Borsht Belt

Today is Mothers Day (Mother’s Day? Mothers’ Day?) and I’m just surfing the wave. Max and I agreed yesterday that flowers and a card will suffice for today. I’m not feeling any sadness about the holiday aspect of the weekend, but I did have a little cry last night when I was putting laundry away, thinking that I will never wash and fold Sarah’s little shirts, socks and other colorful clothes again.

I’ve also been thinking about my own Mom, that this is the second Mother’s Day since her death in 2021. As you might have been able to glean from reading my blog, I had a more complicated relationship with her than I do with my Dad. Maybe we were too alike in some ways, always analytical about people and what motivated them, and mulling over some past events. I think as she got older she had less good will toward other people and didn’t realize how abrasive she could be. Her health became poor and she wasn’t happy.

I remember the first May after Sarah was born, I got it together to dress myself, dress baby Sarah, and load her up into this hideous baby-wearing Maya Sling that was very popular around the time Sarah was born, but which she turned out to hate and which was dreadfully uncomfortable. We walked together without leaking too much poo and breastmilk to the Whole Foods to buy birthday and Mother’s Day cards for my mother (the days are close together). By the time we got there, Sarah had more or less had it with the Maya Sling and I was terribly uncomfortable too so we just grabbed a couple of cards, paid and left.

The day after Mother’s Day my mom said she needed to talk to me and it was very serious. I thought she was going to tell me that she or my father had been diagnosed with a grave illness. No, she wanted to talk about the card I sent her. What did it mean? Mean? It was a Mother’s Day card. According to Mom, the card was very, very strange, even troubling, causing her serious concern about my state of mind. Why? There was a frog on the front, and a glass of champagne. When you opened the card, it said “Have A Hoppy Mother’s Day!” and the frog hopped off. Mom just didn’t understand the card. Why was there champagne on the card when neither Max nor I drink alcohol? Ummm…because it’s festive, Mom? What does the frog represent? It’s a frog, Mom. Needless to say, this sort of Hallmark psychoanalysis did not go well and ended in exasperation for me and a few days time-out from Mom.

I was not much of a feminist when I was in elementary school. I wanted a mom like my friends had, a mom who stayed home, and cooked dinner every night, and baked cookies and didn’t work outside the home and who always wore dresses and attractive pantsuits. My mother was the Reading Teacher at my elementary school and sometimes I tried to read with a lisp in order to be sent to the Reading Teacher for extra help. It did not work. Later, my Mom went back to school and got her Masters in Social Work.

My mother was loving and oh so generous with me. She taught me that women work too and that the women in our family are as educated as the men. I wish we hadn’t spent so much time butting heads over nonsense, or being in time-out from each other. I wish I could have realized early on how her anxiety drove most of her abrasive behavior and just…let it go.

Max was very key when he came into my life at helping me deal with my mother in a more constructive way. Just helping me see family nonsense as if someone were putting on a play in a Borsht Belt Theater rather than having to respond. I can’t say I have a perfect record but it’s been helpful.