CONTINUED: Mom and the U.S. Constitution

As I grew toward puberty and asked Mom who gave her the authority to Lord it over me, her answer snapped back without hesitation. "GOD anointed me. Now go clean up your room!"  At age twelve I was almost as tall as the little woman.  When I offered to arm wrestle her to determine if it was really my turn to do the dishes, she accepted.  And won.

Even as an adult I was often surprised to learn how aware she was of what was going on when I was younger.  I began to suspect she may have in the past been a teenager herself. On one occasion while we were discussing my years in high school, Mom told me she and Dad were proud they’d been able to put their sons through Catholic schools.  In a familiar manner of loving derision that after a certain age always got her laughing, I said nothing but began to pick my nose.

“Well, it’s true,” she said. “You certainly must remember at least one thing your Catholic education did for you.”

With a twinkle in my eye, I said, "Well it limited me to dating girls who wouldn’t put out.”

“You think I didn’t know that?” she said.
In reality it was the respect my father had for her that taught me to not pester girls beyond a certain point.

Even with a sixth sense for tracking her boys, the United States Constitution would not allow my mother’s brand of punishment to violate an inmate’s  human rights. Mom might do a great job running the State Prison, but she would eventually spend all her time in court defending herself against civil rights suits.

The Constitution also serves to prevent the practice of Mom-ism outside prison walls by those who want to control us as though we are children.  Laws  said to protect us continue to whittle away our freedoms.  Rights are demoted to privileges and whatever is dangerous becomes licensed. We see this over-protective attitude in the public sphere’s fixation on safety and security.  Often the new laws and regulations seem very practical.

But that's the great thing about America.  Sometimes we’re willing to replace practical wisdom with impractical abstractions, because without an impractical idea like freedom our personal abilities could not unlock our promise.  We wouldn’t live up to our potential nor mature as a nation. 

My mother knew when to stop acting like a Mom.  It was probably difficult for her.  Allowing me to follow my own paths as I grew up may have seemed impractical to her at times.  But she knew I would in some ways be rid of her in the future, as she had grown beyond her parents.  I would build a worthwhile life based on my freedom rather than another person's wisdom, even hers.

The power Mom wielded over me as a child was long ago replaced by a mutual respect, built brick by brick while I advanced to maturity.  Mom became important to me as a person and not as a set of rules.  I was free to do as I pleased, to enjoy the fruits or accept the consequences of my actions.  She might have continued to insist I obey her, but she was smart enough to know that seldom succeeded.  Instead she let the reins slacken a little at a time while she rode herd on my adolescence and I galloped toward my independence.  I arrived there certainly not without her help, but without her holding my hand.  But I suppose that’s just a son’s opinion.

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Copyright 2012, 2016 by David Griffin

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

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