Myth, Legend, Grandmother

My Grandma raised three children in a little shack at the Jersey Shore, in the fifties. She was a stay at home mom, volunteered at church, walked her kids to school and made her husband's life as comfortable as possible. A humble, dry Methodist who sewed her own curtains and aprons and who's hair was kept in a tight permanent at all times. She was a Den Mother for boy scouts and girls scouts-- a quintessential All-American housewife and now a quintessential, All-American, grandmother and great-grandmother.

She has always been absolute magic to me. As I became a wife and then mother, she elevated to God-like status in my mind. After making the decisions to stay home with my son, my new mission was to recreate the wife and mother she was--or who I thought she was. I quickly realized I was falling short of the mark. You can't be Roseanne and Martha Stewart and Donna Reed; you're one or the other or the other, for that matter. What I've come to realize is without the challenge of a "9 to 5" job, I started to pour a lot of energy and expectation into my new role at home. I guess that is natural. I expected get "paid" by the house running like an episode of Leave it to Beaver and for me standing proudly at the helm smelling like fresh-baked bread and looking like a Banana Republic ad. Add on top of that a creative personality with no real creative outlet other than arranging throw pillows and convincing my baby to roll over and you've got a recipe for a big fat mud pie--at least in my case.

Any parent of a young child, working outside the home or not, I think would agree that at about 85% of the day is structured around meeting the needs of that child. From the time you get up, what you buy, what you eat, how much money you can afford to make, what time you can leave your office and still make it home for dinner--you are always working for that child. It's the nature of things and I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Parenthood is a great motivator.

The dilemma was that most times when there was laundry piled everywhere, dinner wasn't on the table and I hadn't showered in two days I was convinced that my Grandma was sitting at her kitchen table saying "tisk, tisk..." certainly her house was never like that. Think about it--three kids, no car, no microwave, DVD player, washer and dryer, computers, "Mommy & Me class" .....

What was wrong with me? Why wasn't I "getting it right"? When I was small my mom stayed home with me for a while and I always remember our house being immaculate and my mom painting on pieces of slate and picking string beans from the garden and being a perfect hippie. But I didn't want to go back to work. I didn't miss that at all. I wanted to get a promotion at my "new job" so it would finally feel like a "fit" for me.

Around the same time as all this was going on, my Grandma, in her eighties and in great health, became increasing vocal about her own mortality. She had nursed my Grandfather through illness and he passed over ten years ago, she nursed her sister through illness and she died two years ago--friends and family old, sick and dying. I guess that is what happens; after a while, your circle gets smaller. She started talking about her plans to ensure no one be burdened with her care, what she wants to happen to her possessions, and giving things away while she could still remember the story attached to them. It was alarming to me. My Grandma, synonymous with grilled cheese sandwiches and Christmas morning, keeps reminding me she's gonna croak. She's not always gonna be strolling down the boardwalk towards me. It was really scary. Instead of embracing the idea and trying to spend more time with her, I avoided her. It was hard at times for me to see her or talk to her because I always felt like it could be the last time. I was already feeling like I fucked up being this Donna Reed mom on a daily basis, how was I going to do without my idol?

The funny thing is that as Grandma got more comfortable with the impending end of things, she started opening up about her life. Family stories retold with more honest details, explanations as to why this happened or why so and so "went away for a while" etc. She told me the reason she never drove was because my Grandfather didn't want her to--basically forbid her to. It was a pain in her ass to have to lug three kids on the bus to go grocery shopping or to beg rides from friends. She always wanted to be more involved in her children's education but felt she wasn't smart enough to help them with their homework--so sad because she's actually very bright. In those days, you listened to your mother, doctor and school teacher when it came to raising your own children--with very little voice of your own. My Grandmother has a great sense of humor and has always had a lot of friends but my Grandfather never really wanted to go out and socialize so unless she was at the beach or at church, she didn't have a social life. She had several miscarriages that caused her a lot of deep emotional pain and no one ever wanted to talk about it. She was, in truth, not perfect and seemed to have moments of sheer frustration, loneliness and resentment as all mothers sometimes do. All this made me wonder--everybody wants to hearken back to a "simpler time" in this country...how simple was it?

Whenever I would start to think about taking some time for myself to explore my own thing like burlesque or getting a part-time job or anything for that matter, it would make me feel kinda guilty and ashamed. Well, in truth, a lot guilty and ashamed. I was embarrassed by wanting some time away from the little blond menace tugging at my pant leg constantly. I thought that since I was not bringing a paycheck into the house then money should not be spent to meet my personal wants and needs. It wasn't "my money". I was going to have to ask for money. If I wanted time out of the house then I should have stayed working--this is what I asked for and burdened my family with. Ugly, backward, sad, fucked up mentality. The person who spends the most time in the house should never leave the house??? And I'm a college-educated, intelligent female raised by a working single mother.......it's tough stuff to admit to because it feels so almost, third world? I guess?

These conversations with my Grandmother saved me from myself. My absolutely whacked out idea of perfection, the idolatry with very little substance behind it, all of it. These days she owns her own home (she knocked down the little bungalow), has a rich social life and is very involved with her grandchildren. There's a glint of self-assuredness in her eyes and an ease with which she does things that lets me know that she is just fine. Unfortunately, it took her a long time and a lot of sacrifice to get to this place in her life. That is a sacrifice I am no longer willing to make. I cannot wait for my son to go away to college to have my own life. Obviously that is not going to work if I want to keep my sanity.

Considering that the 40's and 50's was her heyday, I really want to tell her about the whole burlesque thing. I would like to get her take on it since she would know all about the popular entertainers of the time and because the Jersey Shore was such a hot spot in those days. There would have been a lot of different acts coming to perform in her area--big names too. She might have benefited from a little "tassel time" in her "mommy" days too. I am going to leave it alone for now, though. I'd rather hear about what is going on with her than tell her about me wanting to pole dance anyway.

I'm getting used to the idea that she is not always going to be here. I have to respect her choices and her desire to control whatever aspects of her life she can at her age. It finally dawned on me that all this talk about what she wants done, etc., is not for her--it's for me. She is trying to ease me into this the same way she eased me into riding a bike. She can only hold on for so long and then has to let go and let me ride on my own. Otherwise neither of us can go very far.

Thanks,

Bunny

Next Time: What the Hell is up with this Class?