I was raised by a strong woman at a time when strong women weren’t always embraced. Or maybe it was just her. She was brilliant, opinionated, and a little bit zany. As her teenage daughter (and even as her adult daughter), I wavered between awe and embarrassment. She demanded attention wherever she went, and she got it.
My father, a traditional man in every sense of the word, adored her. Ever since they were introduced on a blind date in college, he thought she hung the moon. For the rest of their lives together, she told him exactly what she expected from him, including how to vote in every election. When I was old enough to witness this dynamic, I couldn’t believe it. He was stern, old-fashioned, and had a biting humor. Being scolded by my father was something my brothers and I avoided at all costs because he was THAT scary. But when she walked in the room, he succumbed to her bright light.
In eighth grade, I was pulled into the headmistress’s office because I had lit a match in the locker room that I’d stolen from the science lab. I dug deep to come up with a reason for my bad (but really, just sassy) behavior. “I’m a latchkey child,” I cried.
When my mother walked out of that same office later, after being told she “worked too much,” she grabbed my hand and dragged me outside. “Up with that I shall not put,” she said. We scheduled interviews at boarding schools the very next week.
She didn’t want to send me away, but she had bigger plans for me. She wanted me to be resilient. She wanted to preserve the sass. She wanted to show me the world was a bigger place, full of strong women who stood up for what they believed in and “didn’t give a hoot” what others thought of them. After dropping me off, she wept the entire way home and then banged her head on the too-low kitchen cabinet. “I hate this kitchen!” she yelled at my father (or so I’ve been told). And I came home to a new kitchen at Thanksgiving.
Ironically (or maybe it’s not so ironic), I am now the mother of three daughters. I’m raising them in a different era, but it still isn’t easy. There are new obstacles, different ones. Even as a grandmother, my mother continued her streak by teaching my daughters how to break the rules. The stakes were low to start: enormous pieces of cake and rolling around in the way back of her station wagon like puppies while she yelled “duck!” as they passed other cars. As they got older, the stakes were higher, but she didn’t hold back, offering advice and opinions whether or not they asked for it.
As a North Star, her light refracts. She was far from perfect. I try to avoid the cringey parts (although I did recently dare my youngest daughter to yell “Happy Eclipse Day!” in a crowded airport while jumping up and down—and lost $100 in the deal). And there are other moments when she shines directly on me. My oldest daughter fretted about asking for a raise recently. She’d waited longer than she should have because she had cold feet. I channeled my mother seamlessly and insisted that she “never, ever let someone else determine your worth.”
There is a famous Confucius quote about the North Star: “He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the North Polar Star which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.” My mother is rolling over in her grave. “He?” Clearly, Confucius never met my mother.
