Happy Mother’s Day

from Aging Times Magazine May 2021

by AgingTimesMagazine

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THE INEXPLICABLE

HOPE OF MOTHERS

by Adrienne Freeland

My maternal grandmother was born on January 2, 1925, 15 years and 9 months before the start of World War II. To me, as a child of the ’80s, World War II somehow feels like it was eons ago. Certainly too long ago that any of my immediate family members could have had memories of it. It’s hard to imagine how witnessing so much loss and fear impacted the way members of my grandparents’ generation lived and eventually the way they parented.

In her youth my grandmother was tall, slender, and lovely, born into a wealthy family in the South. The world was wildly different than it is now. In her lifetime she witnessed unbelievable social and technological change. From world wars to civil rights movements, and from black and white television to the invention of the internet. In the 1950s after marrying my handsome grandfather, she began the next phase of her life: motherhood. Together they had three energetic and highly opinionated daughters whom she raised in a small home that my grandfather built. Like many families in those days, he worked out of the house making a good living, and she worked in the house and was responsible

for all of the duties therein. It was a lovely life that I’m sure her own mother was very proud of.

My grandmother was whip-smart, funny, and strong. When she was younger, she had worked in the bank that her father owned, and odds are she was great at it. She excelled at most anything she tried. But, like many women of her generation, she gave up any chance of career to raise her girls.

My mother is the middle of her three daughters. Like my grandmother, she is smart and stubborn. For the record, she passed the same traits on to me. When my mother graduated high school she went off to college

and then to graduate school and eventually became a social worker. She and her two sisters are each more educated than their parents, which I imagine was a great point of pride for my grandparents. In the ‘80’s she met my father playing sand volleyball and exactly two years and one day after they married I was born (followed four years later by my brother). My mom has always loved to work, but she also had to work. My father’s job as a teacher didn’t allow her the freedom to stay home. But knowing her, I think she liked working too much to have considered it.

Mom’s version of motherhood looked vastly different than her mother’s. She worked a full-time job out of the house and still juggled many of the duties traditionally ascribed to women inside the house as well. Since my grandmother lived just a few miles away she stepped in often to help. When I was in middle school, to avoid sending me home to an empty house, I rode the bus home to my grandparent’s house. It was there, under the watchful eye of my grandmother that I had my afternoon snack, finished my homework, and caught up on the Rosie O’Donnell Show. What I didn’t realize then is that I was the beneficiary of two different and complementary versions of the mothering spirit. Two women, whose lives looked so different, but whose hope and love for all that my future could hold mirrored one another. Two

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Nearly 100 years after my grandmother’s birth, I am also a mother. Like my mom, I am married to a teacher which makes it financially impossible for me to be a stay-athome mom in the way that my grandmother was. But

What I didn’t realize then is that I was the beneficiary of two different and complementary versions of the mothering spirit. Two women, whose lives looked so different, but whose hope and love for all that my future could hold mirrored one another.

the world is so much different than it was in the ’80s and ’90s. I stay home with our son every day, but I’m also a freelance writer who maintains a work schedule during nap time, in the evenings, and on weekends. I wonder if my mother or grandmother would have chosen this version of motherhood if they could have. The internet age has given me and millions of others the ability to work from home when and where we need to. It enables us more choice and the ability to craft a version of motherhood that fits our lives.

Mothers like me can stay home with their children while continuing to keep their resumes active and up-todate. We’re able to make a living and still be present for every first step and knee scrape. It’s remarkable, and it’s exhausting. As I sit here and reflect upon my experience as a mother I can’t help but acknowledge how much responsibility has always been placed on women. How we’ve always been there to sacrifice ourselves, willingly, so that we can create the best lives we can for our children. Remarkably, when I pull back and look at the lives being created by the women in my family and circle of friends, I find that they’re all different. That there’s no right answer, no one version of motherhood that works best. And that we’re all tied together by the hope that what we’re building will give our children opportunities to build the lives they envision. My grandmother didn’t have a career. She spent her later years playing stand-in mother for my brother and me, playing golf and bridge, and knitting more socks than any of us could have ever worn. My mother will retire this summer at the age of 67. She’s worked hard all of her life, partially because she liked to, and often because she had to. While she’s not likely to get into knitting, she will soon have the opportunity to craft this next phase of her life. And I, like many other mothers around the world, fall somewhere in between them. While our versions of motherhood are wildly different from one another we hold so many things in common. Motherhood is inherently sacrificial. But beyond any personal sacrifice, the real commonality that bonds all mothers is hope. Whether you carry your children in your womb or jump through hoops to bring them into your family another way, it’s our hope for a greater future for our children that drives us. As mothers, it’s hardwired into us to give of ourselves, to provide goodness, safety, and love for our children. Our hope is like a fire burning within us that takes our sacrifices and makes them sacred.

If there’s a single, resounding truth that encompasses motherhood it’s that it changes you forever. It’s an undeniable blessing that many women still yearn to experience. It’s an unbelievable responsibility and incredible motivation. It’s the most hopeful endeavor to bring life into the world even when the world itself doesn’t look hopeful. In January of 1941, one month after the United States joined its allies in World War II when my grandmother was just sixteen, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech called the Four Freedoms. In it, he made one short but essential comment about hope. “We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.” This is the essence of motherhood.

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