May 9, 2004

• Nurture, Naturally

  
  

  I've never really bought into the concept of instinct.  Oh, I know it exists.  I've watched little chicks squirm out of their egg and set to scratching and pecking like miniature adults, without a role model in sight.  I've seen baby goats stagger to their feet and wend their way on wobbly knees around to the food source before the new mother can do more than provide a lick and a promise.  I've seen the migratory patterns overhead in the Spring and the Fall.  I've watched all the nature shows.  I know instinct is alive and well on Earth.

  
  

  But I don't think there's much instinct left in the average run-of-the-mill modern cell-phone-toting uncomfortable-shoe-wearing homo sapiens.  I think we have to pretty much learn it all by rote.  I think about 95% of the composition of any adult's brain is nurture, not nature.

  
  

  Which is why, around about this particular day of the year, when I'm tallying up all the reasons I should have been more grateful to my mother on a daily basis (rather than scurrying around trying to cram all that gratitude into one 24-hour period) I find myself unable to reach a bottom line.  There is no bottom line to all the line items my mother put into her nurturing.  It was a bottomless well, the wellspring of her care and knowledge.  From the organized fashion of her nutritious menus (cereal one morning, eggs the next, and "specials" on Sundays only; lunch and dinner equally carefully apportioned), to her dedicated and tearful attendance (front row always) at every single theatrical presentation in which I ever obtained a bit part, to her dubious and raking assessment of potential mate-material -- Mom had the basics down pat.  But it's the intangibles and the extras that really make something out-of-the-ordinary, isn't it?  The fresh bread perfuming the house after school, the sweet notes from my dollies on my pillow at night, the intricacy of the treasure hunts on Easter and my birthday, the care with which the family car was packed with little surprises and treats, in addition to the essentials, for those annual family vacations. 

  
  

  There are not enough superlatives in any language I know to easily summarize my mother's mothering.  It's only really in my inadequate attempt to mother my own children in any way approximating what I myself received that I've recognized the true superiority of my mother's expertise.  My children are inestimably fortunate to benefit as much as I did from my mother's continued presence in our lives.  To the degree that I can claim "good motherhood" myself, it's only a pale immitation of the endless loving skill that my mother applied to the task.  And despite my initial premise -- I can really only say:  she came by it naturally.

  
  

  For your boundless love, Mom --

  
  

  boundless gratitude and admiration

  
  

  

  • 2:37 am
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