<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" A mother is\u2026cook, cheerleader, best friend, chauffeur, teacher and so much more. Read four inspiring Mother&amp;#039;s Day essays below.   Table for Five by Susan Ito It&amp;#039;s five in the evening, and like clockwork, my 87-year-old mother asks, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s for dinner?&amp;quot; and then, &amp;quot;Do you want me to start the rice?&amp;quot;  A second-generation Japanese-American, she likes to have a pot of rice at the ready for every meal. And even though she no longer has the ability to read and follow a recipe, or drive to the store, or figure out our high-tech oven, she can still measure out and wash the pebbly grains, and push the button on our electric rice steamer.  After my father died 10 years ago, it became clear that my mother couldn&amp;#039;t live on her own. She started to get lost while driving. She became more forgetful and confused. When I asked her what she&amp;#039;d eaten for dinner, she&amp;#039;d say, &amp;quot;A diet Coke, some potato chips.&amp;quot; Her doctor confirmed that her cognitive capacity was diminishing, so I soon joined the ranks of the &amp;quot;sandwich generation&amp;quot; and became the filling between two generations who needed me: my mom and my kids, plus my husband and two dogs, all under one roof.  Just as I did with my children when they were young, I had to coax my mother to &amp;quot;try&amp;quot; a little salad, a bit of saut\u00E9ed vegetables. I also started giving her small jobs as I was preparing dinner. &amp;quot;Mom, can you cut up this onion?&amp;quot; She took half an hour to methodically dice it into perfect bits. As it turns out, she&amp;#039;s an excellent sous chef.  Over time, we have found many jobs that she can do that are comforting in their repetition: sorting recyclables, washing dishes by hand, grating cheese. And as was true with my children when they were small, when Mom helps with the preparation, she&amp;#039;s more likely to enjoy the dinner.  Having her live with us has brought a stabilizing order to our lives. We used to be one of those frantic, eating-burritos-in-the-car, overscheduled families. But Mom needs the predictability of a regular dinnertime, and sitting together at the table almost every night now brings us a kind of closeness we never had before.  My daughters have learned to be infinitely patient with her; they answer her questions, sometimes repeated a dozen times, as if it were the first time. Living with their grandmother has taught them compassion in a deep way, and it has allowed me to see her differently as well.  These past several years have shown me facets of my mother I never knew: her quirky humor, her resilience, her passion for the Yankees. &amp;quot;Derek Jeter, he&amp;#039;s my man!&amp;quot; she says, with a fist pump. I&amp;#039;ve also seen a vulnerability in her that I never could have imagined. When she asks me for help because she doesn&amp;#039;t remember how to open an umbrella, it almost breaks my heart.  Tonight we&amp;#039;re having salmon, a &amp;quot;brain food&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ve read can help memory. She wrinkles her nose at the idea of fish, but I&amp;#039;ll add the teriyaki sauce she likes, and ask her to put on a pot of rice. I&amp;#039;ll also pick up Oreos for her as a treat. And I&amp;#039;ll do it eagerly. Because when I think about all the meals my mom made for my pickyeating self when I was young, when she cut the crusts off my sandwiches and served my food so it wouldn&amp;#039;t &amp;quot;touch,&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m reminded of the ways she nourished me. Now that the tables are turned, I&amp;#039;m glad to do the same for her.  Susan Ito teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley extension program.   Why I Love My Mother-in-Law by Jennifer Matlack  Whenever I talk to my friend Julia, she brings up her mother-in-law, Roberta, whom she loathes.  In a flurry, Julia lists Roberta&amp;#039;s most recent offenses: She showed up unexpectedly and stayed for hours, she &amp;quot;reorganized&amp;quot; the medicine cabinet, she went on and on and on about her bunion\u2014during dinner. Then, pausing a moment to catch her breath, Julia will say wryly, &amp;quot;Oh, you know how it is,&amp;quot; as if all daughter-inlaws belong to some antimom- in-law society where we rage and commiserate about our inherited misfortune. Well, here&amp;#039;s the thing: I&amp;#039;m not in that club. I&amp;#039;m one of those rare women who happen to love their mother-in-law.  