Sotomayor and Spelling: mothers as saints and sinners

Daughters and mothers are making news.  Here is what Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said about her mother:

There is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration -… I have often said that I am all I am because of her, and I am only half the woman she is.

Not  a dry eye in the house.  It touched the heart of every mother watching.

And 24 hours later,  another mother and daughter are in the news.

 Candy Spelling suggests that her daughter Tori contributed to her father’s death.   Here’s what Tori says about HER mother:

We simply never meshed.  My mother is who she is. I’ve become who I am. At some point I realized those two just didn’t go together.

It’s hard not to be struck by the irony.   Sonia grew up in a Bronx housing project while Tori  grew up in the biggest house in Los Angeles.

Of course, broad strokes never tell the whole story; and every story has another story behind the scenes.

For me the scariest part of the Sotomayor and Spelling mother/daughter acts—- is that I can see in myself a little of both.  I also suspect Celina Sotomayor and Candy Spelling  do have something in common with each other—with me—and with all mothers.  They’re not perfect.

Maybe Celina looked away while she was making dinner and Sonia burned her hand on a pot.   Or maybe she wouldn’t let Sonia go to sleepover parties with her girlfriends.

And I bet Candy did some things right.   Maybe she attended every single parent teacher conference.  Maybe she comforted Tori when her goldfish died.

I assume every mother tries to do the right thing.  I also assume every mother makes mistakes.  So how do you know which ones will live forever?  Is there a statute of limitations on mothering mistakes?

Apparently there is.  I know because I made plenty of mistakes, and  my daughter has already forgiven me for some of my whoppers.   And if someday she gets appointed to the Supreme Court (which sounds like an exaggeration but is entirely possible ) probably she wouldn’t canonize me—  but hopefully she wouldn’t demonize me.

Which feels about right.  Because like most moms, I belong in that gray area of motherhood— somewhere between Mother Teresa… and Mommie Dearest.

Cross-posted on the Huffington Post