Home Is Where Mom Is

Congratulate me upon articulating the absolutely obvious. My blogging calendar is a couple of days slow but homage to mothers is still in order. The dominant figure in those early years I’ve been recalling is unquestionably Mom. Over the years I’ve had interesting discussions/arguments with women about the superiority of females with regard to the relationship they have with their children. We may be at the technological dawn of heretofore unimaginable means of human reproduction, but for the millennia of human history to this point, mothers carry, bear and nurture the human infant. The male does his initial part, and has the choice of his degree of involvement with the parenting process after the birth, but only the female has that firsthand experience of giving birth and bonding. Dad is certainly in many, if not most, of the memories I have of Erie and Platteville, but it is always in a secondary role. Now I can understand that it was because he was out earning the livelihood that kept house and home together, but at the time he was simply a significant figure who was sometimes present and at other times disappeared. It was Mom who taught me how to read, to write, to pray, to sing, to tie my shoes, to skip…the list goes on ad infinitum. In looking back, the interesting twist is that my hope in learning all the lessons Mom taught me was to impress Dad with them. Children are sometimes said to be blessed by simplicity, but the process of developing, maturing and evolving is anything but.