Mother's Day

My friends and I are about to start watching a movie (Country Strong, Gwyneth is fantastic, and the faces of these actors, so gorgeous, and I am such a sucker for a good country song) when the phone interrupts.

So I pick up.  Everyone else seems to be on the phone, too. There should be a rule, but okay.

It's my daughter-in-law asking me to come for a Mother's Day brunch.  This takes me by surprise, because usually it's my generation making the brunches, the dinners for Hallmark holidays.  And Mother's Day is a bear because so many people, believe it or not, want to see their therapist on Mother's Day.  My people.

I'll do Father's Day, is my reaction, and will knock off by 10:30 on Sunday morning to make it to the lox and bagels, hopefully there will be quiche.  What can I bring, has to be a part of that conversation, but I forget, in a hurry to watch the movie.

Later on I begin to think about the gifts, because there have to be gifts, and it occurs to me that the better you know someone, the easier this is. And if you don't know someone very well, it's almost impossible to get the right gift.  But your mother-- you know her.  How hard can this be?

This is why it's so funny that we buy for our mothers-in-law, too, because really, their first degrees should be doing that, they know them better.  But okay.  Over the years, we know them, too.

Sometimes there's a theme of the week in therapy, to change the subject for a minute.  Like last week the song, I Will Always Love You, popped up twice.  The Whitney Houston song!  Different reasons, different people, same concept.  People become separate, move in different directions, but that attachment isn't going anywhere, or so says the song.  The song is wrong, though.  If you wait long enough, actually, it does dissipate, even for mothers. That can be good or bad, depending.

The theme this week, not by coincidence, seems to be about giving, and how that's so easy for some people, and yet these same people can't take a gift graciously. This is communicated with clarity:

Don't spend money!
Don't waste your money!
Please, I don't need anything!
Please, I'll just return it!
I won't like it. Whatever it is, I won't like it.  Not my taste.

I had to beat more than one person up over this, not wanting to take gifts, not giving someone else the opportunity even to do anything for them.  Why is this so bad?  Independence is a good thing!

Because the joy in life, for many people, and you don't know who these people are, is in the verbs, the action.  Giving is an emotional exercise for them.   They need to give.  And they're not co-dependent, they're just nice.   People who don't let them do this are denying the use of that muscle, the one that feels really good when it gets a giving-doing work out. 

It's a feel-good workout for everyone, imho.  For a few moments, under the influence of giving, a person feels selfless.  At least in those moments we're not engaged in our everyday selfish behavior.  And we know, come on, how far that can go.

Don't forget, whether giving or receiving, that the gift itself is symbolic, it will be remembered.  If you're the one giving, this is you, this gift.  Be it a vacuum cleaner or a Swarovski figurine, this thing has your name all over it.  He gave it to me.  She gave it to me. His taste.  Her taste.  The gift has fingerprints-- touch, attention --all wrapped up in a little box.

Little gifts, little boxes are a good idea, if you're unsure about what to give.  (My kids give me winder toys-- why didn't I ever mention Swarovsky!-- just kidding, kids, don't you dare spend the money)  Little is good in case the gift misses the mark.  Some of us won't throw a single gift away, even if they have long outlived their usefulness or we never like them.  How hard that is, throwing gifts away, even cards.  Those boxes in the basement!  We pray for a flood.  I've started sticking a post-it in my cards to other people, writing on it:

I love you, please reuse this card.

So it's a crazy day, full of emotion for a lot of people, and probably if you get invited to brunch, you should totally go.  Check out the whole gestalt of the gift giving thing.

And when it comes to a gift for mom, if you still have one, I know it can be hard sometimes.  Not everyone can, not everyone even wants to give a gift, or even a card, certainly not a call. That's how it can be when people don't treat us right.  We avoid them.  It's not being selfish, either, believe it or not, rather it is what it is.  Staying disengaged can preserve sanity for certain sensitive souls.  And somebody has to stay sane.

