Skip to main content

Mothers and Daughters







                                          Brenda Edwards and her mother Annie Edwards circa  1984

 I loved my mother very much and still do, but at some point, l realized she wasn't flawless. These were intermittent episodes throughout our mother-daughter relationship when I became aware of her imperfections. Before this crucial discovery, she was a glorious,mystical beauty of perfection who solved all my problems and made the boogie man go away.

Depending on what I was going through in my own life, my judgment of mom wavered from harsh criticism, embarrassment,to downright anger.

Take the time when she decided to awaken my sister and me while we were fast asleep in our cozy beds one winter night, just to fulfill a simple chore of taking out the trash and washing the dishes. I couldn't have been any more than 12 and my sister was about 16. We grumbled, but not too loud for fear of the wrath from mom that would follow. She seemed to feel that this one small error would lead us down the road lawlessness,disrespecting rules, dismissing codes of ethics,  and succumbing to a life of unbounding filth.

But I don't think that would even top her uncanny way of dropping knowledge while sharing her own childhood experiences simply because I requested funding for the latest fashions. Yep, she was one of those from the south who was lucky to be able to wear any shoes to school. And if she did wear shoes, they had been worn  by at least 10 other people before her and was filled with holes or had been mended by her mother's very own hands. There would also be the story of wearing a scratchy unforgiving crocker sack bag also known as burlap, for a dress that had been refashioned also by her mother's loving hands.

Of course I wasn't moved by those passionate stories.So I found an after school job and worked during the summers. This afforded me the freedom to be the master of my own fashion style; well at least to a certain extent. Those were the days of the mini and micro mini skirt, pretty much like today.So, you best believe mom had something to say about my purchases.

Let's move onto the time she would not let me miss a day of summer school because "I had made my bed hard, so I had to lie in it"Really!

Mom was a favorite among my friends. They absolutely adored her.Therefore she thought nothing of joining in during my 18th birthday party.She danced and shared embarrassing stories about what she perceived to be my triumphs. She made corny jokes and was perhaps a bit too loud because while she and her best friend were in the kitchen chaperoning and serving up the sumptuous southern cuisine that she had single handedly prepared, they were also  serving themselves shots  of Johnny Walker Black!

After settling into a bit of maturity, I came to realize that perhaps there was some validity as to what  mom was attempting to do. But that still did not give her the right to protest my decision to move in with my boyfriend. After all, I was approaching my sophomore year of college. Even though this proved to be a tumultuous relationship filled with abuses on both our parts and heartbreak, why not learn the hard way?

There were other occasions when mom was obviously completely oblivious to the never ending extent of her annoying meddling. So what if on a long vacation ten thousand miles away from home, I found myself in an intriguing romantic relationship.What exactly is the  appropriate length of time for pre- marital courtship anyway? Why should I allow something as frivolous as conventions stop me from entering into wedlock.We'd have plenty of time to get to know each other and to make important decisions such as him perfecting the English language,me learning to respect his cultural values,and the number of children we should have.Is this not the stuff that makes for  the most interesting of marriages even though they may not "stand the test of time?"

Well,mom is no longer with us,but I am still and will be forever influenced by her opinionated views.And I have to admit,every now and then I miss her unrequested advice and chuckle at what she might say about some of my adventures as I approach the  latter stages of my life.But don't worry mom,I returned the 2X plus size bikini I was considering wearing on my next Caribbean vacation and I will turn down the invitation to to go hiking with that elusive young man who is half my age.

 By Brenda Edwards 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whats wrong with the school system ? By Brenda Edwards

As a retired New York City educator, every once in a while someone will ask me what is my perception of the failings of the New York City school system. Well,I believe it's a number of things. First of all, when people ask what's wrong with the school system,they often are really asking why are the inner-city kids not progressing as they should and displaying such hostile behavior.Why are these students so out of touch with education, they wonder.But what they really mean is, what's wrong with the African-American, African Caribbean and Latino students who comprise the majority of the inner-city schools. Having been an African-American student myself and then becoming a teacher, I say let's look at the history that is so very much a part of us and how that history reflects what it means for black and brown people today transitioning from being considered subhuman to enslavement, to Jim crow/segregation,lynchings and poverty.Let's look at the subliminal me
5 comments
Read more

A Day Of Remembrance

Picture shown above of Annie Edwards and Mark Edwards holding their daughter Brenda Edwards  It was a day of remembrance as I walked  through the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn where I was raised six decades ago.It was a day of ambivalence as an incongruent feeling of happiness and sadness shrouded my inner being.I began to reflect on those who were once so much a crucial  part of my life and had now either passed away or we simply grew apart delving into life's challenges.I felt the spirit of those souls and smiled. I pictured my friends and myself briskly running down Sumner Avenue and then back down Halsey Street and over to Lewis Avenue playing those childhood games of the times:tag,hop scotch,red light-green light,jumping double dutch rope and simply languishing in those long summer days and chilling winters. I thought about how I had attended the storefront church which ironically was perched on top of a pool hall. I thought about Sunday School and how I never u
4 comments
Read more

School Busing Days by Brenda Edwards

In 1966 I became part of New York City's School busing program. The challenge was that students from neighborhoods such as mind, the predominantly African-American Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn would attend schools in neighborhoods such as, at that time, the predominantly white Flatbush section of Brooklyn. This program was to solve some of the inequities and create a sense of desegregation in the inner city schools. From six to seventh grade, I would travel on the yellow school bus that would pick me up in my neighborhood and travel what felt like an eternity to my new school. The pick up would include cruising through various areas of Bed-Stuy collecting other African-American and a few Latino children to be transported to our various destinations throughout the Flatbush area. We often joked among ourselves as the bus approached the Fulton Street L, that we were crossing the tracks mimicking the Mason-Dixon line that separated the north from the south. Please do
1 comment
Read more