The Love Of A Mother

The Love of a Mother
The mentality of a teenager entails ridiculous ideas entitlement and disdain toward their parents. Often overcome with resentment toward their parents for not meeting the child’s expectations that they deserve more. It is rare when there is a teen who will admit that ‘life is not fair’. Regardless of their untimely knowledge, consideration of such does not hinder their immature behaviors. Of course, maturity in a teen is hard to expect as is, a teens ideas that they understand their parents and reasons for which they are. Mom and Dad divorced after eleven years of marriage. Amongst their three daughters, the oldest was eleven, the second oldest was eight and the youngest was almost five years old. Now at 24 many new insights on life have enlightened new perspectives. It would be many years until Dad was back in the picture; raising us three girls was entirely on mom's shoulders. When it comes to mom’s style for which she raised us girls, some would agree and then others would not. Our experiences shape that we become. Analyzing and looking at different moments with a different perspective have led to enlightening discovering. One of which came as a shock; perhaps mom was not a bad mom after all. She would be at work all day and unable to attend a single volley ball game or back to school night. At such a young age, this made no sense. How could a parent CHOOSE work over their child? Well the answer was quite simple however; it did not come in a timely manner. See mom did not choose to miss important event; it was her responsibility as an employee to show up to work. Just as much as it was a responsibility to us in order to provide for us girls. The coming of fifteen brought a completely new outlook on life. Mother did not have a gift to be unwrapped, but it did not matter, for she had ordered a cell phone that would be here in two months. Cell phones were the latest gadget amongst adults, barely even attainable to the ‘Average Joe’ like us. They were definitely not attractive nor did teachers mention them the first day of class. Mom rarely showed affection or expressed any sort of emotion. When you think of The Brady Bunch, well mom is the opposite. Her parenting style is to ‘learn from your own mistakes. “Que Sera Sera”, “whatever will be will be” is how she deals with life. This is a hard concept for a young girl. Like any other girl of this age, a mother’s attention is all we wanted. Hence feelings of resentment for which derived from immature ideas that moms absence was her choice. As adults, we identify with our parents in a way that a child cannot grasp. We consult them when unsure and mimic the behaviors that we mock with a judging eye. Perhaps mom was not around to see the monumental moments. However, hindsight is 20/20 and now it is understood, that with parenthood comes responsibility. In some roundabout way, mom’s parenting style bestowed a deeper appreciation of the most complex ways of life.

By Kaitlyn Morgan