Bad Mom

Watch “Bad Mom”

I was five years old. My mother and I were watching TV. Suddenly, she turned to me and made a dramatic announcement:

“Jane, my wish for you is that you never have kids. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”

Mom drew on her Winston Light, gazing into the middle distance, with what seemed like longing. Perhaps envisioning the joy a childless life might bring.

Exhaling a cloud of smoke into my face, she said flatly, “You know, before I had kids, I was a singer on the radio.”

Mom sighed, took a sip of her Schlitz and turned her attention back to the TV.

I’d noted that my Mom liked to dispense a lot of advice. For instance, when I’d given her my Brownies’ permission slip to sign, she’d looked at it dismissively and declared, “Being a Brownie…is being a conformist. Don’t be a ‘joiner’.”

I was devastated at the time. Looking back now, I realize her motivation might not have been so much about preventing me from becoming a joiner, but more about avoiding having to drive me to a Brownies Meeting. The timing of which just happened to conflict with Happy Hour.

My Mom was what you might call a “Bad Mom.”

I’d observed that “Good Moms” loved to cook, and clean, and drive their kids to sports practices, no complaints. A Good Mom kept quiet about who she was before kids. And a Good Mom certainly wouldn’t tell her kids how they’d stood in the way of realizing her hopes and dreams.

My Aunt Mary was one of those Good Moms. All her kids were in Scouts. She took them to church. She took them to Disneyworld every winter, and Nantucket every summer. Aunt Mary was always dressed to the nines, with full makeup. And she was in the PTA—of course.

And Aunt Mary had a lot of opinions, herself.

Mostly about the parenting going on down the street at our house.

Aunt Mary tried to make up for what she saw as Mom’s shortcomings. But I wanted no part of it. I didn’t like my hair combed. Or my meals made. And, I certainly had no interest in learning how to cook or knit. “Back off, Aunt Mary,” I ended up saying out loud one day, accidentally. (Mom got a real kick out of that.)

Yes, at five years old, I knew the difference between a Good Mom and a Bad Mom.

And I knew my mom was a Bad Mom.

For one thing, my Bad Mom hated to cook, and it showed. She reluctantly made the same five meals week after week. Burned hamburgers, soggy pancakes—yes, for dinner—dry pork chops, sticky spaghetti, and soupy Spanish Rice. Every week, rinse and repeat. I learned to put the food in my mouth, then, so I didn’t have to actually taste it, rinse it down quickly with a glass of milk.

And my Bad Mom wasn’t a big fan of straightening up the house. (Nor was anybody else in our family. So, I just never had friends over to visit.)

And my Bad Mom slept in every morning, so I had to get myself on the bus. I remember one day I went to kindergarten with my pajamas still on underneath my clothes. Another day, I decided to wear both a dress and pants at the same time. No one ever said anything. I thought maybe they could tell I had a Bad Mom just by looking at me.

But…

My “Bad” Mom also read to me for hours on end.

She took me on road trips.

She showed me the beauty in every sunset.

She showed me how to Pay. Attention.

Mom showed me a great deal of affection. She always let me crawl in bed with her to cuddle. And every week, she would wash my long blonde hair in the kitchen sink. Then wrap my head in a warm towel and hug me really tight. I hated having my hair washed (combing out all the tangles probably took twenty minutes)–but I always looked forward to it because of those loving hugs.

Mom showed me that love was all that mattered.

And I sure loved my Bad Mom more than anything.

Shortly after my mother died, I had an incredibly vivid dream. We were in the ICU again. She had woken up, all better, and we sat together on her hospital bed. I was very emotional.

She hugged me. Then said softly, “It’ll be OK. Pay attention to what I write.”

And I bolted awake.

The dream was very real. I’d never had a dream that real, and I was shaken by it. So much so, that I almost emailed my sister to tell her about the dream. But I didn’t want to make her even more sad about Mom, so I decided against it.

But I kept turning the events of the dream over and over in my mind. “Pay attention to what I write?” How could Mom write me from beyond the grave? It was impossible. So, I shook it off.

A few hours later, I got an email from my sister. Subject Line: MOM. The email said, “I was cleaning out my closet and found the last letter Mom wrote me. I thought you might like to see it.”

My cursor lingered over the Attachment.

I opened it, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the “P.S.” at the bottom.

It said, “Always Feel My Arms Around You.”

I really miss my Bad Mom.