Foremost on my Mind: Mothers of the Past

 

A friend of mine must have had a bit of a rough Mother's Day this past weekend: He buried his own mother just over a week before the big day. It's not easy to bury a parent at the best of times, but I would consider anytime around Mother's Day one of the worst of times to do it.

Though I never met her, she seemed like a wonderful woman, much like my own mother. If memory serves me correct, she was only two years older than my mom, so the comparisons are inevitable. They both were born just after WWI, married during WWII, and suffered through the same Great Depression sometime in between.

One of the afore-mentioned produced a very awesome son, but I'm too modest to mention my own name.

Back in the Dark Ages of 20^th Century, ie., around 30 BC (thirty years before computers), the usual pattern was dads went to work outside the home, while the moms took care of the home front. It was very much a "Leave it to Beaver" scenario, a now highly-maligned view of family life. The older I get, the more wistful I get for those simpler and slower days.

For me, I really liked coming home to the same mother every day after school; I sure enjoyed being raised in a home with the same two parents all my life; and looking back, I certainly enjoyed the fact that my father was faithful to my mother, and I'm speaking of where his eyes roamed and where they didn't.

In addition to the above, I don't ever recall ever hearing any shouting or sensing any form of abuse. Between the two of them, they provided a wonderful model for me: dad, in how I should behave as a husband and mom, in what to look for in a wife.

To whitewash the many difficult marriages, the broken homes and all the consequent heartache back then would be hopelessly naive on my part. And seriously misleading, to boot. Looking back, I am becoming more and more aware of neighbours' and schoolmates' homes that weren't quite as perfect on the inside as they appeared to be. But in the main, I posit that the homes of yesteryear seemed to be more stable, more committed than marriages of today.

(I'm sure someone will take exception to that statement, but I maintain that the out-of-control divorce rate, broken homes, multiple partners, and decimated family life is far, far greater, say, in 2011 than it was even fifty years ago. I believe these are facts, not mere opinion.)

I can't put my finger on what made the mothers in particular of my generation so special. It wasn't because they had it easy, that's for sure. Surely you must know how little they had, what they had to put up with—with plenty of examples in the areas of appliances, shopping, and transportation. They also didn't have the same number of distractions in the form of televisions, computers, and cell phones. I am not convinced these "toys" have worked out for the good of the home.

It seemed back then that, for the most part, marriage was viewed as a permanent relationship (not a trial run), and children were a welcomed addition (not an unwanted by-product). Today there seems to be a stigma with practicing the permanence of marriage, even writing about it in newspaper columns.

If you read between the lines (which is not the same as reading into the text), even though I bemoan the state of motherhood today, I am very sympathetic with all that they up against. We should support every mother in every which way today. We should encourage motherhood, children, and family life as much as possible. Supporting agencies, planned respites, a quick smile, and even something as simple as a word of encouragement to a bedraggled mother with kids in tow are good places to start.

So when my friend buried his mother last week, I feel one more positive link with the past was removed. It's not so much as the loss of a loved one; it's the loss of a model--a mould, if you will.

Trust every one of you mothers out there had a meaningful day two days ago, and cherished the significance of your role in our culture. We couldn't do it, uh without you.