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The beauty is in its simplicity. I try to be the mom my boys deserve. That means I do what I would have wanted my mom to do. I try to instill in them what I have had to learn for myself.
I get one shot.
Either they will love me and no other woman can be me, or they'll hate me and want better, but I can always make a choice that will tilt the odds and the gamble is for fewer therapy hours because of my choices.
They come first.
Growing up my Dad told us that family comes first. I saw it in his discipline and the way it was encouraged. I saw it in my uncle always having a place to shower and land when he went through his many years of chosen homelessness. We spent holidays with our extended family, hopping from house to house toward the end of the year. It was kisses that were too wet and hugs that were too warm. It was sitting still through boring conversations because visiting family was about showing our elders love through respect. Family was my mom's years of petitioning to bring her mother and siblings to the states from Thailand. It was money spent and hours and red tape and bureaucracy with English as her second language. (She literally thinks in Thai before responding in English and has a brain for money and planning that I envy.) It is her constant sacrifice to help us out when it comes at a cost to her needs and wants. It was her choice to remain in a marriage that would not bring her joy for many years for my sake. She was Mom before she was who she is. My mom still teaches me that we show we love our family by doing what is best to teach and support each other, even at our cost because at the end of the day, our value is found in the joy of the lives of the children we lead - of the adults we love.
One of my sisters had a child who is now an adult, but spent her first year or so at home with us. When my sister stood on her own two feet and moved out, mom missed the "pitter patter of little feet." I was still in high school, so she did the amazing and decided to become a foster parent. Through her divorce, she remained a foster parent. To this day, we sometimes see kids that have now grown into adults that remember our "zoo" with fondness and return for love and to let us (mainly mom) know how they're doing. Foster care is ideally about a temporary home until parents can better care for their children, but sometimes it doesn't work that way. My mom started adopting kids. This made me part youngest, part oldest and part only child. I didn't really have anyone to get into shenanigans with or conspire against the parents with. I was telling on someone or being reprimanded by too many parents. I was a bad example of a grown up to the children that came after me.
Let me clarify, so I don't confuse you. . .
We are family and we're surrounded by Thai cousins, aunts and uncles all the time, with calls from our cousins in Houston too. We range in ages from 47 through 7 or so. I'm not sure about the baby's age as it changes every year and she will always be the baby to me. Some of us older kids have had children of our own and our family is ginormous. And international.
Our family gathers for most major holidays, and even the not so big ones. We celebrate birthdays once a month. We get together when we can in smaller groups but larger gatherings are at Mom's house where there is food from all of our cultures. Our family doesn't require blood or marriage. If you really just need a place to be for holidays, our family is big on welcoming you. You will eat more than you should and the drinks flow freely with laughter and the talks you expect from siblings that love you. There's honesty and raw emotion because we are people that won't always approve of what each other is doing, but will love each other through it. If you are coming as a date, there is a long period of breaking in before we decide if you are good enough to deserve the person we would move mountains for.
Our family is tolerant. There are those that are not okay with chosen life styles, but we never withhold love because of it. We have gay family members and a cross dresser that helped me put on fake lashes. He is a better girl than I am and he deserves my breasts more than I do. He can probably work them like I can't.
We love each other enough to help when we can, at no cost. There are medical professionals in the family. My paper tiger skills have been called on. My nieces tag team babysit when I need them to. My cousin is a creative mechanic and will help out when he can. We don't do it with a price in mind because we're family and that's what family does. That's what family means.
If you thought my 3 surrogate pregnancies were impressive, I have two sisters that did it as well. That's who we are. We understand the value of family and life and the miracle of childbirth.
When I wanted to wait out my ex's midlife crisis, my family held their tongues. They supported me through it. When I decided it was time to let go, I was met with love and respect and encouragement.