At 85, my mom-in-law, Jo, is one of the savviest women I know. She doesn&amp;#039;t deserve the bad rap that so many MILs get. I&amp;#039;ll admit, though, that I worried about how we&amp;#039;d get along. On the drive over to her house for our first introduction, my future husband, Jeff, told me that his mom was assertive and very frank. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;ll tell you exactly what she thinks,&amp;quot; he warned. I wondered if she&amp;#039;d size me up and then announce brazenly, &amp;quot;Nope. Not for my son!&amp;quot;  That evening I realized that Jeff was right: Jo was unmistakably in charge. Among a stream of other polite &amp;quot;commands,&amp;quot; she determined who would set the table, who would uncork and pour the wine (a bottle that she chose), and which topics were off-limits during dinner. When we finally sat down to eat\u2014after Jo pointed each of us to our designated seat\u2014she took her first bite. &amp;quot;The corn is overcooked,&amp;quot; she said. When I objected politely, saying that it was &amp;quot;fine,&amp;quot; she replied, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s kind of you to say, but it is overcooked and it&amp;#039;s awful.&amp;quot; At the end of the night, Jo turned to Jeff and said, &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll be seeing more of Jen.&amp;quot; He replied, &amp;quot;I hope so.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Oh,&amp;quot; she said, winking at me, &amp;quot;I wasn&amp;#039;t asking, I was telling.&amp;quot;  I was instantly captivated. When I was growing up, my mother regularly deferred to my father. Her opinions were trumped by his, and her feelings were seldom considered. Jo provided another image of what a mom (and a woman) could look like: strong, self-assured, not afraid to add her two cents. I found her empowering and irresistible.  During the 10 years I&amp;#039;ve known her, Jo has taught me a lot\u2014everything from how to invest in the stock market to how to paint clouds realistically (the trick: Add a touch of gray). But more than anything else, she&amp;#039;s shown me how to speak up and use my voice without apology. As a result, the home I&amp;#039;ve made with Jeff is a lot different from the one I grew up in. When my husband does something that upsets me or if we disagree about a hot-button topic\u2014 money, kids, sex, you name it\u2014I don&amp;#039;t stay silent, biting my tongue and stifling my emotions. I say what I feel, and every time I do, I feel better, stronger and surer about who I am as a woman, a wife, and now a mother. Sometimes when Jeff and I butt heads and I refuse to back down, he&amp;#039;ll say, &amp;quot;Boy, sometimes I think I married my mother!&amp;quot; I can&amp;#039;t think of a nicer compliment.  Jennifer Matlack is a freelance writer living in Bethel, CT.   Miss Manners by Deborah Roberts  When I was a child, my mother, a petite, s oft-spoken woman, would routinely greet friends, acquaintances and strangers in her syrupy Southern drawl, &amp;quot;How ah yew?&amp;quot;  Once, I asked her why she was always so friendly to people she didn&amp;#039;t even know. Her reply was something I didn&amp;#039;t quite understand: &amp;quot;The time of day belongs to everyone.&amp;quot; I would ponder that comment for years to come.  When she was growing up in small-town Georgia, proper manners and kindness were everything to my mother. Any comment made to an adult was followed by ma&amp;#039;am or sir. And the Roberts children, all nine of us, were no exception. Mom, strong and determined, demanded that we respect everyone.  Given her childhood, I was always amazed by my mother&amp;#039;s good nature and positive spirit. Both she and my father grew up during the Depression in the segregated South. Mom lost her own mother to illness shortly after she was born, and she and her older brother were sent to live with their grandmother, who wasn&amp;#039;t particularly warm. By her teen years, with money tight, Mom was forced to quit high school and work in a local paper factory to help pay the bills. When she married my dad in her early 20s, she was a woman who knew the meaning of struggle.  Yet somehow, Mom developed a nurturing softness. For as long as I can remember, she was the classic Southern steel magnolia: tough on the inside but tender on the outside, always showing concern for other people. Eventually I began to understand her mantra, that &amp;quot;the time of day belongs to everyone.&amp;quot; As we&amp;#039;d walk into the post office or grocery store and she&amp;#039;d greet friends and strangers alike, it dawned on me. Everyone deserves a kind word.  