“My Teenager Mother: The good...” (Part 1 of 4)

If I had been older, I would've noticed the sly smile sneaking up on my young mom's face. Her eyes probably even glinted a bit. There's something to be said about having a young mom; she could be a bit brazen, a bit immature and sometimes even a bit naughty. And I loved her for it. She took chances with us. She told us things other mothers wouldn't have dare. She was brave with us. She told us how it was, she expected us to handle stuff and she had no problem goofin' on us at all.

And there she was now, slyly about to tell her naive, doe eyed daughter an on the spot tall tale.

I had been down stairs in the house that we rented from my aunt and uncle. They lived next door to us with my cousins. As I played, most likely one of my older cousins walked by and slammed his hand on the window, probably with hopes to spook me. It worked! I couldn't have more then eight or nine years old, and I couldn't have ran my little legs any faster up that stairwell to my mother and her comfort. Or so I thought.......

"Mommy! I just saw a hand hit window!"

The sly smile, without missing a beat...

"Oh! It was probably just the little boy in the well." Oh, yeah, you know just him. She says this all nonchalantly. She says this to her skittish, naive and easily duped daughter. Her daughter that can't even watch Scooby without hiding under a blanket. Her daughter who's known for chronic nightmares and sleeping in her bed. Yep, that's mom, gettin' her kicks out of telling me a spooky story. Nicole comes in and she sees she's got a hooked audience.

"The little boy in the well?"

"Yeah, you know, this house is really old. This all used to be farm land and this was the farm house. There used to be an old well out back. Long, long, long time ago a little boy lived here. He was playing outback with his ball, it went into the well and he fell in trying to get it out. Years later another little boy was living in this house and the little boy that fell in the well knocked on his window and got the new little boy to go outside and play with him. While they played the ball went into the well, the little boy in the well pushed the other boy into the well and took his place. So, that's what the little boy in the well does! He knocks on the window and tries to get you to come out in play with him, and if you do (pause for effect), he'll make the ball go in the well and when you look- he'll push you in and take your place!"

Yeah, so how do you think that story went over? I'm nearly thirty-seven years old and I'm still scared of windows and the little boy in the well trying to steal my place! I'm sure this contributed to why I always slept in her bed, she didn't seem to mind.  But! All these years later, even this evening, I was talking to my sister and we were laughing about that story and mom telling it to us. It was just mom! She sang crazy, inappropriate songs with us. She'd race her car around town, probably blaring Aerosmith or Deep Purple, and pretend to be a race car driver honking her horn and screeching the tires. She'd let us stay up late sometimes and watch special movies.

And I have this memory of dancing with her. She taught me this "1, 2, 3" "1, 2, 3" waltz step.  She take me by my hands and as fast as we could go, we would step to the side of each counting "1,2, 3".  She have me go once to the left of her, once to the right her and I knew it was coming. She'd twirl me! Fast! She have the music loud, the windows down and we chase around the house. She jump out and scare us and grab one of us and dance. "1, 2, 3", "1, 2, 3" "TWIRL!" 

I remember once telling her the boy in the well story and she stared at me like I was crazy. She exclaimed quite convincingly, "I never said that to you, I'd never tell you a story like that. I don't think so, I don't remember that!"

I have a collaborating witness to my memory. Sorry, Mom! You're out numbered, ain't sisters swell.

And when it wasn't about dancing, race car driving or even silly scary stories. She could turn off inappropriate mom and turn on raw mom.  Because as every good mother knows, she was there to be mom not our friend. And no matter how anyone may have disagreed with her method or choice of delivery, she knew this was part of the job. She answered the hard, uncomfortable life questions direct, honest and with no fluff. If I wanted to know where babies came from- well! I got the full on answer and she didn't blush about it. Nicole and I ate it up, we loved this mom. We loved her stories and songs. We loved her inappropriateness. We depended on her honesty; whether we knew it or not, she was shaping strong willed, determined girls.

I've got one of those inappropriate song stuck in my head now...
hmm, hmm, hmmm....a mouse ran up my nightie...bit my hmmm hmm...made me.....hmmm hmm.......OH! Mom!
Her braveness to tell us how it was, how it is and how it will be kept myself and Nicole from taking too many wrong turns. She didn't lie about sex, she didn't lie about alcohol and drugs and she didn't hide the good side or the ugly side from us. She talked to us, she let us question the world around us and she gave us the only real, raw answers she had. She had first hand experience what sex was and what it wasn't. She knew the love it could create and she knew the hell it could infect into our live and shred us up. She was blunt when she said to me, what sex and alcohol could do to me if I took it on to young. She was the walking poster child to that choice.

"Don't do it. Don't ruin your life. Sex can feel good, it can. But you can ruin your life in fifteen minutes. Don't come home pregnant, Jen, or I'll kick your &#%!@?."

And she meant it. And I knew it. And because of her I didn't. I care about my body and what happened to it. I cared about the choices I made with it because of her bluntness, because of her willingness to sacrifices herself to us as a symbol of what sex at a young age looks like, what alcohol and drugs can do to set your course drastically off course. She was willing to be our guide book of the wrong turns to vehemently protect us from making the same mistakes.

She'd kick our butts, she'd yell at us, she'd sing crazy songs to us, tell us wild tales, she'd curse, she'd answer anything and she'd love us as fiercely as the wildness she'd dish out. She'd invade our space and stick rules a mile long on the frig. She'd make motherhood in teens sound like a burden to heavy to carry, sometimes it felt like we'd shoulder the load with her. Bordering on apologizing that we gave her a life she never thought she'd have to live. But she didn't do because of a lack of loving us, she did it due to her love of us. She wanted more for us and she'd fight everyone, heck she'd fight us, to nail it in to us. Not only did she know we could do better for ourselves, she darn well expected us too.

Somehow, I still managed to make some pretty poor life choices as I grew up and struck out on my own; however, when I was under her roof- she fought with all she had with every lesson she had experienced to keep us from wandering down her teenage path. And I say she was pretty successful. We were good kids. We did well in school and I even graduated among the top of my class and got state recognition for my scores. We strove to excel and contribute to the lives we made with mom. We helped around the house, had manners and treated people respectfully. We both survived our teenage mom with a great sense of humor with too many hilarious stories to share and with a strong sense of self preservation and self determination (maybe too much, it took me long time to humble this ego of mine).

Nicole and I did struggle as we ventured out into our twenties. Life growing up wasn't perfect and mom didn't make perfect choices. No one makes perfect choices. I don't pin my wrong turns on her. But my wrong turns always led back to her and her embrace. She understood that path and she understood how to get off of it. Her realness and rawness were always available to me. The door would never shut in my face, with unemphatic mother on the other side. And I did avoid major disastrous decisions because of the strength she had instilled in me do better. There are things I never involved myself in and I never mixed myself up with because of her guidance.

I never got knocked up at sixteen.
I never got into drugs, never smoked cigarettes (trying doesn't count! I hated it).
I always held a job and paved my own way.
I've never had a man get the better of me in any bad ways.
I've never, ever been afraid to speak my mind or let anything hold me back from truth.
I've never been afraid to love someone not despite their flaws, but because of their flaws.

This is all mom.

I can compare myself to her in all these wonderful respects and realize when my boys are in front of me looking for silly, looking for playful and immaturity, looking for realness and rawness and just looking for the honest answers, I know exactly how to be what they need. I was taught a long time ago by a young sixteen old girl, who was just winging it the best she could, how to be all these good things to my children.