This week’s column will attempt to answer the question that has surely been on your mind, dear readers: “Where does this chick come from?”

In answering, I also hope to salute the woman who raised me and my three other much more challenging siblings. A woman who once said, through tears, that the only thing she really wanted for Mother’s Day was for all of us to please stop fighting. Well Mom, this is the best I could do this year.

I think I’m a lot like my mom. We share a name, an affinity for algebraic equations and the same open face that invites strangers to divulge to us their innermost secrets minutes after being introduced. Our capacity to make fun of ourselves knows no limits, as long as we are entertaining someone in the process. We unapologetically exaggerate and over-dramatize. We are fiercely loyal Mama Bears.

But my mom traveled a much different mom-road than me. She popped out four kids between the ages of 23 and 30. When asked why she had so many kids, her usual response is, “Your dad and I thought it would be fun!”

My dad traveled at least once a week for his job and my mom completed her master’s degree at night. She only had “help” if she could find a neighborhood teenager to play with us. We moved every three to four years—new town, new house, new schools, new doctors, four kids!—and this was before the internet, so she must have been having a ton of fun.

Meanwhile I spent my 20s figuring out which J. Crew raincoat looked best on me. One day after turning 30, I began to obsessively research having a baby on the internet and did not stop until...well, I’m still doing it. From the moment my first came out of the womb, I have benefited from young, fit parents who have helped me every step of the way.

And this is the best part. After all she went through as a parent, my mom still feels great and genuine sympathy for me.

“I don’t know how you do it,” is a common thing she will say to me after spending a day helping me.

And here’s the kicker: My mom is rarely sarcastic.

“But mom,” I’ll say, “You had four! How did you do it?”

“I know,” she’ll sigh. “I have no idea.”

Maybe she forgets. Honestly I don’t remember much of ages 23-30 either, and I wasn’t sleep deprived.

I have some idea of how she did it. She had my dad—who cleaned toilets, gave baths, did wake-ups and bedtimes all with a contagious smiley joy. She always had some secretly procured leftover muffin wrapped up in her purse—we both mocked and begged her for it. She threw the best birthday parties using Froot Loops, water balloons and a record player. She encouraged us to make our unfinished basement into a speedway for big wheels and roller skates on rainy days. She kept Kool Aid in business from 1980-1989. She embarrassed each of us on many occasions with her self-righteous indignation, sometimes on our behalf, sometimes because we were acting like idiots. And it wasn’t until years later that I learned she spent every one of our first days at a new school sitting at the kitchen table wracked with anxiety, watching the clock, willing us to be okay.

But what she didn’t know is that we were fine. Really. Because we had her.

When I say that I’m like her, I mean that I hope I am.