“What is a Good Mother”

By

Gerry Niskern

Soon families across our valley will be honoring their mothers with a special Sunday brunch, family barbecue or another traditional feast. Dad and the kids will go on shopping trips for the perfect gift for mom because she is such a good mother.

But wait, just what is a good mother?

Before our first baby was born, I was convinced that I was going to be a great mom. After all, I was totally prepared.  I had read the entire Dr. Spock’s Common Sense and Child Care book, twice.

Then the learning really began. First of all, the big baby girl that arrived couldn’t fit into all the tiny  baby clothes that I had so carefully sewn. Then, surprise, we didn’t need the new rocking chair for middle of the night feedings. She chose to sleep through the first night, and all the rest. Her formative years were easy and of course, that made me the perfect mother. Then during her teenage years, she had a twelve o’clock curfew and I waited up.

The second baby kicked the rulebook right out the window. From ten months on, there was no structure he couldn’t climb. He wrote on walls with his crayons and screwed out all the air vent covers  with his little fingernails. His teen year’s curfew was 12:30 and I just tried to stay awake to listen for the front door.

The third and last was a loner. He grew up in the back seat of my station wagon as I taxied his older siblings to Scouts, choir practice, Little League and play dates. Also, by the time he came along I had learned kids wont eat liver once a week, now matter how good it is for them. When he was a teenager, his only instructions were, “ just be quiet and don’t wake us when you come in.”

The younger generation of mothers has taught me many things. Some of the first lessons I learned were after my daughter became a mother. Allergy shots at the doctors are tolerated well if the kid gets to choose a candy bar later.  And guess what, children don’t really need to wear undershirts from October till April. They also don’t catch the sniffles when they forget their sweaters; head colds come from contact with germs.

My granddaughter’s mother helped me realize that working mothers are indeed good mothers. Their children learn earlier to be self-reliant. They understand how to budget their time and keep track of their activities. They learn to repack their own book bags at night before school because Mom is busy getting ready herself in the morning.

My grandson’s wife taught me that breakfast goes better with cartoons. Sometimes bare feet are okay in the wintertime and, that daddies can change diapers, give bottles and even match socks with hair ribbons.

Mothers pushing jogging strollers that pass me on the walking trail have shown me babies don’t have to be in their cribs for naps. These multi-task moms speed along at a brisk pace getting their workout while baby is soaking in Vitamin D and “stacking up Z’s”.

The new moms have introduced me to time out, sippee cups, safety car seats, nursery monitors, bottle liners,  baby wipes and Huggies. The ultimate in luxury is the Diaper Genie. Unbelievable! I really could be a perfect mother with all these new baby innovations. It almost makes you want to start all over again.   Almost!

There’s been more then a few earthquakes reported around the world recently. I was reminded of a column I wrote a few years ago. Enjoy

“Same Room Next Year”

by

Gerry Niskern

Something woke me. I think it was the silence. The echoing waves that lulled us to sleep at night breaking below our room were suddenly quiet. Too quiet. I sensed, felt and heard something all at the same time. What was it?

A monstrous murmur, moving closer and closer.

A penetrating, prodigious groan of some giant, deep within the earth.

A dull roar, but no, more than that, a feeling of tension and then…the bed started to tremble and then shake violently!

I looked up. “No, not again,” I pleaded. “This happened on our vacation last year. It’s not fair.” My answer was snapping and popping as the ceiling moved above me. I could see brick walls swaying in a crazy dance high over my head in the pre dawn light. They undulated back and forth, back and forth. I decided it wasn’t a good time to bargain.

The walls are going to cave in on us. We’re two floors down, in an old seaside hotel hanging over a cliff above the Pacific. So much for early, California charm.

Complete terror shut down my brain and I told myself it was not happening. It was all a dream. An instant later I shot out of bed and dashed towards the door as my husband started for the balcony. We collided in the dark room as we both made the announcement, “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Come on, the balcony,” he urged. “Maybe we can get down to the beach.”

“No,” Miss science class drop out answered. “There’ll be a tidal wave!”

I turned back towards the hall door as he yelled, “Wait a minute. I have to find my jeans.”

Bracing myself in the doorjamb, I screamed “Hurry up. Hurry up.” I was planning to hit the street in my nightgown whether the world was ready or not!

By the time we reached the stairs, the worst tremors seemed to be over. One by one, trying to act casual in various states of undress, other hotel guests and we straggled out into the open space above. Believe me, the three hundred-pound guy in glow in the dark boxers was not a pretty sight.

We stood around in the chilly dawn, arms crossed in strategic places. We shared stories and nervous laughs about our common ordeal. One fellow started laboriously explaining the movement of the pacific tectonic plate and the North American tectonic plate and how forces produce changes in the earth’s crush. I didn’t have the heart to tell him no one was listening. The men all had their attention on the blonde in the black see through teddy.

Various thoughts kept running through my mind like, “I want to go home! Could we even get a flight out today? Would the freeways be passable?” I found myself repeating the old childbirth litany, never again, never again. This was not what I had in mind when I agreed to a natural environment vacation.

Ken convinced me it was really over. He asked why not go back to our room? Personally, I could think of a million reasons. Later he went for coffee and rolls and we turned on the news to get the results of the quake.  We watched harried television newscasters explain solemnly in their usual pompous manner that the quake had been an 8.6 on the Richter scale, but not to worry. Then we watched them dive under their tables as television equipment fell around their heads and we felt another one!

