ABOUT WOMEN
Working wife strives to re-create Mom's magic with her kids
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Staff Writer
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We were lucky. After she went into the hospital, we had two weeks to talk about stuff big and small before she went into intensive care and, finally, was too weak to communicate except with a pained expression that seemed to say, "I've had enough."
She must have known her time was growing short. In one of our last conversations, she expressed regret at not being a better mother to me and my brother.
It was an astounding statement from a woman who married at 16 and still finished second in her high school class, who worked to put my dad through college, then sublimated her own career ambitions to excel at the traditional role of homemaker.
I wonder if her frustration at being denied due recognition and compensation for her intelligence, creativity and wit — as so many women of her generation were — pushed her toward greatness in the fields of homemade Halloween costumes, gift-wrapping and gravy.
Meals were always hot and made from scratch. Our home was tastefully decorated and neatly kept. She sewed stylish outfits for me and was one of the foxiest moms in the PTA who wouldn't dream of going out to the mailbox without "putting her face on," and had a weekly appointment at Honey's in Hawai'i Kai, before beauty shops were called salons.
I never did pick up the hair and makeup thing — OK, or the housekeeping thing — but I often catch myself trying to recreate some of her mommy magic with my own kids.
It's a tough act to follow.
I'm part of a transitional generation of working moms whose moms didn't work. We strive for the same kind of domestic discipline for which our mothers set the standard, and are reminded almost daily that we just don't measure up.
What I didn't know until her final days was that my mother thought I was something of a supermom — working full time at a demanding job and still shuttling the kids to practice, chaperoning field trips and running a Brownie troop in between.
"I don't know how you do it," she said.
My reply was, "I don't. At least not very well."
Dinner is usually a last-minute concoction, we dress straight from the dryer and we're forever running out the door in a whirlwind, like cartoon characters, to pile into the car for some event.
I've tried to convince myself that children are highly adaptable creatures who can go with the flow without too much long-term damage.
But then I think of my mom.
I guess it's a parent's curse: knocking yourself out for your kids and never feeling you've done enough.
At least I've lowered the bar for my 14-year-old daughter. Her generation will be among the first in which working moms and eating off paper plates are the norm.
Having seen me throw more stress-induced tantrums than I care to remember and chug Advil and Tums to the point where my kids think they're one of four basic food groups, will she swear off having children to devote herself to her career, or vice versa? Will she abandon elaborate holiday meals and other labor-intensive family traditions for the sake of sanity?
"Oh, I'm gonna marry a rich guy," she says.
Yeah, I've heard that one before.
