B00AEDDPVE EBOK (25 page)

A couple of days later, after I had wallowed in my shame and wondered if anyone would ever trust me again, my mother brought out a journal in which she had written down a story her own mother had told her. It was an incident that happened when my grandmother was about five years old. This is how it was written on my mother’s journal page:

“I had a little trunk when I was a little girl. We had a cupboard close to the table where we kept our glass dishes. I was cleaning it out one day and discovered a dime on the top of the shelf. I thought it had been there for a long time so I took it and put it in my little trunk. One day my mother said, ‘Bill, did you take that dime?’ ‘No,’ he replied. Then she turned to me and said, ‘Vera,’ and I knew I was doomed. She said, ‘Vera, that dime was for a little boy who was running an errand for me.’ I confessed I had taken it and bought some penny candy at the post office, then put it in my trunk. I had eaten it all myself because I didn’t want anyone to know where I got it. I didn’t enjoy the candy, and I didn’t enjoy the thought of being a ‘thief’ either. When I explained to Mother what I had done, she said, ‘Vera, don’t you ever take anything that doesn’t belong to you. Your black eyes will always give you away.’ To
this day I have never wanted anything that belonged to someone else
.”

(My great-grandmother was talking about the color of my grandmother’s eyes. My mother inherited the same color eyes, and I did as well, though I always called mine “chocolate.” It seemed less intense.)

I’ve always been in awe of the way my parents were able to teach us lessons individually, depending on what level of understanding we were at. Every one of my brothers has a personal story of how Mother was able to give them a good moral education, with some type of parable or metaphor, without ever being patronizing or humiliating. My mother’s favorite animal character was always an owl. She used it as the logo on the stationery for her business, a small publishing company called Knowledge Unlimited, with the scriptural reference of “Oh, Be Wise.” One of the owl’s greatest attributes is that it can see small things happening, even in the dark of night.

The same was true of my mother. She could recognize any emotional storm that was clouding our perspectives because of unwise choices we had made, even the smallest indiscretion. Mothers all have some level of intuition, but the wisdom of my mother was that she refined hers. She worked her intuition like a muscle, never dismissing its importance in being a good parent.

I, on the other hand, have had to learn to develop my intuition by giving myself space and time to listen to it. I have had a hard time in the past balancing the ability to constantly pay
attention with being able to have fun with my kids. About twelve years ago, we were in Orlando for the Children’s Miracle Network Celebration. After we wrapped up the event, I decided to take the kids to Disney World for the day before we flew back to Utah.

Brandon and Brianna were still toddlers, so I pushed along a double stroller and stood by as the older kids all rode the rides together. Late in the afternoon, I told each of the kids that they could pick out one souvenir from a gift store before we left for the hotel. As Jessica, Rachael, and Mike were all showing me different styles of hats, watches, T-shirts, and fun pajamas, little did I know that the two babies were filling the basket underneath their stroller with anything that caught their eye at my knee level. Before we checked out, I pushed the stroller to the stuffed-toy section and let them each pick out one toy. Imagine my surprise when the security guard stopped me at the door and said, “Ms. Osmond, you’ll also have to pay for all the product in the stroller.” I bent down to look under the stroller at a basket almost full of key chains, bracelets, pens, luggage tags and small toys. A small crowd started to gather as they realized who it was the guard had stopped at the door. Some people started to shake their heads. I couldn’t believe it.

It sounds unconvincing that I hadn’t noticed my toddlers putting about twenty-five items in the stroller, but that’s exactly what happened. Of course, I replaced all the items on their hooks, all the while feeling somewhat embarrassed and, I have to admit, somewhat amused. Sure, I thought, I take one tiny elephant in my foray into criminal activity, but not my
kids. They wipe out the inventory! Good thing Twitter and Facebook weren’t invented yet! I always teach my kids to think big if they’re going to pursue something. I guess they took it seriously.

I could see the press release in my head: “Marie Osmond, cofounder of the largest children’s charity, raises $3 billion for Children’s Miracle Network and then pilfers $150 worth of Disney trinkets from the gift store.”

When we got back to the hotel, I decided to tell Brandon and Brianna the story of Vera’s dime, but soon remembered that neither one of them was old enough to know what a dime was. However, I realized that day that even toddlers, besides being able to recognize hundreds of corporate logos, are able to differentiate right from wrong. Why else would they have put the items in the basket under the stroller where I wouldn’t see them? Somewhere in their consciences, they knew that they were doing something they shouldn’t have been doing. I have the strong feeling that we truly are born with an internal moral compass. It’s the desires and dictates of a confusing world that redirect the needle in that compass.

My mother also taught each of us accountability when it came to taking care of our own possessions. But being the headstrong child that I was, I had to learn that one the hard way, too. When I was about seven years old, my mother bought me a pair of sparkly patent leather shoes with imitation jewels all over them. I thought they were spectacularly gorgeous, as only a little girl who loved ultrafeminine attire would, and I couldn’t wait to wear them. She advised me to save them to wear
for special occasions and to church on Sundays, but I thought she was being overly cautious. At first, I just wore them around the house, my eyes glued to my amazing feet everywhere I walked.

Then the great outdoors beckoned. My brothers were taking turns riding the little tractor in the field and I wanted to join them. The combination of a freshly plowed field that had been rained on the night before and gem-covered shoes is not a good one. The field will always dominate.

When it was time to come back in the house for dinner, I couldn’t even wear my prized shoes inside anymore. The patent leather had been scratched deeply by rocks, the soles were soaked with mud, and dirt had clogged every empty space between the gems. They were a mess. And I had only owned them for two days! When my mother finally saw them left on the step by the back door, I thought I would be in trouble. She just shook her head and shrugged. “That’s too bad,” she told me. “Now you’ll have to wear your old shoes to church and to anything special.” Again, in my headstrong determination, I thought I could correct the situation and prove my mother wrong. I found a scrub brush and tried to clean them up, but the brush only scratched the patent leather more and the dirt was ground more deeply into the gemstones and some even popped out of their settings. It was hopeless.

