Three generations of motherhood

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“My mom is a never-ending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune.”

Graycie Harmon

PITTSFIELD – Motherhood is like drowning – drowning in the ecstasy of a new baby, sometimes drowning in frustration or fear, and always drowning in love.

Motherhood has been called the most mystical, most challenging, and yet the most rewarding job on earth. It can be overwhelming in its complexity and breathtaking in its simplicity.

As Mother’s Day neared this week, three generations of Ladd family mothers gathered in Pittsfield to celebrate their family’s most recent addition, Emma McGary, 3 days old.

Shirlene Ladd, 73, of Milo; her daughter Lori Cummings, 51, of Sebec; and Cummings’ daughter Jodi McGary, 27, of Pittsfield discussed motherhood: their birthing stories, how they raised and are raising their children, and how they feel about their own mothers. Sitting around the living room as the new baby slept in the sun, the mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were quick to laugh or tear up, quick to recall stories and easily shared how mothers pass on love and values from generation to generation.

Shirlene was 22 when she had Lori, the second of four children born in less than five years. Her husband was serving in Korea and she had to rely heavily on her extended family for help.

“We had no disposable diapers. No automatic washers. Never mind a car seat, we had no car. We had to create formula from a recipe,” she said. In those days the grocery store delivered, as did the milkman and the bread man. “It was hard because I was alone. But we made out just fine.”

The most important role of a mother, Shirlene said, is to bring up her children to be independent. “My mother, Viola ‘Jake,’ always told me that if you did something, do it well,” she said. “I think that was the best advice she ever gave me. And the most important thing I could do for my children was to teach them independence and responsibility.”

Lori said her mother did a wonderful job of inspiring her children. “When I was born, girls were just starting to get a few more rights,” Lori said. “Mom did a great job of treating the girls just as the boys. Mowing the lawn was not just for boys. Doing the dishes was not just for girls. We all had to pull our weight. We were all expected to go to college. The girls were expected to do just what the boys could do.”

Asked why she became a mother, Shirlene’s answer was quick: “Why not? Being a mother extends you. Being a grandmother extends you. Being a great-grandmother extends you. I wouldn’t be without children in my life. I cannot imagine a life without them.”

Shirlene’s daughter Lori became a mother with Jodi’s birth in 1978. Her experience was both different from and similar to her mother’s. Lori was a nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and worked until the day before Jodi’s birth. “I was scheduled to work that day but called in at 2 a.m. and said I wouldn’t be able to work because I was in labor,” she said.

“Because of my mother’s example, I wanted to raise children that were independent thinkers. My mom said, ‘If you want a child to be independent, you must put up with their independence,’ and she was right,” Lori said. “I remember how sad I was when Jodi was getting ready to leave home and Mom said, ‘If they don’t leave, you haven’t done your job.'”

When asked why she is a mother, Lori put her hand on her heart. “Right here,” she said. “It is something inside. Something you can’t explain. Being a mom completes me as a person.” Lori said she never questioned that she would become a mother. “It was more a question of how many we’d have,” she said.

Jodi first became a mother 19 months ago, with the birth of her daughter Laney. “We were in the middle of packing to move back to Maine,” she said. Her second daughter was born last Sunday.

“The best advice my mother gave me was to be honest. After a high school break-up she told me, ‘If you don’t have trust, you don’t have anything,'” Jodi said. “That’s what I hope to pass on to my daughters, along with being independent. I think Laney has that concept already.”

Because her mother and grandmother live nearby, Jodi said she could continue to use them as examples and role models for her daughters.

“Their attitudes and values 100 percent shaped the kind of mother I am becoming,” she said. “While I was growing up, I didn’t always get it, though.” She said in grade school she often traded her entire “healthy” lunch for M&M cookies. “Now I finally understand.”

Jodi said one of the ways her mothering is different from that of previous generations is online support. “I’m online all the time, talking to my best friend from college, who had a baby two days apart from mine, and other friends who are having babies. We share our stories and our concerns. You don’t feel alone or lost because you are sharing the same experiences. You connect.”

“We didn’t even have a television,” Shirlene recalled. “The children played outdoors, had each other and were happy with just a shovel and a sand pile.”

As Jodi’s oldest child, Laney, 19 months, absconded with a cell phone, Jody agreed. “Laney likes her cell phone, but nothing beats a bowl and a spoon to bang with.

“I sometimes watch other mothers yell at their children and wonder, ‘Why did they have them, anyway?’ You need to enjoy them. They are so much fun,” Jody said.

“It all goes by so fast,” Lori added. “If I had it to do over, some things that I fumed over, that I thought were so important, are not. I would have played more and cleaned less.”

Some worries and concerns transcend generations. “I can remember my dad saying, ‘I wouldn’t want to have a child now,’ and then I said the same thing,” Shirlene said.

“I did, too,” Lori added.

Jodi said the fears are compounded for today’s mothers because of pedophiles, kidnappings and other well-publicized crimes against children.

“I’m more paranoid about the people than the technology,” she said. “I’m not worried about the Internet. That I can control. But I can’t even imagine putting my child on a school bus by herself.”

All three mothers, who are happily married, said quality time with their husbands is one key to quality mothering, but that the example set by a loving relationship between the parents is utmost.

“Parents who love each other are the most important,” Shirlene said. “Your children will watch how you treat each other and that will become the model for every other relationship in their entire lives.”

“I would rather have no man than one that sets a bad example,” Lori added.

When fathers become more and more involved in child rearing, the bond between the father and the child, as well as between the father and the mother, grows stronger, Shirlene said.

“Today, with both parents bringing home the bread, both must share the responsibility of raising the children. It makes fathers closer to their children,” Lori said.

But it’s other mothers that the mothers turn to for validation and advice. Looking over at her mother, Lori said: “She’s always there for me. Her advice is always the best, the most sound.”

Motherhood isn’t just that flush of overwhelming love for a newborn. It’s letting go of that little hand on the first day of school. It’s watching a daughter drive off with a stranger on her first date. It’s cheering on successes and failures on the sports field, in the classroom, on the playground. It’s going without sleep when a child suffers from a cough or fever or worse.

It’s that heart-stopping moment when you hear sirens and mentally check off where all your children are. It’s standing by when a son gets his heart broken. It’s watching your children strive, and fail, and then strive again.

It is using every moment, every action or inaction as a life lesson.

It’s teaching them, from the first moment of birth, to walk away from you in independence, when your heart wants to keep them forever close.

And eventually it is leaning on your grown child’s strong arm when you might falter and need support.

Collectively, the three Ladd family women have learned and are still learning these lessons. When asked this week what they would say to their own mothers on Mother’s Day, each offered a simple, powerful “Thank you.”

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