Thoughts on My Mother, on Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are mothers! I don't have any human children, but I do have two beautiful dogs--one of which I got on mother's day in 2004!--so I am claiming the day for all of us with pets we treat like children! ;)

In honor of the day, I'd like to state, for the record, that I think I have the world's best mother! She's always been there for me, and worked extremely hard to give me the chance to take all the opportunities that came my way. My father passed away when I was 11, so my mother was forced into being a single parent against her will. She ran her own small-but-successful health food store to support us, and only just retired last year, at the age of 75! She's a compassionate, kind, and giving person and I'm grateful that she is my mother.

One of the things that I really appreciate about my mother is that she always encouraged me to be an individual and to follow my dreams. There are many forces in this world that push us into being the same. However, my mother raised me to be independent, spirited, and individualistic, and never challenged my benign choices. Her philosophy as a parent was, "allow your child to do what she want as long as it does not hurt her or others." I think it was a great method. My mother trusted me to make the right choices, and, as a consequence, I think I did pretty well. When I was growing up, I knew a lot of people whose parents treated them like they were untrustworthy criminals, and wanted them to merely be mirrors of their own image, rather than allowing their children to grow into their own people. By focusing on the negative, those parents often ended up with children making negative choices. I am so grateful that my mother always allowed me to be myself, focused on the positive, and allowed me to make my own decisions about life. I definitely have benefitted from her sage parenting.

Here is a photo I took of her in late 2007:


My Mother (2007)
Camera: Polaroid Sx-70
Film: Polaroid Time-Zero

And I've written a couple of other posts about my mother here and here.

And, if you're inclined, please check out my mother's crochet shop for Blythe!

Happy Mother's Day!

More photos of my mother and her childhood doll

Awhile back, I wrote an entry about my mother and her childhood doll. Finally, I've developed some of the Holga photos that I shot on the same day that I shot the Polaroids in that entry. I love the qualities of these photos. I hope you will, too.







Versions of My Mother and Her Doll (Christmas 2007)
Camera: Holga CFN
Film: Classic Pan 400

My mother's doll

My mother received a doll from Santa on Christmas Day, 1938. She was five years old, and the doll was an Ideal Mama-Papa doll. My mother has kept this doll, although the original clothes have long gone away. She loves it, and speaks so fondly of that morning when she first laid eyes on her. On Christmas 2007, I decided to take photos of my mother with her doll, because she doesn't have a photo of herself first playing with the doll coming on seventy years ago. My mother is seventy four in this photo; her doll is sixty nine, and wearing a too-big dress that my mother picked up somewhere, to tide her over until we get some proper clothes made up for her.



And here is my mother's doll, posing for her own portrait:



Both of these photos were taken using my Polaroid sx-70 camera and Time-Zero film (expired). I think it's important to have tokens of our lives, little objects that remind us of our loved ones, special moments, and continuity despite change. I love both of these photos. In the first one, you can see that glint of child-like joy in my mother's eyes. In the second, you can see the traces of play on a well-loved doll, adored by a midwestern girl living through the Depression.