Mam

I have been thinking about role models lately. My almost 18 year old is a camp counselor this summer. Her little 7 to 9 year old charges absolutely adore her. I hear her say things in a confident self-evident way such as, “You know if you give one a strawberry, they all need exactly the same thing, or such drama!” I lightly said, “So, do you feel sympathy for me yet?” She looked at me wryly and said, “Not yet.” But she knew what I meant. She has two older sisters, and is well acquainted with the sibling lament, “It’s not fair!”

It is so interesting to watch your own children reflect the world as they understand it, and have the heady experience of influencing others. You realize their role models are many and diverse. Like most women of my generation, I wanted my girls to be exposed to what I saw as strong women role models. In my mother’s generation, many women did not work outside of the home. They did not have much education, and rarely “careers”. My generation rejected these traditional roles so vehemently, revolution did indeed result. In our estimation, these women could not be role models for our daughters. But in our march towards change, I think we missed something important.

I spoke to my mother- in- law in Wales today. We call her Mam. She stands barely five foot tall and seems unchanged in the thirty- five plus years I have known her. She turns eighty nine soon, though you would not believe it. She comes from a generation and a time that seems so old fashioned that I imagine scenes from a Henry James novel.

When she was two, her mother died from septicemia. She had scraped her arm on a rusty nail in the outhouse at the bottom of the garden. In those days before penicillin, she became ill and died quickly. My mother- in- law remembers very little about her. She recalls the sound, starched smell and whiteness of her floor length apron, worn over her every day dresses, as she did her daily chores. The tickle of those skirts on Mam's toddler cheek as she played on the landing is a single abiding memory. She and her three older brothers were left in the care of their dock- worker father. He did his best, but was ill-prepared to take on the housekeeping and mothering role at a time when household responsibilities and provider roles were strictly assigned. After a few years of unsatisfactory housekeepers, the family decided to do without that support, and Mam started to take on the role her family situation had decided for her. At six she was standing on a chair mixing vegetables into the night's supper stew before she went to school. They all helped, but she was the girl, so she would look after the house and the boys, of course.

This destiny may have been set, and Mam did her duty, but there was nothing weak and docile about it. Mam remembers with great indignation how the schoolmaster used to dismiss her from the discussion about jobs the students might have. He would say, "Not Jean of course, as she'll be needed at home!" She would stamp her foot in defiance. And the time she totally over rode her practical and thrifty father when he went to buy her sensible laced boots. She would have those desired patent leather shoes, just this once. There was a brief respite from housework when women were recruited to the war effort, but she was soon married, her first son on his way. She cared for her father for the rest of his life, while bringing up four sons, with her husband, in her mother's small house. She lives there still.
When I first met Mam, this quiet spoken, little Welsh woman who seemed to be constantly in motion, serving the many men in her life, I was ready to be outraged. After all, I was Canadian. I had grown up with two sisters. I was part of the women’s liberation generation. I tensed every time Mam popped up from her dinner to run and get something for one of the boys. I glared if my husband watched sport with his father and brothers as Mam and I did the dishes.

But slowly I learned to understand the complex story I was witnessing. Mam was the main character. The family revolved around her. There was respect, humour and great love. It was never discussed, it was just understood. Mam loved her husband for sixty years. She brought up four good men. She did what needed to be done, with no regrets, quiet grace and great strength. The example is not in the roles filled, but how the life is lived.

Recently she was debating the merits of having knee replacement surgery; her arthritis of the knee has slowed her down. She told us, "They only last ten years, and you cannot kneel you know. " We asked her why she needed to kneel. She retorted, "Well how will I wash the kitchen floor then?" A modern woman’s role model? Absolutely.