In the last 18 months I've seen several faces of motherhood: my niece being a stepmom; my daughter being a mom, and mom again; me being a stepmom/stand-in mom; a LOT of me being a mom of an adult child- or stepchild-in-need. It's amazing how similar all the situations are at heart. In the last couple of years I've coped with, in my children, stepchildren and nieces/nephews generation: serious mental health issues, geographic moves, near-death experiences ... and their aftermaths, hormones (I'd mistakenly thought that was over after middle/high school, silly me), and maturation in all of the above-mentioned children. Or so I hope.
What all the situations have asked of me is the wisdom of the sage. Like I knew what the hell I was talking about. I use common sense and love and common sense. I never took one Psychology course in college. But having taught and having been a research resourse for so many developing adults, I learned from what I looked up for them and from the questions they asked me outside of class.
Mostly people under 50 want to know: Is this a good idea? Am I looking at this thoroughly? Which path should I choose? And I REALLY try to say: Do YOU think this is a good idea? Have you thought of .....? What are all the paths? Answering a question with a question in my life has nothing to do with being Jewish (I'm not) and all to do with being a research librarian. All I could ever do was set someone on the path to finding the answer and hope like hell I'd helped them see where the signposts are.
Bruce says I should hang out my shingle as a therapist. I'm not sure he's wrong. I get off the phone after talking through a problem with any one of my "clients" and I'm exhausted. How do all you social workers/counselors/psychotherapists do it? All I am is a mom. Do you think you could talk to someone about creating a payscale for moms?
(The funny thing about this post is that there are relatively few crises now; last year was my damn-near-died year as counselor. I just decided to post this after the fact.)
1 comment:
Hi Starla!
I'm just catching up and read your recent posts. Wanted to comment on this one especially. Why? Because I AM (or was) a social worker and even got that psychology degree you mentioned.
You hit everything pretty much on the head. Without the need for degrees - smile.
People usually don't (and shouldn't) want someone to tell them what to do. Nor should someone do so. I've seen many well-intentioned friends and family screw up someone's life with the sentence beginning, "If I were you, I would..."
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