We all grow up with influences; Momma is a huge one for most of us. Next week would be my mother’s birthday and I was thinking about her and how much she would have loved this primary season. A Woman! A Black! A Young Populist with Great Hair! Hey, her #1 reason for voting JFK was the way the wind blew through his hair. She was the queen of drama. She was crazy. She was the smartest woman I ever knew and the dumbest. She was the strongest and the weakest. She was married 5 times and each husband was worse than the one before, she liked them young and dumb and poor and abusive (okay the last was not so bad, but he is a crazy liberal hippy and only about a year older than me.) She taught me some great life lessons. And one of the best lesson she taught? Acceptance. Of others and myself.
Now this wasn’t something she ever said, but it was how she lived. I remember being in kindergarten and getting really yelled at by the teacher and they had to call my mom to pick me up because of "my mouth". I was really scared because I had no idea what was wrong and I didn’t have a mirror so I could see the problem. We were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up and I said I wanted to be a "homo-fag". I didn’t know exactly what that was, but that’s what evil step-dad #1 called his brother. Uncle John was the sanest, nicest, happiest, best looking, best smelling relative I had. I wanted to be that! Even though mom yelled at the teacher I was still scared I was in big trouble for something. On the way home, with the teacher’s advice of "washing my mouth out with lye" ringing in my ears, my mom said the teacher was an ass and I could be anything I wanted. Anything. Then she said evil step-dad #1 was an ass and that the way Uncle John made money was selling cars and that "homo-fag" was more like being a man or woman or black or white or blond or brunette or "I yam what I yam", as she quoted Popeye.
Once my mom was protesting in a civil right march and became quite vocal with police. I guess word spread around town because the next day was a PTA meeting where she got into a yelling match with someone about it. Some lady wanted to know why my mother would march with those [BLEEPING MYSELF]. My mom’s loud reply was that she understood their cause, she understands discrimination. Her ancestors were burned at the stake! At the time I wanted to crawl under a chair with embarrassment but the room got quiet real fast.
Between husbands mom thought we should learn different ideas, so we wore saris for awhile and hung out at the India stores and toured temples, we learned and chanted a Buddhist chant and hung out with Buddhists, we went to "regular" church and socialized, we listened to music ranging from opera to country to hard rock and jazz. We even had a book of witchcraft spells we tried, as well as a crystal ball we gazed into.
Momma taught me Popeye was right...you is what you is, and that's all that you is.
I once asked my kids (my AMAZING overeducated-underpaid-social-working kids), what they learned from me and their dad. I am proud to say that they said the biggest impact lesson I (by accident) taught them was that there are consequences to their action. Their dad taught them you finish what you start.
What did you learn from your Momma or what are you teaching your kids?