11/30/12—Being the Quintessential Mother

Today's Draw: The Empress from the Wild Unknown Tarot. Do you see a lot of similarities between your parent's parenting and your own? What do you do well as a parent? What could you use a little work on?

As it turns out, I am my mother. I was sitting outside tonight, the dogs left inside against their desires, thinking about what a pain in the ass it can be to care for others and how much it sucks when that care comes at a cost to your own self care. 

I know my mom felt that way sometimes. Don't get me wrong, she was an amazing mother to six human children, held a full-time job and cared for my father. All of that came before anything she might do for herself. And sometimes she did things for us that just sucked the life out of her. But she did them anyway. 

Along with all of that, though, came a lot of drama. She'd cry out things about we were "getting on her last nerve" when we hadn't really done anything terribly wrong. She'd have the adult equivalent of tantrums. She'd even faint sometimes. Just for effect. And sometimes I would just stare at her wide-eyed, not understanding at all what could have driven her to these extremes of drama. 

But now I get it. And, mothers of human children out there, I don't know how you do it. Except that it's probably easier to communicate to a child about what is proper behavior.  Of course, my dogs don't talk back to me. So it's a trade-off. And I know I've got the much easier end of the stick. 

But this new dog has been sent to me as the ultimate challenge. It's rare that I can walk across a room without being accosted by a manic dog these days. I've tried every "positive" means of trying to teach her how not to flail and jump and nip. And none of them work. 

Yes, we're taking training classes. Are they helping? Yes. But only to a degree. See, Mystic gets scared at clickers and runs into a corner when she hears one. And the teacher keeps forgetting not to click in her face. There's only so much you can learn when you're hiding, traumatized in a broom closet and not in the classroom with the rest of the dogs. 

So yesterday after a long day of meetings followed by heavy traffic, I come home and put my carryout bag on the stove. Then I go upstairs to let Mystic out of her crate. And in the gap between how quickly a manic, freaked out dog gets down the stairs and how slowly an exhausted mommy does, Mystic manages to jump up on the stove and light my dinner—and almost the house—on fire. Yes, we are now getting child-proof knob covers. You live and you learn. 

What this is all leading to is that right now I feel like I'm on my "last nerve". And I think of how many times my mom was there. And even though she'd be on her last nerve, she'd still let me snuggle up to her and she'd stroke my hair and do her nurturing thing...just like I'm doing with Magick Moonbeam right now. Because that's what's mommies do. And, imperfections, complaints, drama and all, I'm glad to nurture in the same mold as my mother. 

The Empress is the quintessential mother and nurturer. But I think it's important to acknowledge that quintessential does not mean perfect. We do what we can do. And if we have a few emotional breakdowns along the way, so be it. The most important thing is that, at the end of the day, we love our babies and try to do our best for them. 



For my tarot friends who may be considering this deck. It's beautiful. LOVE the card stock. It's very smooth and silky and substantial. And the artwork is very nice. As an FYI, many pips are non- or just partially illustrated. But if you're on the fence and wondering about quality, I say get it. http://www.thewildunknown.com/