The Sacrifice

I've often judge my mother and harshly. As I was growing into womanhood and deciding who I wanted to be, I looked at her housewifey, homemaker past and considered it not very exciting. I didn't want to be like her: A Yes-man, a people pleaser, someone who kept up with the Jones-ians.

The truth is, I had no clue.

I was always the good child, the Yes-man, the people pleaser. I think as I approached adulthood, I resented my mother for instilling this passive, Geisha behaviour in me. Be smart, but never let them think you're smarter than them. Nod and say yes, even if you know better. (Which, as you might have guessed, I've never really been able to do.) Why didn't I take more chances? Why didn't I move out, or move to England with J when he left a decade ago? Why did I never want to rock the boat? Why did they hold me back?

The people-pleasing child has become a total asshole in these past few years. As my mother helps to raise my children, I often seem ungrateful, letting my tiredness and stress get in the way, saying horrible things and hurting feelings. Old wounds resurface and I am critical (especially around issues with food), micromanaging, constantly suggesting things that I've read in books or on websites, instead of trusting my mother's instincts, years of experience and the fact that she loves my kids as much as I do.

Lately I've been thinking about things differently. I've been trying to figure out why my mother (the most important relationship of my life) and I rub each other the wrong way. Okay, okay -- why my mother rubs ME the wrong way. I've been trying to figure out how I can just let all the nitpickiness go and learn how to enjoy my mother as a person again.

And then, the other day, it struck me.

I started to think about my mother, the youngest of four, the accidental child. I began to imagine her growing up in Turkey, being the first woman in her family to get a job outside of what was acceptable (you could teach before you had children, but then all bets were off). Being the only one to push the boundaries of the sexual revolution, with her mini-skirts and her weekly trips to get her hair did and her job as a bank teller.

I remember my mom telling me that she had wanted to be an engineer. That she enjoyed math. But there was no real way for her to afford the schooling, nor was it acceptable back then. So she took a job at the bank, working with numbers, counting more money than she'd ever had.

My mother moved to Canada in her late 20s. Already considered a spinster back home (she was picky -- there's more to it, but that goes in a book in the future), she joined her eldest sister and her family in Montreal, then moved with them to Toronto when the nation's economy changed.

I can only imagine the immense heartache she felt at having to move away from her parents and other siblings. From her friends and the world that she knew. But I now know why she did it.

I have never had to hold myself back because of societal implications. I live in a country where it's acceptable for a girl to go to school and achieve the highest level of education possible. I live in a country where I am free to speak my mind (and clearly I really use this priviledge to its fullest) in any forum, without fear for my life. I can wear what I want, eat what I want, think what I want. I can marry someone just because I love him. Or I could have not married him and just lived with him in sin (though there's a people-pleasing Armo in me that vetoed that rock-the-boat option). I can be a mom and a workaholic editor, and although people might judge me for my choices, they will still smile and lend a hand when needed.

Somewhere, in the back of my young mom's mind, she must have known she'd have two mouthy, ballsy daughters who would not be afraid of squeezing Life's lemons to make lemonade, each in their own way. She had to have known that if she birthed even one daughter with half of her own headstrongness, she would have to get out of Turkey.

Thanks mom, for coming to Canada for me. Thanks for loving me even when I'm an asshole; thanks for patiently smiling, knowing I will eventually come to my senses and realize my wrongs. Thanks for always being there in a heartbeat to help me out -- even when you're not feeling well -- and for loving my kids as much as you do.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. I love you. (Now don't get all smug and "I told you so" about this confession!)