Those of us lucky enough to know that we have to get something for Mom, whether we want to or not, had better get going on it.  Brunch is coming right up, and it's going to be good.

Just one last thing.  Moms, when you open them up, those cards, those presents--  smile and say thank you.

therapydoc

What Cards Never Say: Mothers Day 2010

There's a teary story to this perfect game. Dallas Braden's mom passed away when he was a senior in high school. That's her mother, his grandmother, hugging him after he pitched his perfect game.

I thought, who wants to blog on Mothers Day?

Last year's should suffice. Or the ones from years before, maybe. Not everyone likes this holiday because not everyone has a mom, and many people have more than mixed feelings about theirs. I'm crazy about mine, lucky in this way.

Yesterday she said to me:

You know. I tried to access my email like you showed me and I couldn't. But I did find the family blogs and I read your daughter's and it was really funny.

My daughter's blog hasn't been touched in six months. But Mom didn't care. She read the old posts and had a blast doing that. This tells us that if you're blogging, you probably should keep at it. But be careful about your identity, okay? And as long as I'm handing out unsolicited advice, even if you're anonymous, it's not really necessary to be offensive. Okay, I'll stop.

This morning I woke up to a Facebook message, a Happy Mother's Day from one of my d-i-laws. And THREE cards in the mail. Slow mail is really fun, you know? But that's it. It's over. So I'll blog. Not everybody's having fun, is the truth.

Saturday I flipped through the week's Wall Street Journals to see why one of my patients almost had a heart attack. As a broker he manages OPM (other people's money). The investments of most of his clients flew through the window within 3 minutes as the market dropped 1000 points. Brokers across America had a bad heart day. Why did it happen? We don't know.

This is disheartening, confusion about investments.

Families are investments, too, so I kept reading and found a piece about these by a Mommy blogger, one that I had missed while blogging and cruising the Internet for four years. She's WholeMama and writes for WSJ! So I visited her blog, of course.

The tagline in the header:

Before I got married I had six theories about raising children. Now I have six children and no theories.

You have to love that.

Anyway, I'm going to quote WholeMama, not to be confused with DaMama, Motherhood is Not for Wimps.

Amy Henry, WholeMama, writes this for WSJ

Mother. . .

Giver of life. Homework helper. Life saver. Hem adjuster. Maker of peanut butter sandwiches. All true, all real, all important. Even so, I was surprised-- and even fearful-- when my 16-year-old. . .

She goes on to tell us, basically, that her kid told her she wanted to be a stay at home mom, a SAM.

Ms. Henry mentions that SAMS get no respect. Networking, maybe at the playground, so enviable to someone like me, Amy hears:

One mother admits she's considered pretending to be her daughter's nanny in hope this would earn her some respect.

Another remembers telling people that she has five children, only to hear a woman respond, "Oh, horror!"

I missed this feeling of horror. I never felt it was a horror. Not even once. For sure, not once. Fear, maybe, when one was missing in action after school, but never horror or regret.

Every day is Mother's Day, my friends, whether or not she was good or bad. She's in your head, your psyche. Try it. Get her out. You can't. EMDR can't do it. No amount of hypnosis.

So if you had one, and she was marvelous, consider yourself so, so lucky. And if you didn't have one, try to be one to others, a good one, for so many need these, good mom-figures in their lives, mentors, people who care.

And if you're working outside the home, don't look back, because yes, you are a role-model, someone your daughter is proud of, someone who has probably saved the family home from foreclosure more than once. And if you couldn't, it didn't make you a bad mom, or a bad anything. You know that.

And if you're a SAM, a stay at home mom, then reflect upon what author and theologian G. K. Chesterton wondered in 1929, when he predicted the disrespect (thank you Ms. Henry, for reminding us what the little people are thinking when they blather on jealously about the mindlessness of parenting). He asked how society ever got the idea

that bringing forth and rearing and ruling the living beings of the future is a servile task suited to a silly person.

Happy Mothers Day.

The grandmother of my children has a bunch of these.


