Dementia Days

Last Sunday was Mothers Day and images of the American Dream family of husband, wife, and 2.5 kids, not to forget the yellow lab, have been flashing across our TV screens, are plastered on billboards and into our mailboxes. Flower bouquets and chocolate boxes are becoming second tier to the more high tech higher profit margin gifts of electronic book readers and robotic vacuum cleaners – the schizophrenic message to those super-moms apparently being that, though they don’t have time to turn a page in a real book, they ought to read several thousand at the same time, while their Jetsons housecleaning device will make them the Martha Stewart they have envisioned (not the one in the orange jumpsuit, but the one in the million dollar mansion).

I would like to take the time to say thank you and honor us real moms; moms who come from all walks of life, people who are mothers to their own mothers and fathers – and, of course, these can be men or women! – moms who are alone in their quixotic efforts to fend off the marketing machine telling them what they ought to be, moms who share mom-hood with another mom, dads who are alone and thus have to be moms, too, dads who are together and share mom duties, so many kinds of different moms, so much richer than the Stepford wives of the media. Thank you, all of you moms!

And finally, thank you to my own “Mutti” (mom in German), a woman who loved turning a real page in a real book, a woman who continues to bring joy to her daughters with merely a sparkle in her eyes.