MOTHERING

A Jewish Mother in Iowa

by Fern Kupfer

I met a poet the other day, traveling through on a book tour the way somany writers do - literary migrant workers. Tom Andrews' book wasoddly titled: "The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle." "Hmm," I said. How'd youcome up with this?"

"Well," he said evenly. "I'm a hemophiliac. And when I was younger, Iused to ride a motorcycle."

My reaction was almost involuntary: "My God." I blurted out. "Whatdid your mother say?"

He smiled. "She said, 'I'd really rather you didn't ride.' "

I thought of my own daughter as a bleeder on a bike. "I'd rather youdidn't ride?" More like: "You'll have to run over me and kill mefirst."

"Guess you don't have a Jewish mother," I said.

A Jewish mother. Sure there are the corny stereotypes, butstereotypes come from generalizations that sometimes hold true. Andmothering styles can be really different. Certainly the mothers Iremember from my childhood in the Bronx and Long Island were differentfrom the mothers I have met as an adult in Iowa. (This is confusingbecause it's hard to figure out what's Jewish and what's New York.What's gentile and what's Iowa. Comedian Lenny Bruce used to have aroutine in which he made the distinctions between goyish and Jewish:trailer parks and lime Jell-O are goyish; condos and cream soda areJewish; everyone in the Midwest is gentile, even if they're not;everyone in New York is Jewish, even if they're not. EspeciallyItalians. Italians, he said, are very Jewish.

What are some of the differences? Well, Jewish mothers seem moreinvolved, more intrusive, more everything than their midwestern /gentile counterparts. Take expressivity. Midwestern mothers love theirchildren, but rarely bite their babies' tushies ("So good I could eatyou up!"); nor do midwestern mothers scream across the playground, "Getover here this minute or I'll kill you!"

The mothering style from my childhood was quite dramatic. Iremember my next-door neighbor fighting with her mother and later hermother standing in the doorway of the bedroom, her right hand raised ina pledge: "May God strike me dead, Francine, if I ever do anything nicefor you again! May God just strike me dead!"

I suppose there are some children who are actually able to slip intoa room without their entrance being commented upon - but not anyone Iknew growing up. Jewish mothers have the habit of intensely observingtheir children. A belt improperly looped. A stooped shoulder. Allappearances are fodder for interpretation and advice. A forehead wouldnot be so broken out if bangs were pulled away from a face. Too much sunis dangerous, but a little color couldn't hurt.

As a decidedly New York Jewish mother, I was frequently a source ofembarrassment for my Iowa-born daughter. "Don't make a scene," she wouldsometimes warn in a department store. "Just sit where they put us,"she'd say before we entered a restaurant. Once, I was to speak to hersixth-grade class about being a writer. "You can be funny," she told me."But not too funny."

"Thanks for the advice, Mom." That's how my daughter usually handlesme with good-natured aplomb. Sometimes she takes my advice -- becauseshe actually thinks my ideas are good. Like right now she's living inChicago in an apartment as sparsely furnished as a monk's cell. Shewants to be able to travel light. Because next year she'll probably goto law school. Her boyfriend wants to go into the Peace Corps. "He needsto own so much stuff?" she asks. "Who needs to live so uncomfortably fora whole year, sitting on pillows on a wooden floor?" I ask. (The floralloveseat I bought at Pier One looks very cute by the window.)

What's the effect of a more midwestern mothering style? Well, thecollege students I teach here are remarkably humble. Usually they arequiet in class. They may be smart, but it takes a while to figure it outbecause they are hardly ever showy. Probably their mothers had warnedthem as children: Don't think of yourself as special. Don't stick out.Garrison Keillor had it right describing the children of Lake Wobegon.Good citizens. They are above average. Though sometimes a little dull.

"You are the special one," Jewish mothers murmur to their children."Look at you! Look at this baby! Look at you!" Jewish mothers call totheir babies through the gritted teeth of intense love. Having been inthe spotlight so prominently all through childhood, no wonder there areso many Jews in show business.

My daughter is a midwesterner, but she was brought up by a motherwhose parenting style was genetically determined by women from Bialystokto the Bronx to Boca Raton. Women whose advice and opinions had thesignificance of Supreme Court decisions. Women who believed inaggressive nurturing.

You can criticize this kind of mothering, I suppose. God knows,people do. But as mothers, we are certainly there. We have strong valuesand views about the way the world ought to be and our children alwaysknow what we think. And one thing we think is that nobody at all has anybusiness being on a motorcycle. Let alone a hemophiliac.

Fern Kupfer is a novelist and writing professor at Iowa State University. She is a frequent contributor to Working Moms' Internet Refuge.

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