Posted 10/23/2007

WHO IS YOUR MOTHER?

When Billie Jean Hardesty's dad died last year, she really grieved, because Billie Jean was the original "daddy's girl."

But eight months later she went from grief to shock, then outrage.

In a letter, her mother informed her that she had remarried. He was an old friend she had known since high school, or so the story went.

"How could my mother do such a thing?" Billie Jean wailed. "How could she be so disloyal to my dad? My own mother never even asked me! I don't think I can ever forgive her."

Billie Jean carried on for quite a while, even after talking with her mother on the phone.

Alone one night, Billie Jean asked herself the killer question: "Did I really ever know my mother?"

Did she?

Probably not.

Billie Jean made the mistake all children make about their parents: They confuse parenting with identity.

Mary Alice Hardesty's identity was not "Billie Jean's mother."

In reality, Mary Alice was an attractive, warm, loving woman. A woman who loved being married. A woman who needed a man.

Being a woman was her identity.

Being a mother was just her occupation.

Unfortunately, most children never really see the true identity of their mothers – and fathers, for that matter. The use of the word "my mother" imparts a sense of possessiveness that blinds children to true identity of their mother.

The movie The Bridges of Madison County tells the story of two siblings who never really saw their mother (played by Meryl Streep) as a woman ... let alone as a woman who had a lusty sense of adventure. She had suppressed that part of her identity when she chose to marry a farmer and live a dull, decent life on an Iowa farm.

When National Geographic photojournalist Clint Eastwood stopped by asking for directions, her passionate nature resurfaced for four exquisite days. The two fell in love almost instantly. Although Clint offered to take Meryl away, she refused, professing loyalty to her family. They never saw each other again. They died years later, continents apart.

Knowing nothing about those four days, her grown children were shocked to read about the affair when they discovered her letters and diary after her death. The movie's storyline shows their slow and painstaking progression, from shock and anger to respect and understanding.

It is motion picture that all sons and daughters should see. And from that movie they should begin to look at their parents as women and men – and not as mothers and fathers.

It would likely take a lot of the tension out of family gatherings.

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