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| JJ Hart. (right) Mother's Day last night. Liz on left. |
Another Mother's Day is here and as always, it presents me with many complex emotions.
First of all, as I was growing up, my mom was many times the dominant parent in the family, I remember vividly watching her apply her makeup, heels and hose. She was from the WWII generation where a woman's appearance was very important. I think she did a wonderful job maintaining a family of males immersed in boyish struggles. Dad was always present, and was often the deciding factor in our family disputes but mom ruled in all the other areas such as day-to-day discipline between my younger brother and I.
My mom and I were much alike in many ways. I resembled her except I was close to six foot tall, and she was only five foot two, which made it quickly impossible for me to squeeze into her clothes. Over the years, she never let me know that she knew anything about my cross-dressing habits. Looking back now, I do not think I could have hidden all my feminine collection of clothes and makeup so well from her. She was somehow just ignoring me and my gender issues as just a phase.
My life as a "transvestite" (as it was known back then) stayed hidden as a topic between mom and I until I was back home after being discharged from the Army. The sit-down did not go well and ended with her offering psychiatric care. From there, the subject of me wanting to be a woman was never brought up again during her life. For years, I held her feelings against her but then started to slowly change after I started to mellow within my own transition. I began to realize, mom was just dealing with life under the only circumstances she had ever known, and change was not in the cards.
What I ended up doing, was honoring her when I legally changed my name. I femininized my maternal grandfather's name as my first name and used my mom's first name as my legal middle name. It was my way of honoring her for all of the sacrifices she made for me.
Then, there was the complex problem on what the kids in my life were going to call me on Mother's Day. Initially, my daughter referred to me as her "parental unit", then began to slowly change over the years. Several years ago, I wrote a blog post which mentioned the first Mother's Day when my daughter referred to me as Mom. Even I was embarrassed to refer to myself as a mom, but I was surprised and flattered my daughter did.
Now, both my daughter and my wife Liz's son both refer to me as mom on Mother's Day. One way or another, the day will forever bring complex emotions to me. I did receive many negative reactions to my Mother's Day posts, so I will temper this one by saying whatever you believe and however you are referred to, have a wonderful day.