Even when we are angry with you or don't agree, we will always fix the rift because you are family and this is what our family does. Love often looks like lectures and written checks to bail us out, knowing that repayment may never happen, but hoping it one day will. It looks like sacrifice and lots of food. It looks like jumping in front of your car and stealing your keys when you've had too much to drink and making sure you are in a recovery position when you need to sleep it off. It's trips together when we can all plan and budget it. It's texting late at night or early in the morning because your sibling is your friend, the one you call and rely on when it matters the most.
After I finished my undergrad, I took the CBEST. I passed all areas in one day without studying. Not studying was because I don't know that I was taking it seriously, but I felt good in knowing I am smart enough to teach kids. I majored in English because reading and writing are my passion. Studying literature tried to kill that passion, but most English majors go into teaching or law. Teaching is a fast track career in comparison to law school, and my kids wouldn't have to become orphans to the stacks. I wanted to see what teaching would be like before committing a year and a half of my life to a teaching credential. I was brought on as a substitute teacher at a local college prep school. I had a long term teacher's aid position with kindergarten and a lot of hopping around through all of the other grades. I also had a long term teaching assignment as a high school English teacher. I was covering a couple of classes at the end of the day, a few days a week for a teacher that found a better opportunity teaching a class in a local college. I won't go into the bad side of private schools for students or teachers, but I will say I will never again teach at one, nor have I ever wanted to put my children in one.
The kids were great. They were bright and friendly and energetic. There were a few girls that reminded me so much of myself as a teen. I wanted to wrap a sweater around them and tell them they were so much more than what they looked like. I wanted to prove to them they could get attention from their work, and they didn't need it from the football team or a Dad that was always travelling for work or at work so he could pay her tuition fees. There were lots of bright exchange students and kids that were so hungry for the attention that comes with being smart as a birthright.
One afternoon, I had the high school English class break into groups of three. Throughout class as is often the case, some lunch time drama was spilling into class and rather than break it up, I let things fall where they did. Don't get me wrong, when the kids talked about a fight after school, I was the first person to bring it up to the Dean. When bullying became teasing through text, I confiscated cell phones. This was different. This was a boy acting like a jerk, and thinking he could get away with it. I'd seen him do this throughout the semester and didn't intervene before. This time, she said (loudly and with authority) that she had taken it long enough. She went into a fully expressed tirade and I stood silently and let it continue until she was done. She stood up for herself in the last few minutes of class, then stormed off. I quietly had a friend of hers go get her and come back to me once the bell rang. After hiding in the bathroom, they both came back.
The rest of the class started to tease him, and I intervened enough to regain some decorum. We spent the last two minutes going over the papers they were critiquing for each other. I couldn't quite find my joy in making their papers bleed red with corrections. I felt conflicted because I knew what I was expected to do and didn't do it. Once the bell rang, I assured this boy I would have a talk with this girl, and to try his best to get on with his day.
When she returned to class, I had her sit for a bit with her friend and promised I would be held accountable to their next teacher. I won't forget how her delicate shoulders were still trembling with what she had done. It was a free period, and I wasn't in a hurry. She calmed down enough to start explaining why she was justified in telling him off. I stopped her. I told her that she didn't need to make me feel better about her choices. I told her that friendships are a two way street and if you find you are becoming the road instead of heading in the same direction together, it's okay to find a new direction and travel buddy (a lesson I've needed to remind myself about my marriage repeatedly). I also told her that the changes that teenagers go through can mean an uncomfortable shift and we hurt the people we trust the most, but that didn't make it his right to make her a punching bag. It also doesn't mean it's too late to heal their friendship but it would require her to decide it's what she wanted. I asked that next time standing up for herself might happen out of my classroom so it's not a reflection on my ability to keep order in the classroom.
I went home that day and thought about the situation and how I handled it. I saw what I should have done as a teacher, and couldn't see how I might have done it differently because I didn't want to. That was the day I knew I wasn't cut out to be an educator. I can't teach people how to do what is right in the classroom when the Mom in me was standing on the table and cheering her on for standing up for herself and kicking the patriarchy in her life. That, and I couldn't find passion in the classroom. I watched the clock right along with the students.