Teach Your Children
By: The Good Men Project
Tags: Children, Growing Up, Childhood Memories, Motherhood, Mothers

Teach Your Children

Having compassion for mothers should be the eleventh commandment.

Photos credit: iStock

By Ben May

Growing up in the sixties, I remember that song so well. Still, today, the even, acoustic guitar rhythms and soft melodic tunes of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young soothe my soul, touching me deeply. But the words affect me even more. How can we know our parents ‘hell,’ and how can they know ours? Perhaps both are unknowable. But I have found it’s a journey worth taking. For me, it ended two years ago, but began long before I was born.

Photo courtesy of the author

In April 2017, I received an e-mail from a young Google executive in New York asking if I was the son of Frances May. He got my name from the obituary I had written for her in an Oklahoma City newspaper when she died in 2002.

He wanted to thank me on behalf of my grandfather ‘Benno,’ a man my mother always spoke of with reverence and deep love. He had written to, then, Senator Harry Truman on behalf of this man’s family, asking him to get permission for them to immigrate to the United States, leaving Germany in 1939, thus escaping Nazi persecution. “I would not have been born as the odds would have been pretty good that my family would have been exterminated. Your grandfather saved a generation of a Jewish family, who thrived and contributed to this country. “

My grandfather died eight years before I was born. He had immigrated to America from Germany in the 1890s, settling in Kansas City, Missouri where he built up a laundry business. He and his wife had one child: my mother Frances. He became a leader in the city with the Chamber of Commerce, spoke six languages and was known as a real ‘mensch.’ There, he became acquainted with Harry Truman who later became President.

As I read the e-mail, a warm feeling of loving pride spread throughout my body. As fine a man as I knew he was, the warmth I felt was for my mother. I thought of the difficulties in her life, many she brought on herself. But others she did not deserve. Her own mother, suffering from depression, jumped to her death from the upper floor of a psychiatric hospital when my mother was seven. My mother had her challenges with addictions and paranoia, antisemitism, her husband’s betrayal and divorce when I was six. In spite of all of this, she became a concert pianist, president of three different organizations and raised me with love. Her confidence in me instilled a thirst for knowledge and the belief that there was nothing I couldn’t do.

She was like a Jewish “Auntie Mame.” She was always available for my teenage friends when they needed a mother’s strength or boost when they couldn’t get it from their own families.

I thought of the loneliness of her latter days, how much she loved and encouraged me as a man; how much more I could have done to ease her pain … and didn’t.

Then I thought of my wife. How blessed she always felt to have our boy and girl. How much effort and love she put into raising our kids; and how much more I could have done to help her instead of assuming raising kids was ‘her job’ with me helicoptering in for only the good stuff, running many times from the difficult part. Self-centered cowardice is the best way to explain it, and I’m not proud of it. Being a father is a choice. Being a mother is a calling.

I am no psychologist but I’m pretty sure that there is not one human that does not have some issue, big or small, with his or her parents. It can be as horrific and damaging as emotional or physical abuse, as well as perceived or real abandonment. It might even be something that appeared to be inconsequential to the parent but was hurtful to the child at the time.

As I think back on my own history, I probably ‘raised’ my mother from the age of sixteen until she died. But at the time I didn’t even think about it. Abnormal was normal at our house I suppose. And, yes, I have had to work my ass off to even understand some of my own psychological trauma, let alone heal from it to become a strong, understanding and caring man I am glad to see in the mirror.

In spite of all that trauma, she gave me many gifts I’m proud are part of who I am.

Then I remember again the generosity of the hours and hours my wife gave to our children so they could become the fine adults they are today; how she dotes on our grandchildren. Her pain, her suffering and her strength of spirit to allow her kids to hate her sometimes so she could truly love them through her selfless actions.

In the end, I’ve come to realize that the true measure of a man is his ability to forgive his parents — especially his mother — for being human. Until he can do that, he may be a man in any number of ways — a good husband, father, and worker — but, until he can understand, appreciate and acknowledge the love, sacrifice and devotion he received from his mother, he will remain a boy.

In my case this lack of maturity came from the fear of facing my childhood trauma, seeing it in ‘full color,’ venting my anger and healing the wound of my inner child. I was able not only to forgive, but to celebrate my mother’s love and understand her life realistically. It is not an easy journey but I am convinced it is the path to becoming a mature, good man at any age. If you’re going to be a champion for your wife and children- a man they can admire, consider being a champion for your mother; that she raised a man she can admire too. If you can summon up enough courage, then do it now. You’ll never regret it, especially when she is gone.

—

The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.

—

About Ben May

Ben May is the retired Global Director of Corporate Alliances for the Walt Disney Company. He lives in Orlando, Florida.

Connect with Ben on LinkedIn.