Today, while raising my own two children and now-grown stepdaughter in New southern Roots Deborah (back row, third from left) with her mother, Ruth (center), and other family members. York City, I find myself thinking a lot about my mom and wondering if I&amp;#039;m living life as she&amp;#039;d hoped I would. Though my soft Southern manner often makes me feel like an oddity in a city known for rushing and ignoring passersby, I try to think about everyone I encounter so that I can set an example for my kids. My deepest hope is that they&amp;#039;ll remember my kind words to the lonely-looking elderly man sitting next to us on the bus, or how I stopped to help the woman struggling with a baby carriage. My roots are truly a part of me. And I thank Mom for planting them so deeply.  Deborah Roberts is an ABC News correspondent for 20/20 and other programs.   The New Me by Sharon Duke Estroff When I was 8, I had names picked out for all of my future offspring (a dozen baby girls). At 13 I had my own babysitting business. After grad school, I was teaching a class full of fourth-graders.  So by the time I became pregnant with my first child (a boy, go figure!), I knew exactly what kind of mother I was going to be: calm, organized and completely in charge. Yeah, right.  If there&amp;#039;s one thing I&amp;#039;ve learned after four kids and 17 years of parenting, it&amp;#039;s this: As much as the mother shapes the child, the child shapes the mom.  Despite my intentions of being a cool-as-a-cucumber parent, the birth of my first child, Brandon, now 17, transformed me into a maternal tossed salad. For the first two years of his life, I refused to leave the house without my What to Expect manual for fear I might need to know how to make a baby tourniquet or something.  Impossibly, it would seem, Brandon grew up to be the most serene and easygoing person I&amp;#039;ve ever known. Like a human tranquilizer, he puts me at ease, offering me a voice of reason in a way few others can. &amp;quot;You should be less worried about me getting E. coli from a raw hamburger and more worried about me choking on this overcooked hockey puck,&amp;quot; he once said during dinner. I had to laugh. He had a point\u2014and it wasn&amp;#039;t the first time. I needed to chill. Maybe I&amp;#039;m not the unflappable parent I&amp;#039;d hoped to be, but thanks to my laid-back eldest, I&amp;#039;m a little closer to it.  Where Brandon was born to go with the flow, my second son, Alex, 15, carves his own current. When he was 12, Alex wanted to take electric guitar lessons. I said no\u2014he had enough going on with school, baseball and football. So he got some secondhand strings, taught himself to play via instructional YouTube videos, and started a rock band with some middle-school buddies. Take-charge Mama might have grounded her willful son, but something in me had changed. Instead of getting angry, I threw a huge party in the basement and invited everyone over for The Allies&amp;#039; first concert.  Somewhere along the way, this staunchly innerdirected child had taught me that my purpose in parenting is not to tell him when, where and how to flap his wings, but to give him the ability to soar, unafraid, on his own.  By the time my third son, Jake, came along, I was less hovering (thanks, Brandon) and less controlling (thanks, Alex). But I was still clinging to my superorganized, scheduled-down-to-the-last-minute tendencies. As with my first two sons, Jake certainly changed all that.  Here is a 10-year-old brimming with curiosity, who collects information like other kids collect baseball cards. Mothering him is like being a perpetual contestant on Jeopardy! The trouble is, joining my son in his knowledge quests can take a lot of time. Practice with him for the geography bee? Of course. But I had to brush up first. Read the five-book The Lightning Thief series with him? Sure. And 28 hours of reading later (yes, 28!), we finally finished the last book. But I wouldn&amp;#039;t have missed those juicy motherson book chats for anything.  With Jake as my guide, I&amp;#039;ve learned to look up from my weekly planner every now and then to see the world, and to stop and smell the roses, even if they&amp;#039;re not exactly on the way.  The mom I thought I&amp;#039;d be all those years ago certainly isn&amp;#039;t the mom I&amp;#039;ve become. My kids have seen to that. But my spirited 7-year-old Emma sometimes reminds me of the girl I used to be. After being beckoned to her room &amp;quot;to see something important,&amp;quot; I was greeted by a display of 12 dolls lined up on her bed. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re my babies!&amp;quot; she announced before rattling off their names one by one.  Sharon Duke Estroff is the author of Can I Have a Cell Phone for Hanukkah? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/real-women/a1519/essays-the-many-faces-of-motherhood-105805/>