Listen To Your Mother Chicago was 10 days ago! I cannot believe it... Here is the written version of the piece I read on that amazing day. The video version will be on the LTYM You Tube channel sometime this summer and you can rest assured that I WILL LET YOU KNOW. Oh yes, I will.
"Boy Mom"
For me, the shock of giving birth for the first time
involved more than just the all-encompassing pain and embarrassment of being on
display for a room full of acne-ridden medical students.
Because I?
Gave birth to a boy.
ME? A son?
Me? A mother of a…. boy?
The idea was absolutely foreign to me. Weren’t babies
supposed to be…well… girls? Wasn’t I destined to bear only precious little
female babies?
Wasn’t I supposed to have a houseful of pink
and ruffles? Isn’t that what I’d always dreamed of?
What I’d grown up with as
the middle daughter out of 3 girls?
A… BOY?
Not surprisingly, this was the overall response of most of
my family and friends that were in the waiting room on that frigid February day.
The reactions were something along the line of “Congratulations!!!
Is Tracey ok? And the baby! How big? And… wait. Did you say a… a … BOY?”
Needless to say, I fell madly in love with that little guy;
Immediately and overwhelmingly in love.
It was exactly like I’d
read about, and exactly as I’d dreamed. The delivery room was overflowing with tears
of joy and laughter and love and… well. You’ve probably seen “A Baby Story” at
least once or twice, right? You get the idea.
But while I was totally in love with my baby son, I was ABSOLUTELY,
Completely thrown for a loop by all
of the blue hats and blue socks and blue overalls….
And more importantly, what does it mean to BE a mother to a boy???
Somewhere around his 3rd or 4th week
of life, I broke down on a phone call to my mother. Through snot and tears and
that gaspy-chokey cry, I apologized to her for all of the times I’d been aloof
as a teenager; for all of the indignant sighs and eye rolling I threw at her, when
all she wanted was to spend more time with her
baby.
I couldn’t imagine my
precious infant turning away from me. I couldn’t imagine being treated the same
way I’d treated her. She cried with me, and consoled me and reassured me that
she understood then and understood now that I have always loved her.
She also threatened
me with bodily harm if I ever made her cry while she was at
work again.
The hormones abated and crisis averted, I hung up the phone
and shakily stared at Justin’s sleeping face. I tried to picture him at 13, at 18, at 25…
I envisioned him pulling away as a teen, graduating high
school, moving away, getting married and having a family of his own.
I wondered; would he ever call me to talk about
parenthood and life, the way I’d just called my own mother?
Would he treasure time with me, the way I treasure time with
my own mom?
Do grown men do
that with their mothers?
My own father’s mother passed away when he was very young. I
never grew up in the witness of an adult mother/son relationship. I realized
that I had a very real, very deep fear
that I would become the classic “Mother In Law” and the butt of all jokes. I
feared that one day, Justin’s future spouse would resent my very existence with
degrading remarks about how intrusive I was to their relationship and their
family and how I just couldn’t get a life of my own…
Once I ran out of tears over THAT scenario, my mind turned to my own mother in law. I
thought of how she treated her son, my husband, with love and respect. I pictured
how he continues to share his life with her.
I thought about how
the two of them have always been so open with each other.
I thought back to one time, when Patrick and I were still newly dating; I
found a package of condoms lying on his bed. I snatched them up and hissed that
he shouldn’t leave them out like that! His MOM might see them!!
“I didn’t buy them,” he replied.
He said that his mother must
have left them on his bed, just in case.
I was MORTIFIED.
But for my husband? It was totally normal. That’s
just the type of relationship they had.
That’s the type of relationship they continue to have.
Open. Loving. Trusting.
And able to talk to each other about anything…
Just like me and my
mom…
And then I realized that she cared for me as not just a daughter-in-law,
but as a daughter, and as an adult woman who is capable and intelligent. My
choices aren’t always the same as hers, and our relationship didn’t have
decades of history to build upon like mine with my own mom did, but my mother
in law has never made me feel anything
but the same love and respect that my own mother has always showered upon me…
Looking down at my tiny son’s face, through my tears and fears, I realized
that I already HAD 2 fabulous examples of how I wanted to mother my son.
Suddenly, a life full of trucks and trains and dirt and
camouflage and sticky little boy kisses was a dream come true…
