"You Get Back What You Give 10 Fold"~ Maureen Ellis

I wasn’t an easy child to raise; and to tell you the truth, I am glad I wasn’t my mom. As a mom now I continually cringe at my behavior as a child and teenager. With each memory of my rebellious heart, my mom becomes the ultimate saint.

Although my mom was made an official saint after my teenage years, she would continuously curse me with a child just like myself, but worse. She would dryly and sarcastically say, “Just remember what you give, you get back. Your child will be much worse than you!”

I would nonchalantly reply to her, “Huh…. guess you weren’t a great child then.” Sure, I was a jerk to say that, but it looks like my behavior wasn’t actually my fault.  It was the fault of what my mom put my grandma through. I would act like I didn’t care, but truthfully I had a quiet sense of dread as the countless memories of the many sneaky things I had already done would flip through my head. This ominous omen became tattooed to the back of my head, not that it deterred me from any future shenanigans.

One day, as mothers do when they are tired of picking up after their children, my mom starts exclaiming, “I’VE HAD ENOUGH!! If I find something laying out, I’m going to take it and hide it!! If you want it back you can either pay to get it back, or you must do a chore, but I’VE HAD IT!” I would nod that I understood, but what I didn’t express is that I did not care.

A few weeks went by and some of my belongings went missing. I would refuse to play this childish game. I was 15 and if an item wasn’t there, I would make due. After a while, finally, an object of importance went missing. My toothbrush was gone. Decisions now had to be made, lines were crossed. I was determined and ridiculously stubborn.

Two weeks went by and I was sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a small after-school feast when my mom slyly started a conversation. “So Kate….it seems like you are missing some of your things.”

”Uh-huh.” I said between shoveling my face with chips and Pace Picante sauce, an after-school favorite.

“Did you notice that you're missing your toothbrush?”

Without looking up from my food I said, “Uh-huh.” 

A few minutes passed and when she finally could no longer take it, she broke and asked, “What are you using to brush your teeth?!?!?” 

I looked her in the eyes, shrugged, and carelessly said, “Yours.”

Her face went from triumph to disbelief. She didn’t say a word and went straight into the garage. She returned with a black garbage bag, flipped it upside down, and the contents were emptied in a pile on the family room floor. Weeks of my sister and my random belongs sat there in a mound. Half exasperated, half laughing she said, “Oh, I give up!”

I smugly smiled as I had won this battle. She wasn’t wrong, we should have picked up our stuff, but this kind of enforcement was meant for elementary schoolers, I was determined to prove my worth. I won this battle.

Fall 2020

The year of the Pandemic. Everyone was out of sorts trying to navigate and figure out what was normal. My business was all but gone. Weddings were being postponed or canceled all together opting for a quick courthouse wedding. Due to increased cases of COVID, my kids were transferred to online learning. This was quickly becoming a worthless endeavor. Children everywhere were left to fend for themselves and suddenly be expected to do independent study with very little supervision. This resulted exactly how you think it would. The kids needing attention (mine) were struggling. Although I stayed at home, I was doing enough work to leave me busy and distracted. The help that I could give was lackluster at best.

Fall semester Xander was in eighth grade. He was already pretty angsty and disenchanted with middle school to begin with, not even factoring in the new challenges that the Pandemic was providing to education. In his new deep voice, he would say with spite, “What is the point of this anyway?” I would give him my parent speech about the big picture of life, and his eyes would glaze over like a Krispy Kream doughnut. This would leave him as motivated as well, nothing. He couldn’t care less.

One day I had an assignment to take photos around my city to show that the city was still open for business! Xander hadn’t been outside in a few days so I invited (forced) him along. He seemed really worried about (logging into remote) school, so I agreed to let him bring his school Chromebook along. We pulled into Old Towne and Xander decided to stay in the car, very focused on his work on the school computer. I mentally patted myself on the back. Perhaps I was as persuasive as a school fundraiser promoter! I had done the impossible. I had broken through the importance of education to a 13-year-old boy. Maybe I’m not a complete failure as a mother. Maybe I don’t have a legit claim to my ever-sarcastic title, “Mother of the Year.” An award I like to give myself for all my epic parenting fails.

For about 45 minutes Sienna and I walked around Olde Town, snapping photos of people still enjoying their lives during the Pandemic before returning to my car with Xander locked in it. When I arrived, Xander didn’t even notice as he was so buried into his work. I snapped the photo above of him, diligently working from the front seat of my car. Look how he can adapt to anything! This was a moment I would remember for the rest of my life. I have finally arrived at my child taking school seriously. Maybe other moms at his school wouldn’t just roll their eyes at the shit show we were. (Insert A Christmas Story vision of me pulling up to the school and the moms get excited. They would whisper, “She was able to break through to a boy no one could break through to! How did she do it? I wish I had her power.”)

I ran home to edit the photo and post it on my social media, with the caption, “When you have appointments and your mom has to run around the city taking photos, your desk becomes the front seat of your car. 2020…no stars. Would not recommend.” Trying to show people Xander’s hard work, ability to overcome, and then a nod to what an awful year 2020 was. 

A few weeks later, as the Fall semester came to an end, one day Xander approached me, tears filled his eyes. “Mom….” he slowly said, his voice real shaky. “Can I talk to you?”

“Ya! What’s up?”

“Mom….I haven’t done any work at school for maybe a…month.”

“What do you mean?” I was a little confused. I checked that he turned in all his assignments. “I saw that you turned in all your assignments.”

“Yes…..well…I turned them in--blank. I haven’t done school in weeks.” He quietly said, tears streaming down his eyes.

“What about when you were working so hard in the front seat of the car when I was taking photos?”

His tone changed, “Oh that? I was doing a server for Minecraft.”

I sighed, totally defeated, and said, “Fuck.” With 3 days left in the semester, and Xander’s mental health not going well anyway, I did nothing.

Nothing, that is, other than remembering 28 years back, in the very same kitchen, when my mom said to me it would come back to me 10-fold. The circle was complete. This was filed under the many moments of Being A Mother and realizing defeat at the hands of your kids is (an integral) part of that role. I could hear from high heaven my mother’s obnoxious hysterical laughter envisioning tears running down her face. I see her smug smile and hear her voice as she said, “I told ya. Paybacks are a bitch.”