Paisley Goddess - The journey to finding and nurturing my authentic self |Paisley art, apparel & accessories|Celebrating the Goddess within every Woman

Posted by Ash on May 5th, 2008 in Goddess Journeys

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Not to long ago, I overheard my in-laws telling the friends they had over some stories about their childhood and later I asked hubby about it. He said he had no idea, that he had never heard that story. We continued talking on the subject of what our parents reveal to us about their lives and realized that neither one of us has ever really heard many stories about our parents childhood, or even how they feel about their lives.
My mom passed when I was twenty-two. I left home at seventeen and due to my mom’s disability from her MS, we didn’t have a lot of long talks. She wasn’t one to share her feelings about life.
I know that as kids, the last thing we are interested in is our parents, but there does come a time in our lives when we wish we knew more about them. Knowing about our moms can help us to know more about ourselves as women. What beliefs and perceptions about life did our mom’s pass down to us that we aren’t even aware of?

I recall at around the age of seven, somehow my mom and I got on the conversation about what she had wanted to be - which was a Veterinarian, and at that time, that is what I wanted to be. But, her response to me was, “Well, women can’t be Vets, so I couldn’t be one and you can’t be one.”

While I always thought that we can do anything regardless of our gender, I think that statement sat in my consciousness and was a big part of why I felt I had no options as a female.

As I said in my previous post, I want to take the time to get to know my mom better. I want to see what misguided beliefs I have been carrying around because of perceptions I picked up on as a child through my mom. I spent 3 hours on the phone with an Aunt who was one of my mom’s best friends and she answered so many questions about my mom.
My mom was a very mellow, out-going, fun person. She never gossiped, she never talked behind anyone’s back, she wasn’t judgmental and she never criticized anyone. She loved to laugh and loved to be social. But, her life with my father was far from a piece of cake. The more I learn from other family members, the more I see that there was no way she could deal with what she was dealing with and still be a mom who was there for us fully.

My Mom on her wedding day with her Maid of Honor, my Aunt.
If my mom was alive today, I know we’d be hanging out, hiking together, we would take our dogs to the dog park, we would watch silly movies and she would watch baseball games with my hubby every chance she got. She was an avid equestrian, loved all types of animals and loved to be outdoors. She loved having people over to play games. She was a big Dodgers fan and loved to watch baseball games.

I can see my mom in my oldest daughter who is very laid back and always happy and I can see my mom in my youngest daughter who is a social butterfly with a huge heart who loves to do improv and keeps us all laughing constantly.

As women, we need to understand what was passed down to us, we need to sift through it and toss out beliefs that are non-beneficial and shouldn’t be passed on to our daughters. It is like the joke about the family recipe for pot roast handed down from mother to daughter for generations.
In the story, a young bride is preparing pot roast for dinner. Her husband watches as she carefully cuts each end off the roast before putting it in the roasting pan and placing it in the oven.

“Why did you cut the ends off the roast?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she replies, “that’s just the way my mother taught me.” The next time the young woman talks to her mother, she asks about trimming the ends off the pot roast.

“I don’t know why,” her mother answers, “but that’s how your grandmother always did it.” On a visit to her grandmother, the young woman asks about the pot roast.

“Oh,” replies the grandmother, “I had to do that simply because my roasting pan was too small to fit an entire roast.”

While the story is cute and gives us a chuckle, the message in it is very clear….seldom do we even know why someone does or thinks as they do, yet, we blindly follow along in the same way.

I can’t say what my mom thought about her life. She went from what seemed like a very happy childhood to marriage with a man who loved to take away anything that made others happy. My point is not to place blame or dwell in the past, but not many women could have lived with what my dad dished out and continued to stay and be happy and healthy. She didn’t leave, instead ended up with a disease that took her life at a very young age.

I didn’t want to become a woman who felt trapped and never got to follow my path and I didn’t want my kids to do that either.

As moms, our fears, our worries and our beliefs are passed on to our children in the womb. How we view and live life affects our children’s perceptions of life and is in a big way why they make the choices that they do.

None of us are perfect and I don’t wish to sound negative. We can’t go back and change the past, but as women, we can become more aware of what we are passing on.

How much do we know about our moms? How much of ourselves do we share with our children?
How do you feel about sharing your feelings about life with your kids?

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