The Raised and the Unraised

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The Raised and the Unraised. Mothers are presented in popular culture either as sentimentalized, often overprotective paragons or bitchy busybodies, rarely as the highly talented, results-oriented specialists they are when they are successful.

Scripted TV has lately taken to presenting fully grown women posing as “Girls,” the “New Girl,” and “Two Broke Girls.” It’s no wonder effective mothers, all of whom are clearly women, are so little noted.

My wife Maida is a hugely successful mother of four adult children. What she did was raise them. To understand that, observe the grown-ups around you (including those fictional TV “girls” for whom motherhood would be an unmitigated disaster). Many are simply unraised. Not poorly raised or dysfunctionally raised. Unraised.

First, they were unnurtured. No one looked out personally for their safety and overall well-being at each stage of their youthful development. They are now hard, self-centered, sarcastic, cynical, and ungiving. Kindness is for suckers, and you better grab all you can while you can. That’s how you turn out when you think nobody’s got your back.

Second, they were unvalued. No one told them their talents and personality made them special, made them full of exciting potential, made them unique contributors to a lush and wondrous world. They are now clinically depressed, eating-disordered, phobia-ridden nine-to-fivers whose burning issues involve the fortunes of DeSean Jackson of the Eagles, Honey Boo Boo on TLC, and their Facebook Newsfeed.

Finally, they were unchallenged. No one withheld any material gratification, demanded any accomplishment, structured any activities likely to showcase their emerging discipline, teamwork, or critical thought. They are now angry, unfocused losers, incapable of imagining a life imbued with purpose, and so they never test their mettle, never chase their dreams, never choose a path on which to grow.

Maida is a truly splendid mother. She nurtured, valued, and challenged her four children. It was enormously time-consuming, energy-draining, largely thankless work, for our culture doesn’t even know how to recognize the great mothers in our midst. You know their kids, though. They’re the ones who were raised.

They graduate high school and move on determinedly to college or other schooling, fiercely seeking the knowledge and competencies they’ll need to contribute to the 21^st century jobs in the real world. It takes years, and it takes discipline over those years. There is no substitute for targeted education, training, and preparation. People without that equipment simply will not find decent employment.

All our kids went on to higher education, masters level and above. The same with those they married. And if one of our children had decided to seek a career in construction, plumbing, theater, or landscaping, Maida would have steered them to the essential post secondary education, training, and apprenticeships that would prepare them to be the best and most employable in those fields. No short cuts; no easy money.

And they would have done it, because they were raised! Instilled in them were the self-confidence, the discipline, the work ethic, the patience, and the motivation to turn themselves into adults capable of functioning well, earning well, and, most important, living well in a world that rarely forgives lack of preparation and drive.

Watching my children’s Mom guide them, day by day and year by year, toward responsible and caring adulthood has been an awesome unfolding. If you pointed out to her everything that I’ve written here, she would stop and think a moment. Then she would shrug and say, “OK, but I only did what any mother should do.”

She would be right, too. Every mother should raise her children, as Maida raised hers. Perhaps, if every mother saw the fruits of all those years of dedicated raising, every mother eventually would raise their kids.

As a father, I’ve tried to participate in this astonishing process of raising. Perhaps I too have met some success in that department. Of course, I have been privileged to learn from the best.