Today is Mother’s Day. Whether your mom was Joan Crawford screaming about hangers or Betty Crocker in the kitchen, presently with us or unfortunately deceased, your best friend or someone you haven’t spoken to forever, you will be thinking about your mom at some point.
I’m a momma’s boy, proud to say it and always have been. For good, or for bad (just ask my exes), it’s been my mom and me flying through life like a musical theater version of Thelma and Louise – learning about life by the seat of our pants. My mom never got married, wasn’t really ready for me and didn’t really like kids. Join the club. And although she chews too loud, talks through movies and doesn’t appreciate Real Housewives, she’s the kind of mom a child would wish for.
I could tell you about the time she “talked to” my sixth grade bully until he peed his pants, or the time she ran down the aisle of the church during Christmas Eve Mass to stop the priest (mid-sentence, mind you) from starting the service so I could sing O Holy Night, or maybe the time she spent her first Christmas bonus on a Nintendo set for me, or the many times she took me out of school midday to go see the latest Star Trek film, or the time she drove an hour and a half at 3 am to West Hollywood because I had thought my car was stolen (I did not in fact, thank God, drive my car that night), the time she drove a float for Long Beach Pride, and, for sure, I should tell you about the time she flew me to New York City for ONE night just so I could see Broadway Diva Patti Lupone in concert.
But what I want to tell you is the reason she is wearing the same four outfits in all of our family photos from grade school through high school, the reason she is missing from my pictures of trips to Europe and Israel, the reason I had the best education along with voice and acting lessons, the reason I can laugh in the face of adversity, and the reason I can be out and proud is because my mom, along the way, gave everything she had to teach me what unconditional love means. I came out in November (of course, Thanksgiving) and by June, she was speaking on a panel of professionals for Chapman University’s first ever Gay Pride. Her message? You deserve unconditional love, friends are family too – sometimes even more so. She pushed me through the doors of my first gay club, she convinced me to go to my first GSA, and she convinced me that being gay was another facet of my personality to shine brightly.
Am I bragging? Maybe just a little. But – not all of us have these mothers in our life. During my mom’s volunteer work in the community (everyone calls her Momma Rose) she is constantly hit with stories from the LGBT community (adults and kids alike) of being abandoned physically and emotionally by their family. This is not something people can heal from alone. Trying to avoiding the schmaltz police, we do need to love and be loved. Especially in this current political climate, we all need to “mother” a bit – regardless of gender or age. The verb to mother literally is “to bring up (a child) with care and affection”. In this age of cynicism, viral videos of people attacking each other, and fear of being different – we need to mother our community. I don’t just mean the LGBT or bear community, I mean the community: the elderly, the foreigner, the cat lady living by herself, the ignorant and ill informed, the disabled, the poor – that is our community.
I wouldn’t want you to take tips from my mom on balancing a check book or creating a budget you stick to, and I certainly wouldn’t want you to take cooking tips from her, but her “mothering” tips through example are pretty damn good. A hug, a shared meal, a phone call, opening the door for someone, sticking up for someone, sharing a joke, even just smiling – its all mothering for our community. This Mother’s Day, let’s all be mothers.
My name is Alexander, and I’m a Momma’s Boy.
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