Happy Birthday Mandy

Today my oldest daughter turns 17. What a journey we have had. She was born when I was 21 years old and probably about 14 in maturity. Having a baby changed me forever. Everyone told me I should have an abortion or give her up for adoption because I was unmarried and extremely poor. Having been adopted I knew that was not the right path for Amanda and I. The nay sayers got up my dander and I worked very hard to be the best mom I could be.

During Mandy's early years most people would tell me that she and I were too close. It is funny how perfect strangers and acquaintances, family and friends feel the need to advise a young mother on exactly how close she should be with her daughter. I wish that I could gather them all up in a room, introduce them to my 17 year old daughter and stick out my tongue at each and every person whose personal commentary about my ability to be a mother and my ability to make decisions hurt me deeply over the years. Perhaps I should be satisfied to know that none of their children turned out half as good.

Over the years I have discovered that Mandy is Mandy, not because of my parenting choices but because of her choices. I hope that I have given her the opportunity to feel loved. To build up her confidence when she was feeling low. To redirect her when she got of course. But, it wasn't really me and my choices it was her. She is successful and happy because she has worked hard in school, said no to bad ideas, and been good to herself. But, being too close with her all these years has thus far not harmed her. (still wanting to stick out my tongue).

I have also learned over the years that it is only in America that mothers are berated for their choices. It is our culture to spew hate toward mothers. Even in China and Japan mothers are not blamed or hated berated or criticized for their every choice. Here I swear every person you encounter feels it is important to point out the potential pitfalls in the choices a mother makes regarding her children. I think it is the fact that we have so many choices, or it seems we have choices, but really if you think about it we have fewer choices. In other countries of one religion and one parenting philosophy no one feels the need to pick apart mothers and bully them into raising kids the way they feel the mother should. Because everyone does it basically the same, the need to bully moms does not exist. Because mothers have choices here the need to force mothers into making the choices you feel are important in raising kids becomes the national pastime. Or is it just me, do you all get commentary from family and friends, strangers and acquaintances about your parenting choices?

Back to Mandy, over the last few months we have become close again. Our time in Japan Mandy was 12-16 and Lily was born. While we lived in the same house we were not always a real part of each others lives. A new baby, teenage angst, there were reasons but for the first time Mandy and I were not close. Now I can say that our closeness has returned finally. I feel like jumping for joy. Anyone who has a preteen or early teen take heart. Perhaps it is a momentary lapse in her disdain for me, but I will take what I can get. Mandy has been incredibly sweet and supportive of me of late. She goes out of her way to be thoughtful to all of us. I do not know where she finds the time.

I actually named her Mandy because of the Barry Manillow song. I was vacuuming and listening to my Barry Manillow greatest hits cassette tape and thought, hey that is a great name. At the time I did not know anyone else named Amanda. Imagine my surprise her first day of kindergarten when half of the class was name Amanda. I never actually called her Mandy until we moved to Italy and she requested that we start calling her Mandy. That was a difficult thing for me to wrap my head around. I took Amanda to her first concert when she was 9 years old, Barry Manillow of course. We had a blast. I felt bad subjecting her to my dorkiness and promptly took her to a Ricky Martin concert to make up for getting her so excited about Barry. It was at the height of the Ricky Martin phenomena and boy was that a blast. Now I am not sure which concert was more dorky?

Happy Birthday Amanda, I hope we are always this close.