“I’m out of here.” I yelled.

“Hurry up, will you?” Ken urged as we started up the cement stairs again. This time, there was a slight problem. The steps kept moving sideways when I tried to put my foot down.

In the parking lot again, we watched people throw suitcases with clothes spilling out, into their car trunks. One driver shouted back over his shoulder, “I don’t care if they are just aftershocks!”

We decided to walk into the village and try to calm down. The shop keepers told us that the epicenter had been inland and the beach was perfectly safe and then they told us to stay, relax, enjoy the rest of our vacation and could they wrap up that little trinket for us?

We returned to our room eventually.  I set the world’s record for changing into a bathing suit and getting outside again. Every few minutes during the day, the beach trembled for a few seconds. Putting my hand palm down on the sand, it was a strange sensation to feel the beach moving.

Then, as the day drifted by, the sun and surf conspired and lulled us into a calm complacency. When we checked out a couple of days later, we conferred our kids long held suspicion that we were certifiable. We both nodded in agreement when our old friend, the hotel manager, asked, “Same room next year?”

“Today’s Moms need a few old maxims”

By

Gerry Niskern

Today’s young mothers, either working or stay-at-home, strive to achieve unrealistic standards set by today’s society. Many magazines demand that mothers see that their children are involved in sports, music lessons and other enriching experiences every single day. They struggle to meet every need of their children’s entire emotional, psychological and intellectual well being twenty-four seven.

Today’s mothers are encouraged to raise their children to think they are the center of the universe. Heaven forbid that the child is bored or allowed to think for themselves.

I imagine some readers remember complaining as a child about having nothing to do. I think the usual reply back then was, “Find something to do, or I’ll find you something.” Believe me, you didn’t want to know what that was!

My mother would advise today’s mothers to instead, arm themselves with an arsenal of maxims! I was raised by the maxim method, but didn’t realize it until years later.

When l begged to have my long braids cut off and my hair styled, I was informed that “beauty is only skin deep and furthermore, just remember that pretty is as pretty does.”

     On the afternoon my boyfriend and I ditched highschool, she flung open the front door and announced that she was “mad as a wet hen” after the school called and if I thought I had gotten away with it “I had another thought coming. You’ve cooked your own goose and your dad is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

After a Saturday date, as we approached the front yard, the front porch light the size of a lighthouse beam would suddenly blaze on. I just knew she was smugly thinking, “I nipped that in the bud.”

     Certain occasions in our family were command performances. Family holidays, birthdays and especially funerals were required attendance. “What do you mean, you can’t go. Your Uncle John was the salt of the earth. Services are at two o’clock. Be there. After all, blood is thicker than water.”

Long after I became a mother myself, she continued to mother the young women who worked in my parents small manufacturing business. On Monday mornings she brought them samples and copies of a new recipe that melted in your mouth. When she worked along beside them she gave them liberal doses of her views on good morals. She advised them to take the bull by the horns and break it off with boyfriends that were not treating them respectively or were always four sheets to the wind; everybody knows, a leopard can’t change his spots.  Mom arranged a cash advance on her first paycheck if a new girl was having a hard time financially. She simply informed my dad that the poor girl was between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Mom supplied love in abundance, but she also gave us no nonsense replies to self-indulgent complaining. Most of the maxims she used were simply shortcut ways of telling us to stand on our own two feet and think for ourselves. Crocodile tears were not acceptable.

So, as my mother would say to young mothers today, “ Learn a few maxims. Who knows? Maybe someday when your children are adults, they might look back fondly at your method of upbringing and say, “She was worth her weight in gold!”

“I Went to a Celtic Wedding!”

By

Gerry Niskern

Tears of joy glistened in her eyes as the barefoot bride clad in white came slowly up the hill. As she swept into the groom’s eager arms she laid her dark head, crowned with a wreath of purple flowers, on his shoulder. He touched her lovingly as they danced slowly round and round and round.

The family and friends gathered in the meadow beside the tinkling rhythm of Oak Creek heard the couple speak vows of promise and love to each other and the bride’s child. The Red Rocks beyond stood in silent witness to the love flowing from everyone gathered at Red Rock Crossing last Sunday afternoon.

Earlier that day, as guests arrived at the large Ramada they found beautiful place settings and flowers on purple cloths adorning all the tables. The Groom came earlier to do the decorating! The side tables began to fill with the delectable dishes of a pot luck luncheon. Chili bubbled in a crock pot beside three kinds of lasagna. There were salads of every kind and fruit plates too. Slices of ham piled on a platter beside the rolls; mouth watering food brought by loving family and friends. No need for a wedding planner or special wines at this simple, relaxed time. A quick sip of champagne to toast the couple. After the long, long hike up the creek to the meadow where we watched this Celtic wedding take place the food was eagerly enjoyed by all!

During the ceremony the traditional mingling of blood from the groom’s left wrist and the brides right was sealed with long ribbons tying them together by the groom’s step-father who performed the ceremony. They remained bound together the rest of their beautiful day as they embraced mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, grandparents and friends.

As the day was winding to a close, I spoke to the new Mr. and Mrs. Brandon Thomas. “When your great-grandpa Kenny and I were young marrieds we used to camp here at Red Rock Crossing for entire weekends without another soul showing up. After putting our young kids to sleep in the tent and zipping it up, we used to go down to the deep pool and have a romantic, moonlight swim. So I’m not surprised that you, Brandon, brought your bride here to Red Rock Crossing to be married.”