"Oh, Mom!!" Two of the Sweetest Words in the World

 You’re probably familiar with moans, groans, and icy stares from your kids.   My mother had the best glare ever- she could silence me and my siblings with just one cold glance.   I was never able to achieve her glare- my kids laugh when I try my best glare on them because it’s more like ice cream than ice. 

But my heart always lifts when I hear these words wailed, along with a groan.  “Oh, mom”!!!    To me this exclamation is an affirmation of everything motherly, everything womanly, everything parental.   It means I’m insisting they go to the doctor and face dreaded shots- something they don’t want to do but will go along with because they know I’ll pick them up and carry them out the door screaming if they don’t.    It means that I have done something they consider to be going too far- interfering in their lives as only a mother can.   It means they know I’ll sit with them through the worst pain, spend hours running a lice comb through their hair, and at the end they’ll know that I gave- what a mother does.  It means that I’ll touch their pain in order to find a solution- the right solution.    And that I choose to do so with love, even when I’m sometimes grumpy about it, although I try my best to smile.

I hear “Oh mom”!!! when I suggest how to interact with a friend in a more pleasant way.   “Oh Mom”!! is the bond between mother and daughter, strengthened by far since I became a single mom.   It is the embarrassment for my fifth-grade daughter when I insist she brush her hair on the way out of the car when I drop her off for school, and when I still kiss her on the cheek in public.

I remember how I didn’t want help from my mother when I was younger.   Separating from her and asserting my independence was so important to me, I didn’t stop to think how it felt to her to have to stop helping me.   But now I know.   Although I know that this separation is healthy, natural, and am getting used to it, I still can hear the infant voice crying when I hear “Oh Mom”!!  and know I am still needed.   And for now, that is quite enough.