Ethnography

All mother daughter relationships are not the same. Some consist of going to the most extreme as being best friends and as low as to not speaking to one another unless absolutely necessary.  A mother should be the one whom you should be able to approach with everything and that person that you can confide the most in. Mothers are looked at as to provide that sense of security and any other desirable attachment you need to have with a person. When that feeling of acceptance and love is not there who do you turn to? In my personal life, my mother is my absolute savior.

            Ever since a young age my mother’s face was my light at the end of the tunnel. For the first few years of my life I had always have a set of parents like every so called “American Family” had. A father and a mother who I thought were the happiest I had known and would be together forever. That illusion in my mind suddenly ended one morning. Standing there as a seven year old vulnerable child I watched as my father gathered a few belongings and left that day. What I thought had been perfect was actually catastrophe in the making.

            I remember I used to ask myself, was it me? Was there something that I could have done differently to make him stay? To make them not argue? But no answers made sense to why it would still result in him leaving. Being young I always thought you needed both parents to be a family and to be happy and loved. I soon learned that wasn’t the case. It was as if my mother had become mommy and daddy and as I got older it became hard to think that I ever really needed both parents to make a family, to feel like a family.

            My whole life I have respected any parent out there that are single parents. My mother had shown me that you did not need to have both parents to make it and to be a family. She had enough love and reassurance as if she were two people. Although she may have not been able to fill that void that I had been missing for a short while in my life, she did fulfill every possible duty that a mother or father could accomplish single handedly.

            She is always dressed professionally to fit her job prescription as a supervisor for an insurance company. I always know when she is around by the clicking of those five inch heels, which I always wondered how she mastered. She holds a strong serious personality but a laid back self when fits appropriate. She is never one to flash it up with accessories or any kind of flashy makeup to cover her natural glow. The term natural beauty always seemed to apply in my eyes when I look at her.

            The iPhone 4s has recently become my mother’s no addiction. It is like as if she just became 16 years old all over again with all her games, music, and etc. She is always “with it” when it comes to the newest thing in young kids lives. I think she stays with it to know what I am up to honestly. But to me it just proves that she cares enough to know what is going on in my life and to be a part of that. My mother is and has always been the rock. Friends and family have always felt comfortable to come to her with whatever they may have needed her for. She seems to always know what to say, how to make things better, and to make you see things differently and better.

            In my household it is my mother, my younger sister, I, and my recently adopted godson who is now legally my brother. To my mother we three are all that matters. To her every day is about us and what we need. She is selfless and never thinks of herself before anyone in her family. She is the typical Portuguese mother. Does all the running around all day, comes home does what needs to be taken care of at home, and still manages to have dinner made every night. She loves to cook and I know she takes pride in it, which is a good thing for the people enjoying it.

            Watching how strong my mother has been my whole life has shown me that sometimes you need bad things in life to only make you stronger and that’s how you figure out what kind of person you really are.

to be continued: