Posted by Elphaba Of The Brew | Posted in brew commentary, Brew Fairy Godmother | Posted on 26-02-2012
THIS is a mean mom!
The Brew’s Fairy Godmother, guest blogs to offer her thoughts on parenting in a crazy crazy world. A world where pre-teen girls get back to school weaves…a world where a young man’s jeggings are so tight you can see his future babies. A world that confuses this Witch!
Welcome The Brew Fairy Godmother!
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For some reason when the 13 year old girl who thinks she is my 13 year old son’s girlfriend calls him, she always lets the phone ring one time, hangs up, and immediately calls back and does the same thing five more times. She did this one time for almost twenty minutes when he was punished. Finally I answered the phone, which of course had her on immediate “shook-ness.”
Me: Hello?
Her: Ummmm . . . can I speak to Omar (not his real name)?
Me: Who’s calling?
Her: Stephanie (not her real name)
Me: Well Stephanie, Omar is not taking any phone calls for a while because he is punished.
Her: Ummmmm . . . okay . . .
Me: Good-bye.
Her: Ummmmm . . . bye . . .
That was it. That was my first time answering his phone and I haven’t answered it since. Flash-forward to three months later – the day after I paid my son a surprise visit at school. I was coming to see him in his math class to see if it was an appropriate setting for him, because he is struggling in math. I didn’t say anything to him but “Hi,” and didn’t even sit with him in his class. I did not introduce myself nor was I introduced or addressed by his teachers. Some kids knew I was his mom because they had met me last year on school trips and he and I look like twins, but anyhoo . . . “Omar’s” phone rings once, stops, and then the same thing happens again a minute later. “Who keeps calling you and hanging up?” I yell upstairs to which he comes running downstairs huffing and puffing, “Mom, don’t pick up the phone! Please don’t cause there’s a rumor about you going around my school.”
Okay, FREEZE . . . and back it up . . . and REWIND. “There’s a WHAAAAA??? About WHOOOOOOO??? Chile, wha chu taumbout??”
Somehow just because I answered his phone once and I showed up at his school, I’m the grist for the rumor mill of 7th grade urban middle school? Those kids really need a life.
“One of my friends came up to me today and said, ‘There’s a rumor going around that if someone calls your phone your mother is going to pick it up.’ They think you’re mean,” and with that proclamation I had officially become my mother.
My mother was a “mean mother.” I didn’t grow up with “Mommie Dearest” or Precious’s mom as a mother. Looking back, I didn’t think my mother was mean to my siblings or me, but the kids in our neighborhood and some of our friends thought she was mean. In truth, she was the average, working, middle class, black mom raising three kids with my father. My parents were older when they got together, married, and started a family so they were old school, especially my mom. She grew up in an era where kids had a place and if they didn’t know they were put in it. That worked back in her day, but we were growing up in a new era with more single parents, younger parents, foster parents, absentee parents, or parents that just didn’t want to hear bad stuff about their kids from other people.
My mom was good for not only correcting a kid when they were wrong but also bringing it to the attention of said child’s parent. Her picture could have been next to the definition of “blowing up spots.” This could make for challenging times when just trying to walk to and from school or hanging out with the neighborhood kids. I vowed when I was young that I would not be the “mean mother.” I would not correct some kid I knew or didn’t know, look out the window to see what they were doing, or knock on their parent’s door when I heard them cursing outside. I wouldn’t be disgusted by the kid whose parent did nothing about them sitting on people’s cars because I wouldn’t have said anything to that kid or parent anyway. “I wouldn’t remind kids they didn’t speak to me when they saw me and then hold it against my own children for not correcting them. I would not tell my kids to tell their friends on the phone to hold on while I embarrassed them about what I heard them talking about and “I’d betta not hear it again!” I wouldn’t take a teacher’s side over my child’s side without even hearing my child’s side of the story. I would not be a “mean mom!” I even told my kids, especially my son because he is the oldest, “I don’t want to be “that mom” but if you don’t follow my directions about (fill in the blank here) I will be!”
Now I am “that mom.” I am the “mean mom” and in the words of that well-known poet out of Newark, NJ Redman, “I’ll be dat!” If answering my son’s phone that my husband and I pay for makes me a “mean mom” I’ll be dat! If coming to see how my child is doing in school makes me the boogey man, I’ll be dat! If correcting one of my kids’ friends or my friends’ kids when they are doing something wrong makes me a wicked witch of the west, I’ll be dat and more!” Ever wonder why we are going to hell in a gasoline soaked and high flammable basket? We are missing from our society a sense of community and responsibility we have to each other. We all have a role in our society. My role is to be a parent and a role model to them and the kids in their life. I’m not trying to be their friend. We’ve got people like Demi Moore for that (I mean, Whippets, for real lady???) There is always going to be some kid that thinks an adult is mean particularly when they are acting like and adult and treating a child like a child. So I will be mean and wear it well hoping that my kids and their friends will grow up and keep the cycle going.
FG, out!
So….. I wonder about this as I always hear women say stuff like 
