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The Goddess Speaks Jeannine Wheeler |
Mom’s love can be
double-edged swordThe times they are a-changing." So says Bob Dylan. Our desire to please our mothers, however, never really does.
My own is an icon to me. Less than a year after my father died, this 26-year-old mother with four children enrolled in college, bought a house and tackled the workforce.
In part because she never had the opportunities I did, I was sent to school on the East Coast to make my mark on the world. I earned a journalism degree and began to work in publications, eventually landing at the world's largest public relations firm. I was a Type-A lane-changer on the fast track.
All that was dashed when, after a three-month courtship, I decided to marry the tall, mustachioed naval officer next door. Although my mother never tried to talk me out of it, my supervisor did. "You sure you know what you're doing?" he asked. "This is a big move. You're changing everything."
And indeed I was, because my new husband's next assignment would take me across the country to California. I said good-bye to my glamorous position. The next 14 years would bring many new possibilities, but picking up temporary jobs as a sole proprietor is not the same as acquiring the status of climbing the ladder of a high-powered organization.
All the while, I've worked hard to impress my mother. Five years ago, she was moved, but not by me. She and I went to lunch with one of my best friends, a successful woman who lived and worked in England for the agency I'd resigned. "So tell me about London," my mother cooed. "What kinds of things were you doing there?"
The chatter went on unabated, light and airy, a probing of voyages, accomplishments, discoveries.While I appeared to listen, my mind focused on a starling that had scavenged a morsel from my mother's plate. She was too engrossed in her conversation to notice. The emboldened pest returned, grabbing at a breadstick and taking a quick jab at the bread and butter.
I should have shooed the scofflaw away, but I was too upset to intervene. I began to feel like the milk bottle left in the fridge at the half-inch mark, taking up valuable space.
I'VE HAD several more daunting moments with my mother. A few years ago, my family revisited our roots, in the small farming community where my grandmother was raised. I knew my mother would "get hold of me" to discuss career goals and aspirations. The time came at the end of our trip.
"So," she asked, "what have you been doing in Hawaii and what are your plans?"
Suddenly, I felt as if I'd never worked a day in my life. Even though, while overseas and despite great social demands on my time to enhance my husband's success in the diplomatic community, I managed to work as the public relations director of a large international school and raise a daughter.
"I was thinking about going back to school, maybe studying something different. I feel like I'm at the crossroads, you know, sort of trying to find myself," I said, in nearly a whisper.
"You're what? Finding yourself?" She appeared horrified. "What does that mean? It's been seven months since you got back from overseas. Seven months!"
She had little appreciation for what it was like to reinvent oneself every three years. I could see others at the table looking elsewhere with intent.
"Well ah, you know, we're not desperate for money Mom. Maybe I'll get a master's degree, or I could maybe become a writer. Not just public relations stuff, you know. Real literary stuff," I said, on the cusp of developing an adult stutter.
She looked away, her eyebrows in an arch and her mouth closed tight. I finished my meal feeling very lonely. I was trying hard to measure up to the one person we all four siblings still aim to please.
Now, as I prepare to move back East -- closer to my mother -- I can't help asking myself: whose disappointment in my career choices is more palpable, mine or her's? And why can't we ever talk about it?
I won't bother to ask "Whose life is it anyway?" because as any woman knows, expectations, jealousies, disappointments, regrets and, of course, fierce love, are all rubrics in the mother/daughter relationship. This caldron of feelings is all the more poignant because at the same time I feel pressure, I also feel privileged to enjoy the love of a great lady.
Why then, when I think of her, does she appear so big and I appear so small? I wonder if we all feel this way about our parents, even when approaching middle age.
Perhaps her experience as a young steely widow determined to rise from near-poverty to the upper echelons of the middle class has created for me an Oz-type character, a fabled image that has kept me from knowing her. And if I did see a flaw or two, might she become a bit smaller? And might I shrink a bit myself?
The deeper I look into our circumstances growing up and the more I analyze her aspirations for me -- her oldest daughter and the one by temperament most like her -- the smaller she becomes and the larger I appear to myself. Eventually, I'm hoping that we both end up at about the right size.
Jeannine Wheeler heads Wheeler Communications.
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