Mom Had Her Important Moments, Too

I recently wrote a Father’s Day blog post for Great Dames about memorable moments with my beloved dad. After I wrote it, I realized that I hadn’t — but should have —written something similar about my mother. Our memorable moments were very different from those with my dad, but every bit as important. Because it’s never too late to recognize how someone has contributed to our lives, here are some of my “memorable mom moments.”

At some point in junior high school, I came home in tears because I had been mocked for being one of, if not the first girls to wear a bra (and need one!). My mother knew just what to say: “The other girls are jealous, and the boys are confused.” It didn’t stop the mocking (about that and a lot of other things I had no control over), but it did help me cope.

Another time, one of my classmates was especially mean, and I asked my mom why. She told me that girl’s father had died. My response: “But it isn’t my fault! I didn’t even know about it! I didn’t have anything to do with it!” As Mom explained, she was probably taking out her grief and anger on any convenient target, because people in pain — and often young people in particular — aren’t being logical. They’re lashing out at anyone and everyone, no matter how unrelated to their loss or condition. Years later, I still don’t understand how that behavior helped my classmate, but Mom’s explanation helped me feel a little better by realizing that I hadn’t done anything wrong, and had no control over how other people behaved at such times.

Sometimes her attempted advice was almost funny. When I was 11 and about to go to my first overnight camp, she gave me a small book called something like “Attaining Womanhood” that explained things like menstruation and intercourse, complete with illustrations. Sure enough, my first week at camp coincided with the arrival of my first period — but I had no idea what was going on, and went flying to the camp nurse in terror, thinking the blood in my pajamas meant something was horribly wrong and I was going to die. Somehow, none of that information sank in enough to connect to that reality.

My first experience with sex was equally disconnected from that book. It took the real thing for those illustrations to make sense!

She wasn’t always infallible, but Mom always knew when to make something better and how to fix a problem. For years, she had an oriental rug draped over the daybed in her sewing room. When I moved to my second apartment in DC, I asked if I could have it — it didn’t seem to be important or being used, so I didn’t think it was a big ask, but her response was a big, angry “No!” and I couldn’t figure out why.

A couple of weeks later, I got a letter from Mom, apologizing for her reaction and explaining that she had an emotional attachment to the rug: It was the only thing she, her sister and their mother were able to retain in escaping from Europe during the Holocaust. Even better, the rug arrived at my place a few days after the letter! I’ve cherished it ever since, putting a wooden dowel on the back so I could hang it on a wall rather than using it as a carpet that people would walk on. I’ve moved five times since then, and every time, my first thought on looking at a new place has been, “Oh, Mom’s rug would be perfect right there.” It’s one of the few things that isn’t even my signature purple, but the connection to my mother and her history is beyond such aspects. So is the fact that she explained her reaction to my request and trusted me with the rug ever since.

Mom was quiet and reserved; an introvert in a family of extroverts. It took a long time to realize that she was very shy. One of my lifelong girlfriends once told me that she was almost afraid of my mom, and I couldn’t understand why — she didn’t seem at all scary. My friend said it had to do with Mom always asking her questions. I brought it up somehow, and Mom said, “That’s the only way I know to have a conversation. It helps me learn about people.” I felt badly for her, but had no idea how to advise her; it was a rare role reversal moment that I still wish I had known how to handle better.

She surprised me a number of times over the years, coming up with ideas and activities that I never would have expected her to be up for doing. She had an adventurous strain that rarely came through, but when it did, we had a blast.

When I was in Baltimore and my parents were coming to visit, primarily to meet Wayne- the-Wonderful a couple weeks after we got engaged, Mom came in a day before Dad (a big surprise in and of itself; they never traveled separately!) and I said something about Wayne having to spend more than an hour on two buses to get from work at Bethlehem Steel to our place, and that I’d love to pick him up but had never been to Beth Steel, so I had no idea where to find him. This was before cellphones were ubiquitous, so there was no way to call him and ask for directions. Mom said something like, “Let’s try it!”

The Beth Steel complex was huge, with at least a dozen entry and exit points. We stopped at two or three sentry gates to ask where someone might come out to catch a bus, and finally arrived at what turned out to be the right one. We waited in the car for more than half an hour, and I suggested giving up and going home so he could meet us there. Mom’s response: “Let’s just wait a little longer.” Wayne came out of the plant a few minutes later and saw us in the car, it was just great — he almost ran to the car, with a huge grin.

At the time, Wayne still had his own place and was planning to stay there while my parents were in town, even though he was essentially living with me — I had asked my parents how they would feel about that, and Dad said they’d rather he not spend the night when they were staying with me. After meeting him, though, Mom said we should go and get Wayne’s things so he could relinquish his place. It was such a nice moment of acceptance!

Another time, we had been exploring the Inner Harbor, and Dad and Wayne (by then, my wonderful husband) were ready to head for home. Somehow, a new condo property nearby came up in conversation, and I said something about wondering what it was like. Mom said, “Let’s go look!” It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d be up for such an exploration. She and I spent an hour or two touring the building, getting a kick out of realizing that we agreed on our reaction to it: spaces too cramped and small for the asking price.

It was never a conscious reaction, but I now feel strongly that my mother’s example is a huge factor in whatever courage I have in going for new adventures myself — something family, friends and colleagues have complimented me about over the years, but that I never really thought about until recently.

I knew Mom was braver and tougher than anyone might have realized, given her quiet, reserved nature, but she rarely talked about the past. I did know that she and her younger sister were separated from their mother, ended up in a labor camp in Hungary, and were able to escape thanks to a guard who directed them away from the line of people destined for the death trains. They made it to Switzerland by themselves and were reunited with their mother through the UN Relief Association. That was impressive enough, but they only received one visa for America, and decided that Mom should use it because she had the most English of the three of them (she used to say that she learned most of her English from Alice in Wonderland). She made the journey alone, by ship, at 16 or 17; I can’t even imagine what that would have been like.

I hope she knows that she had an even greater, better influence on my life than I might have acknowledged when I had the opportunity. And probably on many others as well, whether she knew it or not. I hope she did, and does. If she were around today, she would definitely be a “Great Dame” in every way.

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter (www.writerruth.com) is an award-winning freelance writer, editor, proofreader and speaker. Thanks to high school friend and Great Dames guru Kathy Palokoff, she proofread the Great Dames book Great Dames: Women Sharing Their Power. She recently received six awards for her writing work from Missouri Professional Communicators (MPC), the St. Louis-area affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW), which makes her eligible for national recognition at the 2025 NFPW conference.