Ode to an Older Mom

== My friend Elizabeth wrote in her blog about being the 50 year old mother of 8 year old twins. She wrote from the older mom’s perspective, not being sure about it all and what it means in the long run. That made me think about it from her daughters’ perspective because, like them, I was the daughter of an older mom. And I had No Idea!

My mother was slim, pretty, classy in the best sense of that word back in the 40s and 50s. She had a delightful imagination that met mine on equal footing allowing me opportunity to explore the world from my own back yard. She was elected Homeroom Mother over and over so the other kids liked her too. She was fun to play with. She read to me. We had a great time together. She was my mom and I had no sense of an age difference between her and the other mothers of my friends.

One of my first memories is of running, sobbing, so scared into the house because there was a wolf after me. Now mom had been looking out the kitchen window into the back yard and knew there was not so much as a dog or cat in the yard, much less a wolf. So when I had told her what was wrong she said, “Why don’t you invite him into lunch.” The tears stopped immediately. I turned to the door, opened it, bowed low and said, “Mr. Wolf, won’t you come into lunch?” I turned back to my mother and we both laughed like we had just put something over on the whole world.

When we were in the 5th grade, my friend’s mother was going to have another baby. I asked mom if she would ever have another baby. She laughed, hugged me and said no. I didn’t know why. It certainly never occurred to me that she was Older than my friend’s mother, enough older that pregnancy was no longer an option for her.

Mom also had cancer most of my life, having her first mastectomy when I was five. But I didn’t think of her as “sick” ~ because even with surgeries and chemo off and on, I would come home from school and instead of being in bed or in a chair, she would be in the back yard digging in her garden. I knew that meant all was well again. But as a child I had no idea how sick she was.

Children don’t know. Oh their own ages matter: you are either 5 1/2 or “almost 6” because you want to be older. But parents are parents ~ they are who they are and whether older or not as healthy as the parents of your friends doesn’t matter. You have no idea. All you know is you are loved, played with, disciplined and are happy. I had a Great mom whom I still love even as old as I am. :D