Growing Up Without a Mother

Growing Up Without a Mother

I grew up without a mother. Even now that I am an adult woman with children of my own, I find it painful to say, "I grew up without a mother." When I was a child, it hurt every time I had to explain to someone that I didn't have a mother. Teachers would say, "Have your mother write a note," or "Ask your mother if she can come and help." Then, I would have to explain that my mother had died. I was always the only one whose father came to Parent-Teacher conferences and the only student who always had to eat lunch at school. Other kids got to go home for lunch every day if their mothers was a stay-at-home mother, and kids whose mother worked got to go home once in a while when their mothers had a day off. But I never did because I didn't have a mother.

When I was eight years old and in the third grade, some of the other kids didn't like me because I was too different, I guess. Anyway, they made up a story that my mother died because she had a headache and I was too noisy and wouldn't be quiet. For years, I struggled with trying to forgive them for making my mother's death my fault. Actually, she died in an automobile accident shortly after I was born. I suppose the thought of being motherless was staggering for them and they had to think of some explanation for how it could happen. And since they didn't like me, it was handy to blame me for her death. I told my father what they were saying. it's one of the few times I saw him angry. He went to the school about it and the principal talked to the class about it. They stopped saying that, but they didn't like me any better.

I reached an age when my body started to change, and I had no woman to talk to about it. I was frightened at first and very confused about what menstruation meant, although I was pretty sure it had something to do with being female. I didn't know how to handle periods. If I had had a mother, she could have explained things to me. I tried once to approach my father, but he was embarrassed and said maybe I could get a book from the library that would explain things better than he could. Because he was so embarrassed, it made me embarrassed to ask the librarian for a book. It was nice of him to make the suggestion, of course, but it didn't make up for lack of a mother.

Just normal, everyday issues like skincare, hairstyle, make-up, and clothing seemed gigantic and out of proportion in importance because I had no one to turn to for guidance. My father wasn't interested in "girly things" and thought anything looked good on me. I wanted to be like the other girls -- just normal. I wanted to fit in with the other kids. But my dad couldn't give me any advice on female matters.

Also, my father told me that my mother was religious and never missed church. I have a picture of her in her Sunday dress wearing a hat and white gloves and black-and-white spectator pumps. She's standing outside on the sidewalk in front of the house, and the sun is in her eyes. The picture used to make me wish I could go to church with her. My dad and I never went unless somebody was getting married. Once we went for a Christmas program. I know if my mother had lived, I would have gone to Sunday School and learned about the Bible. Maybe she would have told me Bible stories and talked about God to me.

It's funny, the things you remember. I remember what a revelation it was to me when I visited a girl friend's house after school. Her mother took the clothes out of the dryer and folded them on the kitchen table. Then they put the folded clothes in their dresser drawers. At our house, my father washed the clothes and dried them, but when he took them out of the dryer he dumped them in a big heap on the living room couch. When we got dressed, we pulled what we wanted to wear out of the heap. Our clothes were always wrinkled and kind of nasty, and I had wondered how the other girls had clothes that looked so nice. When I talked to my father about it, he said I was welcome to fold the clothes and put them away. I did, too -- sometimes. Another thing was the housekeeping. Our house wasn't filthy or anything, but it was usually very untidy and the beds were always a jumbled mess. The houses of other kids were neat and tidy and their mothers knew how to decorate and make it look pretty. Our house probably was pretty at one time -- when my mother was alive -- but without a woman's care, it languished.

When I got old enough to be interested in boys and dating, the problem of being without a mother put me at a disadvantage, although some of my girlfriends thought it would be great. They thought since I didn't have a mother, I didn't have any rules to follow and could pretty much do anything I wanted with nobody to know the difference. Of course, it wasn't like that, at least, not for me. On one hand, I felt like who really cared what I did? If I wanted to have sex with a boy, who was there to tell me not to or urge me to wait until I was older? Nobody. My father was too embarrassed to talk about sex. At the same time, he said he trusted me "to keep a level head" on my shoulders. So I did feel that I needed to be careful and stay safe. The trouble was I didn't always know what situations might be dangerous to me. If I had had a mother, I'm sure she would have warned me about various risky behaviors. Going to parties where there is alcohol, for instance, is risky. Date rape can happen. How much alcohol a person can use without getting sick or passing out or dying of alcohol poisoning -- issues like this I would like to have been able to discuss with my mother, and how to say no to a boy without making him angry. She could have helped me with that.

I wish she hadn't gone and died. Sometimes, when I was growing up, I felt angry that she left me in the lurch when I needed her so much. At the same time, I hated how other girls talked about their mothers sometimes. They would describe the fights they had with them and call them names like bitch. They didn't know or appreciate how lucky they were to have a mother. A lot of times the only thing that helped to take away my sense of loss when I was growing up was going outdoors. Where we lived there was a woods behind, and I could go walk alone in the woods. Sometimes the sun would beam down through the trees and if the beam of light fell on me, I would think it was a message from my mother to cheer up. A busy little creek ran down through, and I liked to walk beside it and pick up stones. Sometimes, I kept them if they were pretty or unusual on the window sill in my room. Other times, I threw them trying to develop an aim. I used to dream about her at night sometimes. Once, my mother told me in a dream not to be sad because when I grew up, she said, I'd have children to love. She said I was lucky because she didn't get to raise her child. I never thought about it that way -- that she was missing out too. I remember thinking about that dream all the next day. It was more like it was real and not just a dream -- like my mother had actually spoken to me.

Because I didn't see my mother relating to my father, I had difficulty knowing how to act around boys. It was a long time before I felt comfortable in a dating situation. When I met my husband and married him, I was afraid to have a baby for a long time. I didn't have any idea how to be a mother or what was involved. My husband wanted children, and I wanted to keep my husband, so I agreed to have a baby if he would help me take care of it. When he realized the problem was that I had not had a mother to be a role model for me, he suggested that I talk to his mother. I did talk to her and it did help. She was very reassuring and said I could call her anytime. With my first child, I called her nearly every day for advice on what to do. I remember once I fed the baby orange juice and all of a sudden she threw it up -- it shot across the room and really scared me. I called my husband's mother and she said I needed to dilute it before I fed it to the baby -- either that, or buy "baby orange juice" for her. It wasn't just the physical aspects of their care that worried me. I wasn't sure how to relate to them. My husband said, "Just relate to them as little human beings," and of course, that is what they are. But it wasn't quite that simple. How much should I hold them? When should I be strict and when should I be lenient? Should a mother be the boss? How democratic should a mother be and when should children make their own decisions? All of this seemed so mysterious!