Generations of Moms and Dads

All week I have been working on a photo book to give my grandpa for his 80th birthday. As I have looked through old pictures I have thought a lot about parents, children and aging, as well as my own relationship with my grandparents. I've realized that wanting to be a mom is not just about having a baby, it's about the lasting legacy that is created through family. If I never become a mother I also never get to be a grandma. My mind has been on babies and my childhood all week! I love seeing my wise old grandparents as young inexperienced parents and wondering what that was like for them. I am sure they made many of the same mistakes that I will make with my own children someday.

Looking through pictures from 80 years of my grandfather's life has made me realize just how big it all is: when Grandpa Bill was born, his mom and dad became parents, then he and my grandmother had my dad and they became parents, then my dad and mom had me and they became parents. Now I look forward to the day that a baby comes to me and Ryan making us parents also. So many families grow out of one family.

Grandpa (back row second from left) with his wife, brother and sister-in-law (far left), 2 kids, 3 granddaughters (and our husbands) and 4 great-grandchildren (this picture is only missing 2 grandchildren and 1 great-grandson)

My paternal grandmother passed away at the young age of 42 (in 1980), two years before I was born. As a result she has always been ageless to me. I was named after her so I have always felt a bit of a connection to her and been very curious about who she was and what she was like. In my mind she will always be a 20-40-year-old mother. I cannot imagine her any older. She will always be young and beautiful. In my head I probably make her out to be more perfect than she actually was because I have only seen proof of the good times...nobody takes pictures of the bad times.

Through pictures I see my Grandma Charlotte experience things I hope to experience one day: things like feeding her baby a bottle, propping her baby up for a picture, teaching her toddler to walk, celebrating her child's birthday or posing with her children for a picture. When I see these photos, I imagine what was going on and being said as pictures were taken, and I always imagine my Grandma Charlotte or Grandpa Bill behind the camera trying to get their small child to smile as they take a picture to preserve a memory. Looking through these old photos makes me sad in a way because when I see those pictures of my grandmother as a new mother it makes me long to be a mother myself even more. 

My grandparents with my aunt and dad (who is the baby in the top pictures)

It is so strange to look at pictures of my grandparents with my own parents as children and think that they were younger in those photos than I am now. In fact, by the time my grandparents were my age, my parents were about 10-years-old. When I think about that my age starts to bother me. I will always be at least 10 years older than my grandparents were when they first experienced the joy of becoming a parent and grandparent and all of the experiences in between. I don't want to be an old mom and I'm getting closer to it every day. I am about the same age now as my own mother was when she gave birth to my youngest sister.

I always add 18 years to my age and think if I were to have a baby now that is how old I will be when my child is grown. My mom was 50 when my youngest sister turned 18 and that seems like a good age. I know people have children later now than they did in generations past (except for in Utah), but I want to live to see my own grandchildren and great grandchildren. If I have a baby at 35 and that child has their own baby at 30, I will likely be dead by the time my grandchildren are the age I am now! In other words, my children and grandchildren will need to be young parents if I ever want to be a great-grandmother. (I know...someone please get me to stop thinking these depressing thoughts! See how my thoughts run away if I let them?)

Another thought I had looking through old pictures (on a happier note), is that I had a really great childhood and I miss being a kid sometimes (thank you mom and dad)! I look back at pictures of the things my family did together growing up and I can't wait to share in some of those same types of experiences with my own children. Part of me is excited to raise kids because I think parents get to kind of relive their childhoods through their kids. 

In an acting class in college I learned about something called the "Mirror Neuron Theory." The Mirror Neuron Theory is basically an explanation for empathy: we get emotional watching other people or even movies or sports because mirror neurons in our brain fire when we see others experience things we have experienced and feel things we have felt causing us to mirror their emotions. Applying this to raising kids I really think that it is fun to watch kids experience things we remember having fun doing because it causes us to feel that excitement as memories of our own experiences come flooding back. Things like fireworks, carnival rides, summer rain, sledding, jumping in leaves, visiting grandma, learning how to ride a bike and waking up my birthday and Christmas morning are all good memories (I wish I had pictures of all of them) and things I cannot wait to watch my own children experience. I even have favorite movies that I am excited for me and Ryan to one day watch with our own children.

4 Generations, Climbing a tree, Morning of my 4th Birthday, Christmas, Disneyland, With Grandma and my cousin

With all this thinking about grandparents, I decided to call my grandma (Mom's mom) today. I asked her what one of her favorite memories of being a mom was. She said that she had 4 daughters, so she had to go through the same things more than once because they all influenced each other. She started straight into a story about my mom. My mom was the oldest child in her family and like my grandma when she was young, my mom was a little shy around people. One day my grandma had a church function to attend. My grandpa was busy at another function so my grandma decided to take my mom with her.