Can't give 'em away. Direct from the basement, original boxes. Actually did sell one on Amazon.

Here are more Mommie blogs, thanks to Radical Parenting (check her out-- I just found her). If I forgot you, please poke me. It's been a tough year.

therapydoc

My Mommy's Place
Busy Mom
The Mommy Blog
Mother Thoughts
City Mama
Mama Bird
Mommy Blog
Parenting Blog
Mom Logic
Decoder
Author Mom with Dogs
A Mother in Israel
Holly's Corner
Mother-Wise Cracks
Pinay Mommie
Project Subrosa

Same Time Next Year

THE ANTS:

We keep a pretty close watch on the little guys is the truth, don't let them get too comfortable. It's finally springtime in Chicago, the temps are high in the sixties. So they like to stop by and see what's happening inside the house, you know, see what's cooking.

Good for them, but not so good for those of us who are forever entertaining. And there's that awful feeling all the time that there's an ant up our sleeve.

I tell my son to zip-lock all things food, or refrigerate everything, and he's pretty good about it, has joined the holy war against the invaders. We make it our business to finish all the leftovers and chips, sweets especially.

He's a scientist but took his first social science class this year, an introduction to psychology, so he's interested in this networking the ants have down to a science, wants to master this. Leadership is big in all the schools these days.

I tell him that with them it's all about passing along information. And they love to meet under tents.

But their brains are so small, he objects. Wait, do they even have brains?

Yes, and their brains, like ours, are driven by food, sugar, really. But they don't hoard. As soon as they find something decent to eat they report back to tell the other peops in the hood where to find it. These people haven't a selfish bone in their bodies.

People? Bone?

You know.

He buys me more traps for Mother's Day and a really good Mother's Day card, which all makes sense at the time.

Anyway, like the well-bred guests that they are, they were out of the house in three days. I imagine they'll be back same time next year.

therapydoc

You Only Have One Mother

That's a direct quote from mine, "You only have one mother." She says this as we're driving out to the suburbs to a family party. (I'm driving, FD and my parents are telling me how).

"You only have one mother."

This stops me in my tracks, not literally, or there would have been a pile-up on the Edens, the 'Super Highway' to Wisconsin.

But I'm thinking, What does she mean by this?

Not hard to figure out, of course, that she's saying that my attention is divided, for sure, and she doesn't get enough of it, and when it comes to Who's Yo' Mama, the answer's quite obvious. She is. And I know it's hard, at the end of the day, to make a call and say, How's it going? but obviously, it should be an every day thing.

INSANE, I know you're thinking. ENMESHED, must be.

But you're wrong. It isn't insane, it's not enmeshed, and it isn't even coming from her. We're talking about an octogenarian. And ours is a relatively close family, although we're not on each other like white on rice, don't know one another's every step, and no, I don't call every day.

The idea is that they're special.

On Mori Therapy, Isabelle recycles an older post (she and I go way back) from 2007 about her father, a guy she adored, and how she wishes she could pick up the phone and say hi, but it's impossible at this point. Not to be maudlin. That's what grieving, remembering, is all about, feeling terrible that we can't just pick up the phone. Making the call is a big theme on this blog, you may already know. The applications are enumerable.

We can't all do that, dial the number. Not all the mom's are around. And some women, people who might have been moms but maybe changed it around, opted out or gave a child away, they're thinking along those lines, too. They won't be getting the call, no Hallmark card.

And let's talk, some mothers drink too much, aren't or never were available, use(d) drugs. Or our daughters and sons do that, disappear into that world, turning the day into one of failure. And so many first degrees can't function for some other health related issue. Mothers Day can be a tough one.*

Every once in a while a person will come to see me in therapy and inevitably the past will come up. We talk about loss, and we talk family, for what else is there, really, that pulls at us, drives us as crazy, a no pain no gain sometimes, sometimes mostly pain, sometimes heavily weighted on the gain. At some point it will come out that the narrator has between 3 to 5 siblings (more or less) and that nobody is taking care of mom or dad. In this case mom or dad are generally supremely independent, eschew attention, but are getting older, falling, forgetting, not eating as much or anything, not getting around anymore. And nobody comes over, nobody checks in. In fact, everyone has moved away from the home town.

