Of course any good mother is born with mother’s intuition; but what real information did I carry from high school to taking care of a newborn baby’s life? Not much because it wasn’t learned in school; it was a trial and error situation with every endeavor and it proved to be difficult but rewarding at the same time. My daughter was born two days after my 19th birthday; and I’m glad she survived me, as I was young – and loving but the 24 hour demands were difficult yet somehow I managed. I had a bad case of the hives after dressing her perfectly in her yellow sun bonnet; and dress and shoes to take her to her first doctor’s appointment. How did it turn out? She puked all over me and her outfit; as we walked in the waiting room of the doctors office – See? No preparation from school, not even biology could help me there.
My son was born two months after I turned 22. Again, my full attention was needed to take care of two small children – and I did it – then they both survived me. He did other things – just like all little boys – jumped into the tub fully dressed – got lost every time he had to catch the bus home from school – I always got the call – Your son got on the wrong bus ……..Again. His sister would walk in the door – having been designated to make sure her brother was on the bus after school – and I would say, “Where is your brother?” and she would reply, “I don’t know, he wasn’t on the bus.” The two of them instigated and plotted against me.
The first time I heard them talk about me while they went whispering down the hallway – I was shocked. They were talking about me, like I used to talk about my own mother – and I was a good mom, a happy interactive – young – dedicated mom – but I was mean, for disciplining. I was a total push over when it came to reprimanding my kids – and they knew it.
Next; my youngest son was born 7 months after my 34th birthday and it was like starting anew while keeping up with a 15 year old and a 12 year old. When my daughter made me a grandmother at age 37 – I was shocked; yet it turned out to bring some of the happiest days of my life – when she eventually started leaving her first two with me on weekends, or when they had the chicken pox – or if she had to work a night shift; or anytime anything came up where she needed her mom, I appreciated every minute of it – even though she had the nerve to tag me Granny; which really didn’t feel right at all at 37.
In retrospect I believe I learned more about life after school – I learned about real life – and thank God the academics helped me to gain good employment where I could advance to the level of actually being able to provide for three.
My older children did have success; chose the right paths and did well. What do I say now – to my youngest as the world has turned so many times - As I look into his eyes – I feel pride – yet failure at the same time. We are humble. I ended up being a single Mom through two marriages and three children. Yet remained loving, kind and determined to not allow the world to push us down.
Today academics, sports and arts are what are children are taught. Geometry never helped me when the rent was due; or when I had $50.00 for groceries and I needed to buy $75.00 worth of food to live for a week and feed children as well.
It never occurred to me to check my history books – and review past rulers of other centuries; when my child woke up in the night with a fever climbing up to 105 degrees, that information may have been useful in H.S. but not in the grown up adult world.
School did not give me the social skills to handle myself in an adult setting. No one told us we would be ridiculed, and harassed by employee management and discussed openly behind our backs in the mix of office politics. Somewhere in my thirties I decided going to work was like high school in many ways because people never grew up or enlightened themselves to look beyond their callous thoughts and small minded attitudes on how to conduct oneself at work. To me it was culture shock. I was only bullied in H.S a few times and to face this type of situation when I went somewhere to earn money to feed my children; left me in a position to question so much about what I lacked – and what I really needed to know about how to survive in the world and feel good about what I was doing with my life.
One thing working has taught me is that the less you do at the job the more you are rewarded in compensation. I learned that going in and giving 100 per cent of eight hours of work was not always appreciated and personally reprimanded on occasion for doing too much work. Too much work? Isn’t that what I’m getting paid for? Or should I have sat next to my co-worker who was playing solitaire on the computer and joined in on the fun rather than do what I thought was the right thing and do my job.
I’m starting to realize that today’s new wave, new concept and ways of life are that if I do everything backwards eventually I’ll end up forward. If I reason with myself and my thoughts guide me in one direction I should do the opposite and end up with better results.
So what do we tell the up and coming generation about life? What skills do we teach them? How do we change everything we were taught as the basics of living a successful life with rewards and cherished memories if those concepts are now archaic and the new way of doing things has taken over morals, values, culture, what is right and what is wrong no longer exists. There is a fine line that can’t be seen anymore between doing good and doing good and being punished for it.
Having achieved raising three children basically alone; I now ponder the future of my youngest son who is about to start the journey to adult living. What skills does he have and how naive is he to be sent out to the wolves for learning everything that wasn’t taught in school.
I can only hope that the role model I played in raising my first two children will help him now set apart in another generation. This one I have less knowledge about and it will be up to him to teach me in some way how to interact with people of his generation.
I’m beginning a new kind of high school now where I will be taught and by trial and error guide him the best way I can with some of my previous experience and some I may have to Google.
- NOTE: My next article will be about how I survived the year 2007 when I suddenly tragically lost my oldest son at age 29.