Thinking About Moms by Joan Foster

I've been thinking about the Moms a lot.

Dave's Mom, and Reade's, and Collin's.

Motherhood is not for the faint of heart, even in the best of times.

The early days are easy. They are either in your arms or a room nearby. Their tears turn to smiles with a cookie or a coloring book. Trips to the playground fit in any Mom's budget. Your lap is the center of their little universe, and their happiness seems so much within your loving control.

Enjoy it, girls.

Later years bring heartaches you can't soothe, wants you can't buy and wishes the unfeeling world denies them. You feel it all. Every bit of it.

That's the part no one tells you and you can't fathom at first. You're going to feel it all, live it all,, bear it all.. through them. She'll call at 2AM,..... the feckless fool she loves, a cross between Scott Peterson and Alfred E. Newman, has disappointed her again. You console,... very logical, calm, composed. But you spend the rest of the night in that chair, rethinking her words, re-living her pain. Why is this happening to HER? You review your parenting style, you critique your parenting skills...you think about the gene pool.

Sometimes the older daughter will call in the night as well. She cries in frustration over MCATS and med school admission essays, never about men. Her relationships have a shelf life of about two years. Somewhere in the second year, each "love of her life" becomes a "psycho", "controlling", "possessive." That means they've mentioned marriage. Why can't SHE commit? You review your parenting style, you critique your parenting skills, you think about the gene pool.

The son never calls in the night. You know why. He looks like his Dad, but he is emotionally programmed like you. He knows his pain gives you pain. So his hurts and disappointments are scripted for your "enjoyment." You play the game and laugh on cue. But it leaves you wanting to say more, ask more, feeling shut out and shut down. Why can't you reach him? You review parenting styles, you critique your parenting skills, you think about the gene pool.

You fly on every plane with them these days. At a party, you check your watch...they should have landed. You fret about the daughter who lives in that lonely country place: you fear for the daughter who lives in that NYC walk-up.

Sometimes your friends call in the night. Some of them have faced the things you fear and worse. Drug overdoses, accidents, death.

Years ago, a friend's mother wrote in her yearbook, "With all that I have and with every breath I take, all I want from this life is your happiness." I was seventeen years old and, though the words strangely stayed with me, I didn't get it then. I get it now. A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child.

So I think about the Moms.

I think about them on those unfortunate days when my eyes encounter Nancy Grace or Wendy Murphy staring out from my TV screen. I watched them early on. Lawyers who condemned others for "lawyering up." Attorneys so consumed with their TV appearances here and there that they are often unprepared and ignorant about the basic facts of the case. They speak in absolutes, interrupting any with an opposing thought, ...pompous and pretentious. Their legal backgrounds do not require them to accord any presumption of innocence to the boys. They are on a personal mission to condemn them in fact. Why? Well, for the "theatre" of it...for ratings...to entertain the masses. Like the Roman Gladiators of old, it is sport to them, nothing more. Blood builds the numbers. They feel not even the basic need to be fair or prepared. It's show biz.

Of course, they don't think that some unfortunate day, the eyes of one of these Moms might see the spectacle.

Hear their rousing condemnations.

Watch the fun.

Her child, her boy, her son...fodder for the entertainment harpies. Pulling fat pay checks to exploit their family tragedy.

Nancy Grace, the fawning victims advocate, creating victims of her own. For entertainment. For a paycheck. For your viewing pleasure.

Well, I tell you, as God is my witness, NO program with Wendy Murphy or Nancy Grace as guest or host will taint my home again.

I think about Elvis, who alleged shot up his television sets when the programming offended him.

I think about my children and how every tear they shed is matched by my one of own.

I think about Collin, Reade and Dave and all they must endure.

I think about the Moms.