The Voice of the Mother

I’m sitting in a fifth floor hotel room with a balcony overlooking hundreds of little families tucked under blue umbrellas propped up in white sand. They’re all on summer vacation—you know, the kind America dreams about, and the kind most of us never got to take when we were young.

Man has the world changed since I was a kid not taking family beach vacations. Sometimes when I sing, I hear my mother’s singing voice inside my own unique tones. I became friends with Jenny Eddy Jennings a few years back. When she sings, I hear the voice of her mother, Jessi Colter. 

I happened across a Wynonna Judd reel on social media today. She was openly sharing with Dan Rather about the division between her and her mother, the late Naomi Judd, as well as the division with her sister, Ashley. I feel their pain because I have lived that same pain with the women of my equally traumatized, and therefore dysfunctional family. Women need their mothers, and their sisters, and we learn to accept that sometimes that is just not possible down here in this wicked world. My mother lived at a time when women were starting to realize that being a “sex object” was not complimentary the way it was portrayed, and that in fact, it came at the great cost of emotional erosion. Women were drawing the line with divorce right and left.

This week I’ve been writing about women and their various movements throughout history. Barbie the movie came out on the tail end of the Me Too movement. So much of the script was understandable if one considers this cultural context. But, when I saw this film for the first time, I was in a theater by myself. In one of the final scenes, I started to get choked up because I just couldn’t believe she was about to say to Ken what I thought she was going to say. I couldn’t believe the writers were finally going to put it out there. I literally held my breath for a few seconds. Then, she didn’t say it—at all. 

She might as well have said, “You men need to be men, but way over there! And we women, will be women right here.” That is the opposite of how I feel about it. In the film, The Glorias, Ms. Steinem says, "Statistically speaking, home is a more dangerous place for women than the road.” What a sad statement, and while I know this is true for so many women, and used to be true for me for many years, I believe in a different remedy. 

I believe enough men and women want, and are willing to work toward, a true middle ground. One of the most powerful things either gender can do is come to deeply appreciate the differences in the male brain and female brain and remain in awe of how they were designed to work in harmony. I saw The Devil Wears Prada 2 the other night. I never saw the first one, but I felt drawn. 

(Spoiler alert!) Meryl Streep's character realizes she has completely overlooked and devalued a male cohort. She owns it and flips it! Let’s flip it! Let’s start a new movement! Let’s stop writing men into scripts as total idiots and losers! At times, I wondered why any male took a role after reading the Barbie script. Just wow! Let’s honor men’s strengths way more than we currently do. Let’s straighten out that narrative. If the man is a Harvey Weinstein, don't change a thing about the true narrative, but if the man is Stanley Tucci’s or Patrick Brammall’s character in DWP2, let’s honor, honor, honor them. I really appreciate the screenwriters for doing just that in this film.  

Now, back to my mother. Understanding the trauma-based, chronic depression and anxiety, and anything that might have been missing from our relationship, my mother remains my queen. I made a decision a few years ago to honor her to the best of my ability by living a life she would have absolutely rocked had it not been for all the trauma. I believe that among many other things, she would have become a great writer. I don’t speak for her, and she certainly has never agreed with everything I’ve ever said or done, but I do my best to find her wisdom in the memories and let it be carried within the tones of my “voice.”  Every generation is called to improve the future by gleaning from the past. Take a minute to be grateful for the women in your life, and let the characteristics you want to carry forward come to the surface. Hold tight to them. 

Love to all,

Jill