My Poor Mother

*Originally written by Jay Skeen who quit us.

I was 12 lbs when I was born. My mom did not get a C section, but she does have the body frame of an Amazon so that helped. But there’s no doubt that before I was even born, I was difficult. At six months pregnant she looked like she could go into labor any minute. Well the day finally came, and my hungry ass never let my poor mother have a peaceful moment. I ate more than any of the nurses in the hospital had ever seen a newborn eat. It got to the point that they cut me off. “He can’t eat anymore” they told my mom. My grandma likes to call that story “red flag #1”. According to her, nurses from other floors came up to marvel at me like I was a zoo animal. My dad should have charged $1 a head.

I was an evil little bastard of a child. So much so that when I was a toddler my mom almost gave up. One day she called my grandmother from a parking lot outside of the school she was teaching at, sobbing and claiming she could not go home to me, and that I had broken her. Bear in mind my mom taught 1st grade at this point; I alone did more damage to my mom than 25 six-year-olds. Eventually my grandmother talked my mom down, but not too long after that, me, mom and dad all went to counseling sessions so that they could learn how to raise me, because spanking me and using time out wasn’t working. I got spanked so often my ass is like leather these days. My parents didn’t give in though. They would spank me anywhere, anytime. My mom carried a wooden spoon with her in her purse that she wouldn’t hesitate to use. Church, the middle of the grocery store, school, anywhere.

I had a million babysitters growing up. Not because my parents were always gone, but because I was such an ornery little shit that most of them only came the one time. When my parents got home they would run through the lawn yelling at my parents to never call them again. And that’s exactly why Selah’s child population is low right now.

When I was about five, there was still a grocery store called Food Pavilion in Yakima, right next to Target. Just inside the entrance there was a small video rental store. My parents always went grocery shopping on the weekends, and they pretty much always rented a movie for me too. Anything to keep me occupied for two hours. But one day we went on a weekday, more specifically a school night, so this time I couldn’t get a movie. And I was pissed off. I yelled, kicked, and screamed all the way through the parking lot while my father dragged me to the car. About five feet from the car I shook my arm out of my father’s grasp, turned to both my parents and screamed, “YOU BASTARDS,” as loud as I could. Parking lot full of people all staring, thinking “Did that little kid just say ‘bastards’?”

When I was about seven I got kicked out of my daycare center… I terrorized those poor women too. Just about every day I had every supervisor in that building chasing me through the whole place like I was some sort of escapee. I kicked walls, got in fights, broke shit, until finally they hired a male supervisor whose only job was to put me in a cradle. Most of the women who worked there still give me a wary eye when they see me today. This still makes my dad chuckle.

I’m not an only child, and I’m not the only one of my mom’s children who gave her a hard time. My brother was almost as bad as I was behavior wise, and my sister was too much like my mom for them to be very close until my sister grew up.

I was a poor student growing up. I was terrible at math, and my poor mom, being the loving person that she is, stayed up for many a late night trying to get me to understand it, which often resulted in shouting matches, tears and other ugly incidents. But my mom never gave up on me. To this day she believes in me and supports me, and that’s why moms are great. I’m not the only one who’s given their mom a reason to completely give up on or resent them. And if moms did give up on some of us, would any of us really blame them? But moms don’t do that. Moms never stop loving you. And for that I love my mom more than anybody. 

I think flowers are a dumb gift. I don’t give them to anybody for anything. Except Mom. Mom gets flowers every Mother’s day. Because she’s Mom. It’s something that can’t be explained but everybody understands it. I know people get it because employee moms eat half off at [ the pub ]. Why? Because they’re moms. Period. That’s all that needs to be said.