« Mama's Sayings | Main | My Mom »

Tuesday, 06 May 2008

The Best She Could

By Claire Jean

Mother: female parent, look after, care for, protect, nurse, tend

How many ways can one define mother? I read several books and took a few classes before becoming one myself. Lengthy discussions with friends already in that role were fascinating and informative. I listened intently to their parenting stories that seemed pretty much like a roller coaster ride.

By paying close attention to what worked, what did not work, I planned to make it my guide. Learning from their mistakes would help me to become, if not a perfect parent, a better informed one at least. Well, we know how that usually works out!

Enough about me. I turn now to my own Mother.

Who was she?

My mother emigrated from Italy to the United States at the age of thirteen. It was not a joyful departure. Mother was very attached to her maternal grandmother who was not able to make the journey. It was a painful separation for them both. She arrived in Boston with her mother, brother and sister in 1923. Her father traveled to America a year or two before to find work and become somewhat settled in the new country. This was usually the practice for men to go beforehand and women to follow.

Unbeknownst to mother, an arranged marriage was in the works prior to her stepping on American soil. Measures had been taken for her to marry a man much her senior who had been living and working in the United States for a few years.

She told me that she noticed an older-looking man hanging around many times watching her as she jumped rope and played ball with friends in the neighborhood. She had no idea who this person was, but did not mind since he would occasionally stop by the house and bring her gifts.

The marriage never materialized, she believed, because friends of her mother said that such practices were not the norm in America. Mother was surprised to hear of the plan and also relieved when she learned that it had been terminated, but sorry to no longer receive the presents.

She, at thirteen, was placed in the third grade in a Catholic school. Because she spoke not a word of English, she was required to sit beside the nun. The abusive teasing and name calling that spewed forth from the other children were too much for her to take and so she left school never to return. With the help of friends, she eventually got a job in a factory.

At sixteen, she met my father who was seventeen and also an immigrant. Shortly after their meeting, they eloped. She had her first child at seventeen, a second child a few years later and me, the only daughter, thirteen years after her first. What did she know about parenting? Not much. She never did learn to read or to write. The parent/child order of things was put in reverse as soon as it was possible.

We lived in neighborhoods that shared my parent’s background, traditions, etc. Community was powerful, and we spent much of our time with people just like us. For me, that was until I started school. I was determined to become as American as my school friends.

I began slowly introducing mother to American customs, especially working with her on the English language. There was one area that proved particularly challenging. Food. Wonder bread, baloney, and American cheese were foreign foods in our house, but they were a start and eventually such things became okay for her youngest child to eat. However, I’ll never forget the day I brought a can of Chef Boyardee Beefaroni into the house. I thought my mother would faint. I had gone too far.

There were many things that I regretted and wished were different. I always wondered who wrote those angelic velvety messages inside Mother’s Day cards. Whoever it was, never met my mother. She was tough; times were tough. She did the best she could.

Hopefully, one day, my children will feel that their mother did the best she could.

Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post