David Owens

English 102 H

Brena Walker

When preparing to write an assignment on mothers and their various relationships, I thought "No Problem! Everyone knows about mothers! They are loving, nurturing, sacrifice their own comforts for the comforts of their children, unselfish, ...ad infinitum" In this assignment, however, I am forced to whistle a different tune if you will. I guess that I’ve been forced to open up my eyes for a moment and not see through the haze of my own stereotypical "Mother Image." This is not easy for me. I consider myself a pretty open-minded guy, even at the advanced age of twenty-six, and we ALL know that people get more and more closed minded as they get older! Who cares that Denise Oxford thinks that this too is a wrong stereotype! Who died and made her Dalai lama?

Where was I? Oh yes...confronting my own mother-image. This is a task that is extremely daunting for me. You see I was, am, and probably always will be a "momma’s boy." I was the kid who always thought that the sun rose and set because my momma wished it to do so. I never fixed my own plate at dinner until I was 11 years old, and never had to make my bed or clean my room until I was 12. Coincidentally this is pretty obvious to those unfortunates who may carelessly wander into the deepest recesses of my room today! To me, my mom was always just about the closest thing to an idol that I had. I was her buddy. We played games, we talked like friends rather than parent/child, and I always got my way. What I may have been lacking in material assets was more than made up for in emotional and ego areas of my psyche. So, due to all of this, I guess I have always been unwilling to confront the "sacred cow" that is "Mother" to me. I will admit, though, the temple of mother has been getting a little dusty over the years. As I’ve grown, I’ve seen things that have shocked me about my mom. I’ve come across information of her behaviors in the past that have tarnished the gleam on the "Idolmom." And if I am completely honest, I’ll have to admit that as a teenager, after my absent dad had died and my mother remarried, I felt betrayed and hurt. I was also quite perturbed at the thoughts of this interloper coming in and stealing my mom away. It was very similar to the story "My Oedipus Complex"(O’Connor) in the sense that I hated the man, yet lost some of my respect for my mother as well. It was now him that she consulted. She now fixed his plate at dinner. It was He that she wanted to spend her time with. All these things considered, I guess that I have to admit that Mother is not the name for God...I still want to duck the lightning bolts when I say that though.

The class assignments that we read from Writing Through Literature, (Anstending and Hicks) and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (Tyler) read outside of class displayed a broad spectrum of mothering styles. From the domineering "puppet master" moms such as Pearl Tull in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, or the mother from Growing Up (Baker), or "Girl."(Kincaid). All of these mothers have the common factors of trying to rule the children’s lives, from what their professions will be to how to behave in every possible scenario. It is not that they are "bad" mothers; it is just that they don't leave much room for individuality. Pearl Tull, for example, was so set on choosing her children's careers, that she never really saw that they were pretty gifted in their chosen professions. The mother from Growing Up (Baker) did at least calm down when her son decided to be a writer. I suppose that she considered that a noble job that took considerable "gumption."

Another type of mother from the text was the absent, or shallow mothers. Examples of this type may be found in "My Oedipus Complex" (O’Connor) where the mother seems to have only enough compassion and emotion to focus on one individual at a time. Or perhaps "Hanging Fire" (Lorde) where a young girl is battling the pain of adolescence alone because "Momma’s in the bedroom with the door closed." These stories show similarities in that the children are confused and the mothers are not there for them emotionally...whether by choice or from poor parenting skills.

There are some positive examples of mothers in the reading assignments as well. "The Stolen Party" (Hecker) for example, the mother seems to understand that the daughter is going to a birthday party to be utilized as a servant rather than as a guest, and tries to keep her from going to save her from the embarrassment. That is touching, and I can see a bit of "I want her to have a better life than I have" in this. Two more good examples are "The Contest" (Dorris) and "Gravity" (Leavitt). These stories show mothers being compassionate in the midst of difficult circumstances, whether being widowed, or dealing with a terminally ill child. I noticed, however, how easily "The Contest" could have easily turned into "My Oedipus Complex" had the mother found a new husband. These three mothers seem to have trust in their children and try to build up that trust...something that Pearl Tull knows little about. These examples are what I would call the stereotypical "Mom": loving, considerate, trusting...maybe their kids should dust off a pedestal.

