Becoming your mother

I was emailing a parent, responding to some questions they had about something they had said to their child, and I noticed that it was my experience with children that allowed me to give them advice around this. I realized that I had things to offer this parent because I had been teaching for a while. And I thought that they might feel better about what they had said to their child because of my advice. I also thought that the child might end up feeling better too- that my knowledge of how kids of this particular age see things might help this parent to help their child.
And this reminded me of my mom.
I have a good friend whom I have known since I was two. Her mother and my mother would "babysit swap" for each other. Her mother would babysit for my brother, my sister, and me while my mom did errands and then my mom would watch her and her sister while she did errands. So they knew each other as mothers, as wives, as women raising kids in the seventies.
I mentioned to my friend's mother once that I never really knew my mom, what she was like as an adult, as a person. She shared a bit about my mother and how she always respected her but then she also shared about a moment that she had never forgotten. My friend's mom was going through a difficult time in her life and she said that my mom had been very clear with her about what was important: staying strong and taking care of the kids. She had offered her advice about how she could do that and seemed to convey to her that she was capable of doing this and, in fact, it was what she had to do. And my friend's mom said that what my mom said had been true; and it allowed her to be strong and to focus on taking care of her kids- and so she was able to do just that.
And so when I noticed that I was giving advice to a parent, and that it seemed to be helping them to raise their child, I thought that maybe I was becoming my mom. I thought that maybe who I am now is part of who she was as a grown up;  that maybe me-as-an-adult is me-becoming-my-mom: the person who I didn't know.
And I thought about how much I wanted to stay as a six year old, how much I wanted to be a little girl because being a little girl was the only place I had ever been where I knew my mom, and so I didn't want to leave there. But I realized that in staying six, I wasn't becoming my mom. In holding on to that six year old, I wasn't allowing myself to become who I am- and that maybe who I am, is my mom; that the only way I would get to know my mom as an adult is to become myself as an adult.

The next night, I was at a party to which I had brought cookies. It was quite late in the party, the pie had already been served, and so I helped myself to one of the many of my cookies that were still left on the tray on the table.
"What are those?" asked one of the people sitting on the couch in front of the cookie tray.
"Pumpkin spice cookies with special-dark-chocolate kisses," I answered with a smile.
Then someone else in the room asked, "Wait, did you make them?"
"Yes," I answered.
And then anyone within earshot reached for a cookie.

"Oh," I thought. "I wonder if they're eating the cookies now because they know that I made them. I wonder if the idea that they were made by me makes them cookies that people want. I wonder if I have a reputation of making good cookies."
And then I thought about my mom and how many recipe boxes we had in our kitchen. I thought about how often her diary entries started with a detailed description of what they had eaten at the restaurant they had been to that night. I thought about the fact that even though I had grown up only eating food because it was "time to eat," in the end, I ended up really enjoying food and loving to bake things, for others.
"Maybe this is her too," I thought. "It's true that my regular eating time and practical approach to food comes from my dad and how we ate growing up, but maybe me baking for others, enjoying sharing food with friends, maybe that's me becoming her too. Maybe this grownup me is okay- maybe I'm growing into who she was too."
And it made me less afraid of leaving that six year old place. It made me see that that six year old place is limited- it's only vague memories of a little girl and her mom. It's true that I still want that- it's true that I still want a mom, to have grown up with one, and to have one now. But it's not going to happen, it just isn't. I lived past that, continued to live, continued to grow up, whether I wanted to or not. And I am here now. And maybe me now will allow me to connect with her then.