“I sent you to college. You’re a teacher. You should be perfect.”
That’s what she said to me yesterday, my mother.
I don’t even remember what it was I did this time that didn’t meet with her approval. Not that it matters. I’ve spent my entire life repelling her disapprovals. But it does burn my butt that she still doesn’t get it.
Over on her weblog, Jeneane Sessum shares her current struggles to get beyond the load her mother laid on her. Mother-daughter stuff. Tough stuff.
I think I managed to do the mothering thing less destructively than my mother, although I certainly didn’t do it perfectly. Of course not.
I used to get stoned with my Mother. I think I had a different upbringing then most people my age.
Well, I never got stoned with my daughter, buy we did go out together to a couple of dance clubs years ago. I think you and my daughter would have much in common on many fronts.
On the subject of the education field, and mother/daughter relationships: we never went to dance clubs, or smoked pot together, but every day I know how lucky I am. My mother is now retired from being a school bus driver for many years. She grew up on a farm, attended a one room school as a child, and never completed high school. But my parents managed to send me to college, too.
A couple of years ago Ma embraced the Internet, and yesterday I received this wonderful response after I sent her an email where I wrote that my class, the first of the semester, was in two hours, and that I hoped I didn’t have an anxiety attack. Just before I went to teach, I opened this: “Don’t know if your at the computer or not but anyway hang in there just remember your the teacher, have lots of smarts and have lived longer than they have and are road smart if you know what I mean so they better pay attention an listen up! Let us know how the class went, I know you will do just fine, its normal to be anxious I remember the first day I took that big bus to
pick up high school kids I thought gee wiz will I be able to do this — guess what I did! Ma”
Hmmmmm interesting !!!