Nice To Meet You, Mom
I just got back from visiting my mom. To put it mildly, my mother and I have not had the closest relationship for most of my life. To put it a lot less mildly, it’s taken almost all of my thirty-something years to get to know her. It wasn’t that we didn’t like each other — it was just that we didn’t know each other. When I was a child, I guess that was her fault. As an adult, I guess it’s mine. I’m thinking a lot of these other posts are about to really start making sense to you now…
Growing up, my mom was the neighborhood exhibitionist. She wore a bikini well into the non-bikini years, and if you came over after school, chances were pretty good that you were going to get a glimpse of Mom naked. I’ve got to admit, she looked pretty damn good for her age – but she was my MOTHER.
She doesn’t wear bikinis anymore, and I hate to say that on this visit I actually realized for the first time that my mom is getting old. Her health isn’t the best and I actually think it’s softened her a bit. She finally acted like a mom – instead of my competition. And to my surprise, I liked her. I was happy and sad all at the same time. You know, after all these years, it’s kind of nice to have a mom. It’s nice, and it’s scary and it’s totally unexpected.
But, there is one thing that still hasn’t changed in all these years: My mom is totally boy-crazy.
My mother and father split when I was very young, yet I don’t remember a time when they were not with other partners. I’m reluctant to admit that they seem much more adept at dating than I am – if your definition of success is the 5 marriages between them. But the thing is, even with what I would call major relationship failure, they never stop being just as eager to jump right back into the game.
Case in point: my mother is on six, count ‘em, six dating websites.
So now that we’re suddenly the best of friends, she talks to me about her dates: “So, I went out to dinner with this guy twice,” she said, “And after the second date he sent me an email saying ‘Obviously you weren’t attracted to me. I spent a hundred dollars on you and you didn’t even kiss me.’” What??? Please say it ain’t so! Men are still dickheads at seventy?
I asked her if she did the classic “reach for your purse and pretend to offer to pay” at the end of the meal. She looked at me bewildered. Suddenly it all made sense. My mom, in all of her almost-septuagenarian innocence, assumed the nice man was buying her dinner simply out of the goodness of his heart. Oh boy. She still has a lot to learn.
Good thing we’re so close now. I’ve got your back, Mom.
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Better Late Than Never
Mothers and daughters… There’s a minefield that any man should be grateful not to navigate at any point in his life.
Maybe I shouldn’t speak for all men on this point. I know that my own relationship with my mother was always the only normal I knew… She was a pain in the ass until the first time I left home, when she immediately became the best mother a guy could ever have. From my experience, that’s pretty standard for guys. It’s clearly a whole different ballgame for girls, and the women they become. There’s competition and guilt and manipulation and tears, tears and more tears. Girls cry when their mothers pay too much attention to them and girls cry when they don’t pay enough. A girl cries at age 14 because mom is flirting with my first boyfriend, and a woman cries at 34 because Mom just picked a fight with my husband. It’s completely unchartered, emotional waters for any man. I’ve yet to meet a guy who is NOT ok with that.
Fortunately for them, the emotional insurance policy all parents carry, no matter how old they get or how badly they fumbled the parent-ball in crunch time, is that it is never, ever too late for a child to forgive her/his parent. And it comes under the heading of “better late than never.” It seems that is what you’re about to learn. From what you’ve told me, your mom wasn’t distant or evil or any other unsavory description one could use to describe her. She certainly meant well. Maybe she was a little too selfish… maybe she was a little too distracted. She’d probably admit now that she had no idea what she was doing, because she was simply doing what others were telling her, basically expecting her to do. But women didn’t speak up in those days. Women in those days could barely admit to themselves that they had no idea what they were doing.
Still, you know how I feel about being a parent. There is absolutely NO excuse for being a shitty parent. Period. Exclamation point.You know my attitude is that you never completely forgive Mom or Dad if Mom or Dad wasn’t completely committed to being Mom or Dad when they were supposed to be Mom or Dad. Forgive, yes… completely, no. I also know, from being a parent myself that the only kids a parent should raise is their own. The only thing that matters between you and your mom is here, and today. I think it sucks that you’re just meeting your mom for the first time recently, but I’m also completely stoked that you’re just meeting your mom for the first time recently, and we both know why — Because it’s ALWAYS better late than never.
And as far as the dating — if anyone can help her, you can. I’m covering my eyes…
