Lately I’ve been thinking about my mother. She was born in 1911 and grew up to have four children who managed to live their lives within the confines of society’s basic requirements: that is, we raised families, we paid taxes, we never went to jail. In truth, we have done more than just the basics. Two of my brothers have long and successful careers in law enforcement, my other brother has a successful career in the arts, and I have had a successful career in business. All of us finished college, and partly because of this, we all managed to make a good life for ourselves and our families.

Three of us had both the ability and the desire to go to college, the other had neither the ability nor the real academic desire, but he got his diploma anyway and it was this diploma that opened the necessary doors for him. .to achieve the success he has had professionally. Actually, still talking about this brother, he didn’t need a degree to enter his field and he didn’t need his degree to advance his career, but he did need to complete college to prove to himself that he could do anything. he made the decision to do.

My sister, who has proven herself in the arts, overcame a lot to get to the success she has been. She was the “wild child” of the family. She was the one who broke the rules, she ran away to Europe when she was only 18 years old; she shocked the family by moving in with a lover at that same age; she was the one who experimented with drugs and alcohol.

The brother I described above as the least academically inclined of all of us finally managed to complete his education. However, he first ran away and joined the military (at 18) because he saw no other way to avoid going to college after high school and didn’t have the courage, at that age, to simply say no to my father. or my mother. This would have been fine, except this was at the height of the Vietnam War and his action bought him a ticket to the war zone.

My younger brother’s life was probably the least troubled of all of us, but even he had his wild, hippie period with his hair down his back and his surfboard on the hood of his beat-up car, he left home, to at age 18, to go to college, and never set foot in the house again, except to visit, from that day on.

I too ran away at 18, made a disastrous marriage, brought two children into the world, and then after my children were born, I finally grew up and settled down; I finished college, supported myself and the kids, and found success in business.

Now why am I telling you all these things? I’m telling you because I finally figured out why we all survive life well. The reason: my mother, our mother, was a cheerleader.

My mother never went to college; she never worked outside the home. My mother was in a difficult marriage and she put up a good front so that no one outside the family would know that her smile covered a lot of pain. If my mother had gone to college, she would have graduated summa cum laude, she would have become the first female president of the United States. She was simply the smartest and funniest person I have ever met. She was educated in the arts, history, politics, and sports, and she could speak knowledgeably on any of these subjects, if someone would give her the opportunity to demonstrate what she knew. Unfortunately, we rarely did. We also didn’t give him credit for keeping our family together so we could enjoy the life of a good middle-class family complete with a summer vacation home and no worries about our future. Not only did I not give her credit for that, but I pitied and despised her for putting up with a difficult marriage and thus making all of the above possible for us. She put our good and our happiness above her own and she always supported and encouraged us. Her confidence in our abilities was, and is, the basis of the confidence we have in ourselves and in our abilities.

It took me years to realize that in addition to making our lives happy and materially secure as children, she laid the foundation for the successes we have achieved as adults. She was a cheerleader.

My mother believed in us, she believed that each and every one of her children was brilliant, beautiful, athletic and intelligent and she told us so every day of our lives. She not only told us all of these things, but she told everyone else who would listen that we were all of these things and more. And she wouldn’t take no for an answer from us. Of course we would take music lessons; of course we would do what we would have told him, as children, that we wanted to do.

My sister would be an artist and my mother took her to New York City so she could take the exam for the city’s top high school for young aspiring artists and she would control her worries when my 13-year-old sister left, each day, take the train to the city to go to that school.

He allowed my academically uninterested but fantastically athletic brother to bus, after school every day, to the downtown YMCA for the swim instruction he wanted to join his team. And he did, despite his fear of letting him make the trip because that was what he wanted to do and because, I think, he realized that he needed this sporting success to level the playing field at home like the rest of us. always did. so good at school. She overcame her fear when he told her at age 16 that he had gotten a summer job as a lifeguard on a New York City beach (lying about his age, thus making him the youngest lifeguard the city has ever employed).

She encouraged my younger brother to get a job delivering newspapers when he was 11 because that’s what he wanted to do and thus gave him the courage to go out on his own after high school and live independently while continuing his University education.

And she encourages me, her eldest son, to pick myself up by my boot straps after my marriage failed to go back to school and find a way to make a life for myself and my children on my own. And I did it. Without any help except what I could do for myself. I worked, raised my children, and graduated from school at the top of my class.

Now, I think I should also tell you that my mother was not only our cheerleader; she was our role model, although it took me years to recognize that. My mother, who never did anything other than raise her children, was a role model. She modeled selflessness, the ability to postpone our desires for the benefit of those who need us; modeled optimism in the face of overwhelming circumstances, showed faith when things seemed hopeless, showed humor and showed us how to laugh when there seemed to be nothing to laugh about, showed us how to love selflessly, showed us how to persevere, showed us how to prevail, He showed courage and made us strong. She showed us how to live life fully and joyfully.

So why am I writing this, what is this to you? Well, if you’re reading this and you also recognize your mother, maybe you should tell her.

If I am half the person, woman, friend, and mother that my mother was, I will consider myself a success. My mom was a cheerleader and I’m writing this for her because now I’m her cheerleader.