Another little slice

Today at the dermatologist, I had a couple of suspicious spots that the doctor decided to biopsy. So she scraped off a little skin and put it in a jar to have it tested. As she was scraping I couldn’t help think about how the decade we come to age in impacts our lives in so many ways. In the 80s when I was a teenager, we all wanted the ‘bain-de-sole’ tan. The commercials, shows and magazines showed beautiful tans and big hair. So I like so many of my contemporaries made a point to bake out in the sun and get perms every six months. In the Atlanta suburbs we were the land of the sun kissed skin and big hair.

Looking back at my mom’s pictures from her teenage years, she had the fair complexion and red lips that were so popular in the 50s. (This would have been more appropriate for my pale complexion.) But she also became a mom in the midst of the women’s revolution. I never realized how that impacted her until I was grown myself and we were having a grown up conversation. She had bought into that decades lie that being a mother was not of value by itself. She repeatedly heard messages of be strong, independent and somehow she began to think that she had accomplished so little. I never realized that as she was going through the motions of being a full time mom (and part time nurse after I came along), that she constantly compared herself to her twin sister who was the primary and at times sole breadwinner for her family. My Aunt was a highly successful sales person and worked full time as long as I can remember. I wonder though how much was choice and how much was necessity because she did not have the same security and options my Mom had with my Dad.

It astonished me to learn that my strikingly, beautiful and capable mom had such deep insecurities about how she had spent her life. Raising three responsible, productive, considerate and independent children to adulthood was inconsequential because she didn’t have a successful and profitable career. Her part time job was at times a point of contention with my Dad because it took her away from family time. She worked 3-11pm during some of my high school years. She was looking back, feeling insignificant and questioning her chosen path.

I guess there had to be some extremism within the feminist movement in order to make headway against the prejudices that were in place in the expectations and opportunities for women. It’s just sad that that cultural swing caused a generation of women to downplay the value and importance of motherhood. I think the pendulum has swung into a little more balance now. I think women feel more confident to choose and to know it is a personal choice. I think most of my generation recognizes the legitimacy of either choice. But I am sure there will be other cultural norms that I accept without question that my own daughters may someday be surprised by.

My mom is now taking care of her own mother who has Alzheimer’s. She cared for her full time for two years and then put her in a nursing home a year ago. She visits faithfully every afternoon, staying to help settle her to bed. She has missed family get-togethers, grandchildren’s performances, even our family Christmas. But she feels a responsibility to be there, to care for her, to serve and love her. Watching her devotion, her servant’s heart, has given me a new level of love and respect for my mother.

I guess that is the benefit of hindsight and looking at things from a different generation. Maybe we can learn to scrape off a bit of the cultural assumptions and take a closer look. Maybe we can examine those slices to see if the choices are wise or not. Maybe we can start to even base our lives on something more solid than the changing philosophies or trends of our current decade. Perhaps we can eventually teach our daughters that their beauty and worth are intrinsic gifts from God, not the accomplishments or fulfillment of passing fads or cultural norms.