{"id":335,"date":"2010-08-16T09:26:24","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T09:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/im-not-turning-into-my-mother.html"},"modified":"2010-08-16T09:26:24","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T09:26:24","slug":"im-not-turning-into-my-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/im-not-turning-into-my-mother.html","title":{"rendered":"I’m Not Turning Into My Mother…"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"garden.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Mom stayed home with us until my youngest sister (I have
\nthree) was five. Even then, she went back to work part-time, as a pre-school
\nteacher. She has been a grandmother in training for two decades.<\/p>\n

Every night, except Mondays when we had the special treat of
\nMcDonald’s, she cooked dinner–one for us, another for herself and Dad. I
\nremember walking with her in the backyard where she had four plots with
\nvegetables. I remember picking the butter beans and learning that lettuce is
\nbest in the early summer and stringing the string beans into a paper bag. Or
\nthere was the year when the pecan tree that shaded our backyard produced a
\nhundred-year crop. Our yard was knee-deep in pecans, so we gathered 116 pounds
\nof them into buckets. Some we shelled and roasted and froze for the winter.
\nOthers we took to a local candy-maker. Mom swam with us in the summers and read
\nbooks to us in the cooler months and, most important of all, was always around to
\nlisten to whatever we wanted to say. She also volunteered–at our schools, at
\nchurch, in the community. My mother was, and is, an excellent mother.<\/p>\n

And I’m not turning into her. I haven’t finished Penny’s or
\nWilliam’s baby book, for instance. I have only gone swimming with them once or
\ntwice. I haven’t spent as much time with Penny one-on-one doing “homework” (her
\nfavorite activity) as I intended this summer. And I fall down on the job with many
\nof my domestic duties. We order pizza more often than we think we should. The
\nsmall vegetable garden I started is overgrown–Peter has started to bring in the
\nproduce because I just can’t seem to catch up. There is always a pile of
\nlaundry on the bed. <\/p>\n

I could castigate myself for not living up to her example.
\nOr I could be grateful for the gifts she gave me, and recognize my own strengths
\nand weaknesses as a necessary part of who I am. I could admit my own
\nlimitations, my own imperfections, and recognize that my kids will benefit from
\nthose too. I don’t have completed baby books, but I do have a record of my kids
\nlives’ through writing. I haven’t gone swimming with them, but their dad has. We
\neat pizza a lot, and we love it. So I’ve given up on becoming a master gardener
\nor providing a home-cooked meal every night. But I hope I’ve learned how to
\nlisten to my children and pass on a legacy of love. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mom stayed home with us until my youngest sister (I have three) was five. Even then, she went back to work part-time, as a pre-school teacher. She has been a grandmother in training for two decades. Every night, except Mondays when we had the special treat of McDonald’s, she cooked dinner–one for us, another for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nI'm Not Turning Into My Mother... - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/im-not-turning-into-my-mother.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I'm Not Turning Into My Mother... - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mom stayed home with us until my youngest sister (I have three) was five. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}