These are a varied group of mothers, most of them very different from the stereotypical 50’s mother. No Donna Reed or Harriet Nelson Here. Are the mothers in these stories accurate archetypes of reality though? I know that many of these stories are a little older than some, so were they true representations of life of that time period, or were they somewhat unrealistic then as well? Are mothers roles drastically changing? Is the word "mother" starting to mean something totally different than "loving, nurturing, etc...?" I wonder. Take a look at some high profile news stories of the last five years: Susan Smith, for example.(Year in Review) A woman locks her kids in a car and rolls it off into a lake and hears them screaming as she walks away...Pearl Tull is Mother Theresa, rest her soul, compared to this woman! Or what about the "Prom Baby" mother, Melissa Drexler, (Prom Baby) who had her baby at her school prom, put it in the trash, and went back out to finish dancing. Or yet another case, the Delaware teens who delivered their baby and threw it away too (Teens Plead), or the mother who delivered and trashed her child at Disney World (Police:Filipino). I guess she wanted to ride Magic Mountain one last time, and didn't want to be slowed down by childbirth. The list goes on and on. CNN described it as an epidemic of abandoned babies in July of 1997 (Fear, Denial). It is shocking. Did this go on in the fifties? Or the Thirties? Many psychologists and sociologists believe that we learn by observing others, and many ultra-right wing politicians blame it all on television. I agree that television violence has negative effects, but where are these mothers seeing this stuff? What did they watch when they were kids? Is this not the furthest thing away from the way things used to be? Would June Cleaver set a pipe bomb in the Beav’s sock drawer because he didn’t brush his teeth? Or would Aunt Bea steal Andy’s squad car, stuff Opie in the trunk, and drive him into a lake near Mt. Pilot because she had been scorned by Floyd the barber? Or Jill from the television show "Home Improvement"...would she sit on her roof with a high-powered rifle and take shots at her kids as they walked into the yard because she didn’t want to go to any more of those darn P.T.A meetings? I don’t think so. Surely this is an example of the availability heuristic, that it seems so common because these cases are so high profile that we get saturated with them on the news when they happen. "Normal" behavior really doesn’t get ratings, so it is not reported much.

So what does all of this mean? I wish I knew. I’d write a book, get on Oprah, make lots of money, and buy my degree from some less reputable University down in Alabama somewhere. But, it is obvious to me that mother roles and our perceptions of those roles are changing, and in many ways they are changing in a negative way. So what can we do about it? Well, perhaps forcing young adults to write papers in say, an English class for example, is a good way to get people thinking, and thinking is a good first step towards action. Another thing is to force feed people lots of Andy Griffith re-runs. Seriously, though, I do think that there are many people who are having problems with knowing what their gender roles should be. There is a need for training in this area, including being a mentor for younger people of the same gender.

When looking at the last paragraph I realize that my own struggle with "mother" is really not that bad. It is probably very natural in fact. I guess it is a part of life to realize that one’s mother is not always going to be there to be your maid, confidant, loan officer, and babysitter. She may have a life of her own that was put on hold while she cleaned your messes, listened to your problems (or forced your confession), doled out cash to you, and watched out for your own best interests ahead of hers. You may even learn to love the interloper that she married. Is it possible that mothers are human beings with lives and hopes and dreams? Hmmm...interesting concept.

Works Cited :

Anstending, Linda and David Hicks. Writing Through Literature. Upper Saddle River New Jersey: Prentice,1996.

Baker, Russell. Growing Up. Anstendig and Hicks. 1982

Dorris, Michael. "The Contest." . Anstendig and Hicks. 1994.

Fear, Denial Lie Behind Abandoned Babies Epidemic. Cable News Network Online.

Internet. 29 July 1997.

Hecker, Liliana. "The Stolen Party." . Writing Through Literature. New Jersey: Prentice,

1996. (pp. 362-67).

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." . Writing Through Literature. New Jersey: Prentice,

1996. (pp. 377-78).

Leavitt, David. "Gravity." . Writing Through Literature. New Jersey: Prentice,

1996. (pp. 394-98).

Lorde, Audre. "Hanging Fire." . Writing Through Literature. New Jersey: Prentice,

1996. (pp. 361-62).

O’connor, Frank. "My Oedipus Complex." . Writing Through Literature. New Jersey:

Prentice,1996. (pp. 350-58).

Police: Filipino Woman Abandoned Baby at Disney World. Cable News Network Online. Internet. 6 Feb. 1998.

"Prom Baby" Mother Pleads Not Guilty. Cable News Network Online. Internet. 27 Oct.

1997.

Teens Plead Not Guilty in Infant Death Case. Cable News Network Online. Internet.

17 Dec. 1996.

Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. New York: Ballantine,1982.

Year in Review. Cable News Network Online. Internet. 28 Dec.1995.