I never understood the talk about sports figures having to be role models for kids. When kids are growing up, and they need morale support, guidance, or someone to look up to, they shouldn’t have to look outside the house. My parents have been all the role models I’ve ever needed.
Mom stayed at home as I grew up, and I believe that was one of the bigger factors in making me who I am today. She had the time, patience, and interest to devote large parts of her day to me and my sister, Emily: making sure we got fed, getting us started with education, teaching us how to interact with grown-ups, and so on.
My first memory of Mom’s doctrines (and I mean that in a great way) was the wall of books we had in the hallway in Kentucky. We had a lot of literary classics in the house in the form of these little square books, maybe 4″x4″, with black & white drawings on every few pages to spark the imagination of young kids. I got addicted to those books, and as a result read a lot of classics that most kids never bother with. I still love to read, and that’s a direct factor of how hard Mom worked to make good stuff easily accessible and entertaining.
It wasn’t always successful: Mom taught piano on the side, and her efforts to get us to learn didn’t go over so well. Anytime you’re forced to learn anything at a young age, you put up a resistance to it, but I still wish I would have followed through with it. I’ve got a friend who plays piano, and I could have at least held my own if I’d have gone with Mom’s wishes. She did get me to appreciate a wide variety of music, though, and every time I visit her, I find our CD collections usually have more in common than not.
Dad & Mom got divorced before I went into high school. Mom decided to go back to college and continue with the natural direction she started by raising us kids: social work. (As good of a mother as she was before the schooling, I bet she’s even better now to the kids she works with.) Back in the mid-eighties, as she went through school, she did volunteer work at an AIDS hospice. I distinctly remember thinking how dangerous that was, how little we knew about AIDS, and how Mom was going way out on a limb for complete strangers. As a kid, you can’t be racist, insensitive, or callous when your Mom’s the kind of person who works with AIDS patients. Despite growing up in parts of the not-too-deep South, and not being exposed to a lot of cultural diversity, I feel like Mom’s attitudes prepared me to be the kind of person who can’t stand intolerance.
When I went off to college and went down a spiral of questionable activities, Mom was always completely supportive, never judgemental. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, or who I wanted to be with, but I never got the kind of pressure that I saw some of my friends under. She knew to ask the right questions to get me to find myself, without being just a therapist. (I needed a therapist too, hahaha.)
You can learn a lot about my mother from a story. Her faithful Great Dane, Bailey, developed cancer. A lot of people, probably myself included, would have thrown in the towel and had him put to sleep. Mom isn’t one of those people, and I’m proud of her for the stance she took. She took him to doctor after doctor, trying to get exactly the best treatment for him, spare no expense. When she learned that he’d stand a better chance of survival if he ate a certain diet, she accommodated him - even though it meant cooking pounds and pounds of chicken, rice, and other foods day in and day out, three times a day. She slept with him on the living room floor of her townhouse for months because he wasn’t strong enough to make it up the stairs to her bedroom anymore. She came home from work at lunchtime every day to walk him because it was healthier for him and his bladder couldn’t hold it the whole day anymore. All of the steps she took tacked on quite a while to his life, and it was livable, enjoyable time. Bailey looked great, strong, and happy.
That’s the kind of example that makes you stop and think when you’re contemplating a decision. If someone I love got into a car accident, I am committed to treat them like a dog. Ha, no, I mean, treat them the way Mom treated Bailey: do the right thing no matter what.
Anyway, Mom’s one of the people who taught me how to deal with people, how to do what’s right, and how to keep your promises, and with what you’ve read, you can see why I make the decisions I make. That’s why I believe kids that look to sports figures as role models are doomed from the start, and why I thank my mom for being the person she is.
I love you, Mom.
Brent
