Motherly Encouragement

My mother bugged the hell out of me.  I can only say that now because she passed away eleven years ago and will never read this.  At least I don't think she will.  Of course I would trade all the irritation in the world to have one more day with her.  I might even let her smoke.  Mother's and the male children they spawn have a unique relationship and as a man I am still trying to understand it.  I say male children because I am neither a woman nor a mother so it would be difficult to see inside that world.  I am 44 years old, over half way through raising my own child and I still haven't figured it out.  Perhaps it is a mystery of the ages as distant as the ways of the ancients. 

Despite this, as a thinking man I still try to understand.  I still contemplate the intense arguments I had with my mother in the morning as she drove me to school.  They happened so often yet I can't recall a reason for a single one.  I still wonder how my mother, who wanted so badly to be with me always, seemed to drive me away.

As I watch my wife and my son interact I can't help but analyze it all.  There seems to be some kind of invisible line that divides being supportive from being encouraging.  While a mother is quick to be supportive and encouraging when the feat has been accomplished or the result is readily attainable, they seem to be discouraging when it comes to larger dreams.

Men are dreamers.  We spend our lives dreaming, contemplating and plotting.  Most dreams or ambitions never come true while a few just might sneak in.  We imagine becoming things that are likely impossible.  A rock star or an athlete.  When I was a child I wanted to be an actor.  My mother, while trying her best not to discourage, me never did encourage my thespian ambitions.  She tried to sneak in realism whenever possible and I know in her mind all she could see was her son becoming a bum living in Hollywood and dying of AIDS.  I think it was a combination of her being a mother, once living in Los Angeles and having been a public health nurse that equated the sum of all fears.  Later in life after I went to college and assumed a normal career, she admitted relief.

My son is a dreamer.  He is constantly professing ambitions, thoughts of inventions or things he wants to achieve.  Rock star, musician, inventor, doctor, marine biologist.  He wants to travel the world and do something in life rewarding and exciting.  This very morning he decided he wants to own an old Fiat 500 that is painted white with a racing stripe.  "Awesome!" I told him.   When he grows up he wants a big house with a giant pool and a smaller house for Pop.  He wants to hang out with MTV sensation Rob Dyrdek and build skate board parks.  He sends him letters and plans but no response ever comes.  It doesn't deter him.   He reports his dreams to his parents yet as each ambition emerges it seems to be the motherly roll to cloak them with realism.  To group together the unrealistic ideas and explain why they can't happen.

Fathers and especially grandfathers tend to be more wide eyed.  "That would be great!" we proclaim.  My son's grandfather will embark on designing his dream.  Plans that while exciting will likely never be realized.  It doesn't matter though.  I remember when I was a child my father who was an architect, would always sketch things for me.  Plans and guides to realize an idea.  Growing up I wanted to keep them all in a giant book so that I could some day realize each and every one of them.  Some of them I saved with the vigor of a pirate guarding a treasure map.  I knew in my heart that just maybe, the drawing might lead me to answer my dream.

A dreaming session.

So why are mother's so different?  Why are words of encouragement toward the largely impossible so hard to find?  I think it goes back to the fundamental qualities of love and nurture.  It is their way of protecting their child.  They are trying to shelter them from failure, from pain.  Of course this is impossible for a child to understand.  Their view of the world and its possibilities is still new, not jaded by the failures and life's lessons taught the rest of us. 

Perhaps as a man we live in a false reality.  Maybe it is to our detriment.  When we meet a woman for the first time they are attracted to our wide eyed ambitions.  They see them as creative and exciting optimism.  The want to join the dreams and find the adventures in life.  Over time the very same nurturing as afforded a child sets in and our wives start to pull us back. They encourage us to focus on the day to day and not think too much about unrealistic ideas.  Additionally, those ideas become a threat to stability and in the mind of a mother that has created a family, there is little patience for this.  They are the captain of a ship navigating open waters and the course must be maintained.

As frustrating as it was as a child I think as time passes we find new context to childhood frustrations.  We appreciate our mothers for the love they gave us and learn to forgive the frustrations.  In truth, one day they will be gone and that is the day we will truly miss them the most.  We know that they loved us and cared for us.  We know in our hearts they are a part of the man that we became. I am not sure who is right and who is wrong in their approach toward life and ambitions however, I do know that even as I age the dreams never go away.  Sometimes they are more quietly held and not as quickly discussed but they are still there and emerge from time to time.  The wonderful thing about being a father and having a son is that he is always there to share them with me.