My Mother the Socializer

In the womb my mother expected me to be nothing less than what every mother expects from their child. She envisioned me as an adorable angel that was the greatest gift life could ever give her. As for the values and lessons she expected to teach me to shape me into who she wanted me to be, that was a much longer list. My mother wished me to be kind, compassionate, and considerate. Over the years she has taught me to be open minded, authentic and respectful. She has tried for years to drill into my head the mediocrity is not a goal it is stepping stone as a push the envelope and work for all my goals. Most of the these have been entered into my life from such a young age I feel as if they are a part of me. But, there are many lessons she continues to teach that still haven't quite caught on yet such as being thorough (a word a have come to abhor due to her application of it in every situation possible), being a better planner, and biggest of all not procrastinating. I haven't mastered any of these to say the least, but I continue to be reminded of them. My family is not as tight as other families may be. We don't have a lot of large traditions but rather small ones that are so integrated into our lives we barely even notice them anymore. My parents and I always have to hold hands on take off and landing. And at landing, my mom and I always try and look out the window of the plane, gauge the time, and count down to see how close we are to when the plane actually touches down. Other traditions like going to temple during the high holidays and breaking the fast of Yom Kippur are less traditions, at least in my mind, and are more of obligations, yet my mother sees continuing judaism as a tradition, probably the most important. As for my personality, I was reminded that as a child I used to say, "I have my dad's body and my mom's attitude" meaning, though my metabolism wasn't as quick as it should have been, I made up for it with my exuberant personality. My mother passed on her need to be in control and impulsiveness to me, though if I had to pick, I would have wanted her ability to never be embarrassed. And from my dad, I got my AWFUL sense of humor, a small puns sets me laughing for a good while, and his uncanny ability to reign in emotions and become calm in a matter of seconds. What my mom describes as an unhealthy suppression of emotion, I would describe as a strength in the way that I don't tend to be extremely angry about things. Throughout this interview, I didn't seem to learn anything I didn't already know about my mother and my socialization. For every situation my mother has a lesson and for every event my mother can tie it back to judaism, so forgetting about what socialized me is like asking a child to think about nothing, difficult and next to impossible.