Recently I have had the occasion to wonder, what is normal? What is not? To me, 5'1" and 160 pounds is normal. Not so to my 100 pound step daughter. Getting up at 4:30 is normal and perfectly acceptable to me. Not to my 23 year old grand daughter. Spending 7-8 hours a day on my computer is "normal" to me, but I have friends and family members who are challenged to turn their computer on, if they even have one. I talk to one daughter several times a week on the phone, another weekly, one monthly and one I have not spoken to in years. Which of those scenarios is "normal?"
When I was raising my babies it was "normal" for me to work 2 and three jobs just to make ends meet. Yet I know families where no one works. To them it is "normal" for some one else to "take care" of them. I do not consume alcohol, but I know people who drink as a matter of course. I don't buy or drink soda pop, but I know people who drink it on a regular basis.
What I am trying to get to here, is what is normal? Could it be that there is indeed, no "normal?" When we were growing up back in Nickerson, it was much like being raised by the wind. Mom worked cleaning houses. Dad did not work. Mom came home and cooked our supper, we ate and then mom ironed a basket of clothes for one of the ladies in town. We went to bed. We got up and did it all over again. My Dad sometimes had a "hot toddy" for his "cold". Sometimes he let us have a teaspoonful. Usually not. The woman at the end of the block kept an eye on the little kids for 50¢ a week. (She liked to ride stick horses and the little kids would run behind her.)
We were very poor, but so was everyone else. Poor was the "norm." We moved to Hutch and fit right in with that society. Mom was a secretary by that time. She would later go on to waitress work which paid better then office work back then. By that time us kids were all beginning to leave home. Mary got married at 15, I got married, Dorothy got married, Donna drifted off to school, and Jake was Jake, and Josephine was divorced and remarried with her kids grown and gone.
I immediately had a nest full of kids and began travelling the state with my tree trimmer husband. I remember back when I was raising kids, Ward and June Cleaver were raising kids at the same time as I was, but talk about a world of difference! A two parent home! Ward went to work and guided the children in the right direction. He did not appear to drink or carouse. That was the "normal" for June but my "normal" was far different.
And so it is now today. I look back down the road of my past and I see a skinny little girl with bare feet picking her way down a road of shattered dreams, lost opportunities, broken hearts, dragging 5 little kids behind her to reach the ever elusive rainbow at the end. I now stand at the precipice to what, I know not, and I ask myself, "Did I do it right? Did I do the best I could?" The answer is "no". But I do know this, I did the best I could knowing what I knew then with the tools that were at my disposal.
I got all my kids into the world of adulthood. They are all functioning members of society. True, they are no doubt scarred by their childhood, but aren't we all? They all have a different perception of "mother, hearth and home," but don't we all? If I could walk the road again and know what I know now, they would all have gone to college. We would be a close knit family and we would vacation together and talk on the phone every day and be so happy. But until some one figures out a way to live our lives in reverse, they will just have to live with an imperfect mother, but one that loved them all nonetheless.
So, I just got off the phone with the oldest daughter who reassures me that there is no such thing as normal and as for her childhood, when someone says, "How are you ?" she replies, "Mentally unstable, but I am very friendly."
So there it is in a nut shell!
When I was raising my babies it was "normal" for me to work 2 and three jobs just to make ends meet. Yet I know families where no one works. To them it is "normal" for some one else to "take care" of them. I do not consume alcohol, but I know people who drink as a matter of course. I don't buy or drink soda pop, but I know people who drink it on a regular basis.
What I am trying to get to here, is what is normal? Could it be that there is indeed, no "normal?" When we were growing up back in Nickerson, it was much like being raised by the wind. Mom worked cleaning houses. Dad did not work. Mom came home and cooked our supper, we ate and then mom ironed a basket of clothes for one of the ladies in town. We went to bed. We got up and did it all over again. My Dad sometimes had a "hot toddy" for his "cold". Sometimes he let us have a teaspoonful. Usually not. The woman at the end of the block kept an eye on the little kids for 50¢ a week. (She liked to ride stick horses and the little kids would run behind her.)
We were very poor, but so was everyone else. Poor was the "norm." We moved to Hutch and fit right in with that society. Mom was a secretary by that time. She would later go on to waitress work which paid better then office work back then. By that time us kids were all beginning to leave home. Mary got married at 15, I got married, Dorothy got married, Donna drifted off to school, and Jake was Jake, and Josephine was divorced and remarried with her kids grown and gone.
I immediately had a nest full of kids and began travelling the state with my tree trimmer husband. I remember back when I was raising kids, Ward and June Cleaver were raising kids at the same time as I was, but talk about a world of difference! A two parent home! Ward went to work and guided the children in the right direction. He did not appear to drink or carouse. That was the "normal" for June but my "normal" was far different.
And so it is now today. I look back down the road of my past and I see a skinny little girl with bare feet picking her way down a road of shattered dreams, lost opportunities, broken hearts, dragging 5 little kids behind her to reach the ever elusive rainbow at the end. I now stand at the precipice to what, I know not, and I ask myself, "Did I do it right? Did I do the best I could?" The answer is "no". But I do know this, I did the best I could knowing what I knew then with the tools that were at my disposal.
I got all my kids into the world of adulthood. They are all functioning members of society. True, they are no doubt scarred by their childhood, but aren't we all? They all have a different perception of "mother, hearth and home," but don't we all? If I could walk the road again and know what I know now, they would all have gone to college. We would be a close knit family and we would vacation together and talk on the phone every day and be so happy. But until some one figures out a way to live our lives in reverse, they will just have to live with an imperfect mother, but one that loved them all nonetheless.
So, I just got off the phone with the oldest daughter who reassures me that there is no such thing as normal and as for her childhood, when someone says, "How are you ?" she replies, "Mentally unstable, but I am very friendly."
So there it is in a nut shell!
