Motherhood is an Anthropological Evolution

Part One
The Origin Story of me as a young mother is not atypical. Together as new parents, we discovered our interdisciplinary approach worked very well most of the time. The rest of the time we just guessed.

The kids were good, humanism developed naturally. Edible resources were easily distributed; they liked almost everything I fed them. Language blossomed within the familial social context as anticipated, but the sheer delight of original baby-words and the funny things they said later was an awesome surprise.

They liked to take a bath. They made beautiful pictures that all looked like Mr. Potato Head. (Bi's Santa on our apt. window) They loved stories. (baby Bi) Hunter-gatherer type expeditions to the public library required all hands to haul home the “booty”. Singing and dancing together was the cultural norm. It didn't matter if it was Mozart or Metallica. Music was a ritualized value in our home.

When I was mean to them, they forgave me quickly. When I was impatient, they seemed to understand. Mothers are sometimes pretty stupid.

Resources were scarce, with little surplus. We lacked status, but there was much happiness within the nuclear family.

Fieldwork indicated the offspring enjoyed each other’s company.

When they didn’t, paralanguage themes imposed they sing their apology in rhyme, to the tune of their choice. A written apology was accepted, but in poetry form. I found a couple of those artifacts the other day. I had forgotten an original illustration from the miscreant was also required. I wish now I had saved every single, incredible one.

If I told them the timer was on – they understood it was a contest to see how fast they could tidy up their rooms in situ. I was insulted if they said, “Why? Is someone coming over?” When I announced it was “Quiet Time”...it really, seriously was – or else. Both were considered sustainable and necessary for the sanity of society.

Enculturation was highly valued; I expected the children to forage for their own entertainment or artistic pursuits, prompted by materials provided, by their observations of how available resources were utilized for this purpose, and by my insistence that they leave me alone so I could finish a contract painting.

They were careful with puzzle pieces and crayons. They were given free access to food preparation techniques and mastered simple baking by about age 6 or 7. Exhibitions of individual creativity were prized. Negative statements i.e.: “I’m bored” or “There’s nothing to do” were disavowed.

T.V. and video game time were policed with a passion and an open bias. Equal time to reading was required, but not etched in stone. Periodically the controllers disappeared completely (I forgot where I hid them). Only recently I learned when I took Nintendo controllers with me to work to thwart little boys rotting their brains to mush – they called a pal to bring over his controllers and managed to play the day away in spite of me. However, they meticulously checked-off their chore list like a crazed, killer tornado probably the last half-hour before I was due home.

Posturing for influence within the brood was thankfully limited. Bidee was the mother hen but impressively charismatic big sister. She thought of her sibling's needs before her own. James was analytical and easy-going. When Hobbes the parakeet died from eggs (she was egg-bound), he asked the school librarian to help him find books on bird care.

Both he & sports-manic Leiland were good about keeping their square footage eating Legos projects away from new baby sister. They all spoiled the last baby sister. I don’t remember anyone shirking diaper duty or being unwilling to help a little one get ready for Church.

(When I was teaching early morning Seminary, the boys (6^th & 3^rd grade) were in charge of wake-up, breakfast and helping Asia get dressed for Kindergarten. They got themselves to the bus stop on time every day except one).

Cursory sociological review suggests it seemed much easier back then, so deep and thick in the middle of organized chaos. Some aspects of cultural transmission from the first three children to the last two appear to have been foiled. I suspect this assessment may largely be due to parental fatigue ~ and selective memory loss.

terminology

2 Views on a Theme

Firsts
One of the “smart” kids, Stephanie Kim

seemed to always be first at everything.

Long-division, spelling or basketball;

she was also first to get a pimply-face,

and was the very first girl in the entire 5th grade

to wear a real, live bra.

One day, when Billy was being especially dumb,

(pulling his eyes like this with both his thumbs) -

he chanted, “My mother is Chinese,

my father is Japanese,

and look what happened to me!”

Stephanie, hardly giving him the time of day,

said without emotion, “Hey, stupid,

I’m Korean, O.K.?”

We considered it pretty amusing

how she shut him down that way.

But then, when the boys began to tease

and slither around

making comments from the sides of their mouths,

so totally fascinated with her chest -

every last one of us seemed powerless

to help poor Stephanie out.

At long last, maybe three weeks or so,

she just broke-down

and cried and cried and cried ~ alone.

* Though not readily broached in public conversation as adults, ask anyone directly - man or woman, and they will all have something to say about the growing-up ‘changes’ undeniably evident beginning about 5th and 6th grade. As natural biology was happening to little girls, little boys (though mostly uninvited) were automatically a vital part of that incredibly important and often traumatic brief moment in time when the whole world seemed to focus on the introduction of new underwear.

How we survived it all is truly a golden question.

Mr. Aycock

frightened us with the dark brown scar

exactly below his right eye

(a bullet wound from the war).

His classroom discipline not far

from military ethics it seemed,

as we kept score

of his many offenses against us:

the quick temper,

the moral speeches ~

as we listened, unblinking,

willing breezes to drift mercifully

over the window sash

and save us

from the heat of his passion.

Until one day, he did something good.

He just canceled arithmetic

and spoke to us point-blank

(this bachelor fifth-grade teacher),

in simple words we all understood

he explained the beauty of nature

creating great changes within

making us so different

from girls to women,

and boys to men ~

eloquently conquering at last

the relentless enemy sniping

of young boys who saw

that Aviva Lee

wore a bra.

* Only six years after the introduction of the birth control pill and two years after The Beatles' shocking debut on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1966 supposedly found us in the early convulsions of the American sexual revolution. About three years later one of my cousins would join a hippie commune and my brother would be longing to experience the music at Woodstock. Social mores were changing radically; old taboos were tossed aside as quickly as television sets suddenly became affordable to the average family and media became associated unavoidably with the prefix “mass”. American women, having tasted financial independence during World War II factory and civil works jobs, were expanding their sights and flexing for the yet to come emergence of the Feminist Movement. Who knew?

Oblivious to the technical details of aggressive cultural change, we kids were up to our necks in the daily dance of growing-up. Reserved and dutiful conformists within the classroom (subversive “pencil-drops” were still a few years away); we struggled to both assert and protect ourselves outside on the playground. The battle of the sexes was an old and sacred theme; boys vs. girls contests from spelling bees to foot races to playing cigarette tag were a relished and necessary practice in the constant attempt to keep everyone in their place.

Puberty interrupted all of that. It was especially confusing when the “early-bloomers” among our feminine ranks began to exhibit – however unwillingly – the most disturbing social change of all. We girls who were not as yet so affected were as uncomfortable with the prospect as the boys were, except their focus was decidedly of a much baser nature. We loathed them for it, but at the same time we seemed incapable of defending one of our own. It was a shameful reality in the ultimate disruption to a childhood on the brink of extinction. We were afraid.

About 30 years later, I encountered the Aycock name again on a patient chart at the Phoenix dental practice where I was working. It was his great-nephew. I finally had the opportunity to thank him vicariously for that time-stopping afternoon at Lorne Street School in the asphalt shingled bungalow nearest the bike racks, when the unspoken pain of growing up was presented to us as an ageless and ennobling distinction of our future selves.

**class pictures are representative only
* from 'Station Wagon Wars' ~ growing up in the 60's by cTanner