My mother stood by her word (even though I’m sure it was just as hard for her to take her only girl to church in old, well-worn shoes); there would be no new shoes for what seemed like a long, long time. It was probably just a couple of months, but
it was enough time for the lesson to stick firmly in my head. Maybe this is why I love great shoes to this day!

When one of my younger sons was in sixth grade, he and a schoolmate had a science project and for the presentation decided to wear a costume that demonstrated their theory. This costume involved gold-colored shoes. His buddy found an old pair of sneakers that he no longer wore and spray-painted them gold.

My son forgot to look for something he could use and at the last minute ended up spray-painting his brand-new tennis shoes with the gold paint. After the presentation, my son came home from school and made his case that I should take him out right away to get replacement shoes, since the sneakers had been ruined for a school project.

He was surprised when I said, “Oh, no. I’m not going to spend another eighty-five dollars on new shoes. I just bought you that pair last week.”

He protested in full that it was unfair and he didn’t have a choice.

I explained as logically as I could, seeing the rising panic on his face. “My son, you knew for a whole week that you were going to need gold shoes for this project. You didn’t have to ruin your brand-new shoes. You made that choice, so now you have to live with the consequences of your decision.”

And he did. I must admit I felt a bit bad for him as he went out the door to school every day looking like the FTD floral delivery guy. Lucky for him, he had a major growth spurt within a couple months and needed new shoes.

One of my most difficult mothering moments happened when my oldest daughter, Jessica, was eighteen years old. She had finished high school and was trying to figure out what to do next in life. In the meantime, she had met a new group of friends who had been raised in a radically different environment from the one Jessica had been raised in. They were allowed to “party” at home and didn’t seem to have restrictions on any activities they chose to participate in.

Whatever the appeal was to Jessica, she decided that she wanted to find a job in southern California where this group of friends lived. I was hoping for a different choice, but since she was eighteen years old, I had to let her go. Even Jessica’s closest siblings, when they met this group of friends, tried to warn her that they could tell these friends felt no loyalty.

I helped Jessica buy a used car, and we shopped for items for her apartment there, which she was sharing with a couple of the other girls. I flew down to see her place and to take her out to dinner, spending the night on the couch in her room. Jessica found a job, but it all went downhill quickly. As it turned out, she was spending any money she made on entertaining these friends, as well as on buying food and clothing.

She brought a couple of these friends to my home for a visit, and I discovered later that one girl had stolen one of my designer purses from my closet as well as a gift card I had been given. They also brought alcohol into my home while I was gone on a two-day business trip, which is absolutely forbidden. When I asked Jessica about it over the phone, she denied that any of it could be possible and was angry with me for accusing her good friends of stealing.

I had to tell her that her friends would no longer be allowed in the house. Jessica was not happy about it, but she was still not ready to admit that these kids were using her purposely. I missed my daughter, but I knew that it would only end in resentment if I tried to convince her to leave this group behind and come back home. A couple of times she called me to say she didn’t have enough money to buy food or put gas in her car. I would send her a check, but I was never convinced that she used it for herself. Mostly, she was trying to stay in the group by having something to offer. If I dared to express my concerns about her friends, she would defend them and then shut me out. About three months later, when Jessica had been laid off from her job and had no expendable income, her friends decided that they no longer wanted to share an apartment with her. They staged some type of complaint against her and then Jessica found herself out of a living situation; she had nothing but her boxes of belongings in her car. I was driving to work when I got a phone call from my daughter. She told me she didn’t have any place to live, or a job, or even enough money to buy gas to get home.

I listened and then knew that I had to make a decision and that it was going to be painful.

If I enabled her by sending her money, she would probably go back to her group of friends with the money as a peace offering. I could tell she wasn’t thinking clearly because she still didn’t perceive how much her tender heart was being manipulated by this group. I chose to be there for her as a listener, but to remain silent in offering a solution. Finally she said, “What am I supposed to do, sell my computer and iPod for gas money?”

My heart ached knowing how I had to answer. I said, “I guess so. You made the choice to be there and to spend your money on them. I’ve given you money and had my purse and gift card stolen from me. I don’t want to enable your friends anymore.” Jessica fell silent. After a couple minutes more, she said she was going to have to go figure out where she could sell her belongings. I let her hang up the phone, feeling terrible for her. Those of you who have gone through it know that the tough-love approach is much tougher on the mother.

A few minutes later, I called a girlfriend who knows all of my kids to talk to her about my decision. She was sympathetic to my pain, but she also thought I had made the right choice. “The law of nature in the animal kingdom is for the young to become independent of the mother, so they need survival skills,” she gently pointed out. “Even so, very few young animals learn to fend for themselves willingly. For two years bear cubs will stay with their mother and let her do all the hard work for them. The mother bear has to become ferocious and run them up a tree. When the cubs have the courage to come down, she is long gone and they have to make do on their own.” The approach is tough and most likely a bit heartbreaking for the mama bear, but necessary to the survival of her offspring. My own mother certainly ran me up a tree a few times. And now I can honestly say that I’ve always been able to take care of myself.

I was still worried to the core about what Jes would do next. I knew that she didn’t have a place to go and that she
would probably have to spend the night in her car or find another friend who would let her sleep on her couch. I knew she was really mad at me for not helping her out in her desperation. But I also knew that this would be a deciding factor in my child’s life. Would she wake up to her self-worth, or would she allow herself to be directed by the whims of those who would lead her down a dead-end street?

That night, I didn’t sleep at all. I kept checking my phone to see if she had called again.