Profile of a Matriarch: “Are you having fun yet, Mom?”
by Liz
Flaherty
In our family, on both
sides, the matriarch gets stuck with cleaning the turkey carcass
after it’s been ravaged by the hungry hordes. She gets to stand
at the counter with greasy fingers loading bits of white meat
and lots of dark meat onto a platter. While she does so, people
will walk past and steal the meat, saying asinine things like,
“Are you having fun yet, Mom?” Her nose will itch as she works
and everyone will want something from the cupboard she’s standing
in front of. This isn’t a job she cherishes, but she has to do
it because it’s how she pays for special privileges available
only to her.
Such as not having
to do the dishes. My mother used to disappear into the bathroom
as soon as hot water started running into the sink and we wouldn’t
see her again until the last dry fork had been put away. The little
kids would see her on their wild runs through the house, but it
was understood that she was hiding, so they didn’t tell anyone
where she was and no one really looked for her.
And such as being the
only one who knows how to make turkey gravy so that it’s not only
edible but doesn’t look like school paste. A couple of years ago,
my mother-in-law made use of call waiting by instructing my sister-in-law
and me in the art at the same time. It’s always such fun knowing
more than other people. My gravy that year was edible and didn’t
look like paste, but you had to cut it out of the bowl in slices,
and Lynn’s “looked funny,” so Mom’s knowledge remained hers alone.
And, even though the
matriarch slithers the fat cylinder of cranberry sauce out of
the can and encouraged everyone to “just try a little,” no one
makes her eat it.
When anyone leaves
the matriarch’s house, they take the leftovers of green bean casserole,
scalloped potatoes, and some kind of salad. She doesn’t have to
deal with pushing them out of the way in her refrigerator until
they’re thrown away a week later or whenever mold sets in, whichever
comes first.
The matriarch is often
the grandmother, which means she gets all the kisses and hugs
and giggles while the mother gets the screaming when the kid’s
too tired to walk but doesn’t want to take a nap in on the bed
where all the coats are. He will, however, lie down quietly with
his grandmother — at least for the five minutes it take for her
to fall asleep and for him to climb off the bed and go play in
the toilet.
While visiting the
matriarch at any other time of the year might be a responsibility
— “I know we need to go, but everybody’s so busy right now. Why
can’t she come here? ”— on holidays, it becomes a pleasure. So
everyone fights to do it. “We went to your mother’s last year
— it’s my mother’s turn.” And while the matriarch urges her children
to give equal time to their in-laws, or says it’s wonderful if
they want to establish their own traditions for the holidays,
she’s also throwing her fist into the air and shouting, “Yes!”
when she finds out everyone’s coming home. (It must be added here
that she reacts in the same way when everyone leaves, taking the
grandchildren and the leftovers with them.)
In the grandmotherly
scheme of things, there’s no privilege quite like the one of having
everyone together under her roof again. It’s especially good if
everyone lets her boss them around, the daughters and daughters-in-law
moan that they’ll never be able to cook as well as she does, and
the sons and sons-in-law tell her she looks much too young to
be a grandmother. (And I don’t care if she looks like Medusa;
she’ll like that one.)
This year, two of my
kids and their families came for Easter.
My gravy was delicious
— I poured it out of a jar — and I don’t do cranberry sauce even
at Thanksgiving. I got to listen to everyone say how good the
food was. (If they didn’t offer the information, I asked.) I spent
all kinds of quality time with my grandkids. I hid in the bathroom
while my daughter and daughter-in-law did the dishes and no one
gave away my location.
And, in my mother-in-law’s
absence, I was matriarch for the day and had to clean the turkey
carcass. It was a small price to pay.
Married for thirty-some years to Duane, her own personal hero, and mother of three and grandmother of six, Liz Flaherty has written a column from her Window Over the Sink off and on for over ten years. She hopes you enjoy her essays. You can email her at lflaherty@comteck.com
