Out Of The Ordinary

More fun from Mama Kat's Writer's Challenge this week! I am going to concentrate on

4.) Describe a moment when you realized your mom was more than just a mom.

My take on this prompt is probably a bit skewed - I gradually learned growing up that other mom's just weren't up to the standard of my mom. So I don't know that there was ever a moment that I realized that my mom was more than a mom. It was more the realization that other moms were so much less than my mom.

Growing up, it seemed to me that there was nothing my mom couldn't do and very few things that she didn't know or at least know how to find out. I can remember my shock in first grade when I realized that my friends' moms didn't know how to cook just about anything - from catfish fresh from the creek to pheasants newly shot to that unknown cut of beef on special at the grocery store without consulting a cookbook. My confusion was compounded when I also learned that some of those same mothers didn't know how to sew and make clothes and costumes. I realize now that at least some of those skills were part of survival for our family. But they seemed normal to my brother and I. I honestly have to admit that I was high school before i realized that we lived on the wrong side of the tracks. Mom and dad did such a good job of presenting life as normal that I never questioned it.

At the same time, it seemed that mom always had good books to suggest we read; books that always seemed to be just right for the maturity level we had. It was another shock when I found that most of my friends mothers made no reading suggestions and in fact seemed not to always have a book or two they themselves were reading. Even more bewildering was when I discovered that they didn't have a library card and their moms didn't take them to the library regularly. And that there was seldom any of what I would later learn was the Socratic method practiced every day in their homes. Some of that I attribute to the fact my friends had TV and we did not.

In spite of all this, I think the time I truly came to the realization that my mom was something out of the ordinary in the realm of momhood was in high school. As I had been growing up, I had noticed that many family members seemed to come and talk to mom about their life and problems. I assumed that was just part of being family. When I reached adolescence, my friends (and even enemies {*grin*}) started coming to the house, not to visit me, but to talk with mom.

Amazingly, I understood exactly why they did that. Mom has the gift of being able to listen absolutely and non-judgmentally. She will listen and not rise to the bait of provocation. But best of all, after listening and eliciting the full story, she is able to guide and help you to make good decisions, decisions that are good for *you*, decisions that she might not personally agree with, but decisions that are the best for you. And I found that no other mom I knew seemed to have that ability.

So in case you haven't guessed, I think my mom is pretty special. Compared to the other moms I knew, it seemed to me that my mom was never just a mom. Or perhaps, the definition of mom was just different for us.