And I'll suggest, "Well you know, we have these things, they're called telephones. You should arrange it so that at least one person calls every day. You're going to want to know if she isn't able to answer. You know?"

That's pretty much all I wanted to say on this post, that and to tell all of you mothers, especially those who have special needs children, that you're doing an unbelievable job. What's that they say? Half the job of life is just showing up, and anyone reading this blog is doing that and more.

But a quick story and better even, a decent one-liner, credit to my only mother to lighten the mood:

We're at this quasi-engagement party for my nephew, a Meet The New Family get-together, and Mom is standing a long time, trying to be sociable. I feel she's standing too long because I feel I'm standing too long, and if I'm tired, she must be tired. Our boundaries are fine, thanks.

Anyway, I suggest that we sit and she says she's good, she's not ready to sit down. We're talking to another guest, both riveted, liking this new person. I straighten up a little, throw back my shoulders to get comfortable, Mom looks up. She's looking at me, sizing me up.

She says to our new friend,

"You know, I used to be as tall as my daughter, but now I go to the doctor to find that I'm a full five inches shorter than I used to be!"

Neither of us knows exactly how to respond; we sort of smile half smiles.

Then she goes for the punchline.

"But I don't feel that way! Not at all! When I think of myself, I'm five-foot seven!"

She's got that glint in her eye, exceedingly pleased that her brain, the real person in there, can fool that other ego, her body.

Boy I hope I get that patch of DNA.

therapydoc

*You can read what I wrote about Mothers Day in dysfunctional families on The Second Road.

Mother's Day

I know you think of me as a family person, being a family therapist.

And we've talked about the sandwich generation; being a mother, meaning having a son(s) or a daughter(s), and being a child at the same time, having a mother, a father, or both. And me having two slices of bread, (k"h).*

So you would think I'd like Mother's Day, being the bologna in the sandwich.

But I have to tell you. It makes me uncomfortable and a little angry, too, this day.

I try to work on Mother's Day, as much as I can, not because I don't love my mother (we have plans for the evening) but because for many people, it's just another day. They don't celebrate it. And they come in. Predictably, there's always one patient who does celebrate it and comes in and says to me, as if I'm committing some kind of crime, Working on Mother's Day?!

Like you'd rather I didn't?

But I'm respectful. I say, It's all good. Have a seat.

The Hallmark holidays are emotionally unbearable for a lot of people. I almost feel like I should be doing group therapy on Father's Day, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, and Sweetess Day. There are more of these days, I guess, but these touchy feely ones are the ones that come to mind.

And I've never said this, really, not wanting to bring anyone down. But you have to understand, these days don't go unnoticed by people in difficult relationships, or those who may have lost someone. Not everyone thinks of the Hallmark holidays as warm and fuzzy. And it's not as if they volunteered to grieve on a day with potential to be one of those early sweet Sundays of spring, full of blossom and hope.

They remember
abandoment,
abuse,
neglect,
disappointment,
anxiety,
anger,
booze.

Stuff like that. And forgiving, forgetting, well, it's not always possible, or if it is possible, is an objective not yet met. We'll get to that this year, people think, that forgiveness piece. Maybe.

This is not to bum you out, seriously, if anything, I'm thinking, those of us who have good relationships, or passable relationships, even (you be the judge) are the lucky ones.

So the sentiment for many of us is like, I'm thankful I have this. Thank you for all you have done for me. It's because of what you do, of what you have done, that we have this.

If this fits.

But I must recommend that when you do say to people, Happy Mother's Day, that you do it with a lot of sensitivity. And with some people, think about it first. Maybe don't say it at all.

therapydoc

*k"h, kineyinharah wards off the evil eye. If you're new here, one of the benefits of reading is you get to learn some Yiddish.