Every time someone walked in the room they would see my mom, a cute little 4-1/2 year old off to the side, and go over to say hi to her. She would get shy and run back to my grandma. This one boy who knew who she was had also come with his mom and he walked up to my mom to say hi. She was sitting on the floor and stood up when he came over. Grandma saw them talking and thought she'd just leave her alone since she looked happy.

After 3 or 4 minutes he said he had to go because he had a brother he was supposed to be watching over. She came running back to my grandma with a big smile on her face and said, "Mama, Mama! Guess what? I was talking to a big boy and he was really nice to me! He talked to me and he didn't make fun of me." She also said that he told her she was so pretty and he wished he could have a little sister like her, but he only had brothers. She thought he was the most wonderful boy she ever met. She thought it was so neat he stopped to talk to her because he was so much older than her.  My grandma said for months after that my mom would get this funny smile on her face before she would say his name. 

At the end of the story my grandma said, "She was a very timid little girl. Every one of my girls went through a shy faze in their own way." This story was just one example she could think of where she watched one of her four daughters come out of her shell a little. Something else she said about the story struck me: she said that she didn't know if my mom even remembered that, but she would never forget how excited my mom was about this little boy who was like her first crush. I look forward to experiencing moments like that. As much as I remember about my childhood, there are so many things that I was too young to remember. I am sure my own mother has some treasured memories about my infant and toddler years that I don't even know about. I want to make memories like that with my own children and be able to see them accomplish so many of their own "firsts."

Another memory my grandma told me about was of my mom when she was very first born. My grandma did not have a hard time getting pregnant, but she had a hard time staying pregnant. Before my mom she had four miscarriages, then after my mom she had four more then one more between two of my aunts. A couple of those losses were actually babies born so early that they just did not survive. One lived for a few minutes and was so tiny that the infant fit in my grandma's hand.

My mom was also born very premature. She was so early and so small that the doctor told my grandma she would not live. At just 20 years old, my grandma had such strong faith in God that she just knew that this baby was meant to live. She was able to receive a blessing by a general authority who was in Salt Lake for LDS General Conference (they lived in Provo at the time). She said it was a wonderful blessing and she doesn't remember all of it, but she does remember he said that this baby (my mom) would live and she would have a good spiritual time here on earth growing up and having her own family (which she did, and I am here because of it). My grandma said to me, "I clung to that with every fiber of my being. I knew she would live and that God would help me. I felt the spirit with me, that God was taking over and that she would live. After that prayer was given there was not one more problem with her."

Grandma had a blessing every time she got pregnant because she was afraid if she didn't her babies wouldn't live. "I never did just get them. I had to fight for them," she said of her babies. Nearly 23 years after her first baby was born, her fourth baby was born: my aunt Lanna. Grandma said she knew after Lanna came that she was the last one. 

My mom as a baby (top row) and proud big sister. Bottom right: grandma and grandpa with their 4 girls.

I see my own mother fear the day her mother passes. I am scared for her because I don't know what I would do without my own mom and I can only imagine how hard it will be to lose her someday. For my mom's youngest sister I just think how overwhelming it must feel to her to be in her mid-thirties and already thinking about her mother passing away due to old age. Losing my grandfather (mom's dad) this past February made me realize how precious time with grandparents is and how much we need our parents still even when we are all grown up. I really want to be there for my kids as long as I can.

Sometimes I look at my dad and his little sister and I feel sad for them. They don't have their mother and I know they miss her. Despite her flaws my grandmother was a good mom and I know by the kind of parents my dad and aunt are to me, my sisters and my cousins that she raised them well. I love seeing my dad and aunt interact and seeing the sibling bond (and rivalry...no one can give my dad crap like my aunt!) Some of their stories and the way they talk to each other remind me of stories of Ryan and his sister growing up. I want so badly to have babies of my own and watch them interact and play and fight and then grow up to be friends. I want to see the people they grow into and the parents they become as they create families for themselves.

I am constantly amazed by my two younger sisters in their roles as mothers in the families they have created. Lately I have been so impressed with my baby sister. She was never the babysitting type and was sometimes a little impatient with kids, but she is such a good mother. I love watching her interact with her little 2-year-old daughter and come running when her new baby boy cries. She has grown up so much in the last few years since becoming a mom and I am so proud of her.

My baby sister all grown up with babies of her own!

I want Ryan and I to be able to have our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren over to celebrate our 80th birthdays (or maybe 90th if we're talking great-grandchildren) someday. Seeing my grandpa at his party with his little brother, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren made me realize just how much one man can mean to so many. He is the reason most of us at the party were even born in the first place and all of us have looked up to him. It has been so amazing to look back and see what one person can accomplish in their life.

Family is so important and it is through our children that family continues and grows. Not only do I want the experience of raising kids, but I also want to create a legacy to leave behind. I want my grandchildren to remember their own Grandma Charlotte and look back fondly on memories after I'm gone. I want to help grow my family and pass on my own family's values and traditions mixed with those of Ryan's family to create the perfect blend of both families for our children to pass down as their own. Families really do live on through children.