If Mama was president

"IF MAMA WAS PRESIDENT, WHAT WOULD SHE DO?

When I reflected about things Mama did when she was alive, in an effort to distill the essence of who she was and what set her apart from other mothers I went through a list.

1. As babies, she rocked us and burped us, and breastfed us.

2. She sang to us to put us to sleep.

3. She read us bedtime stories when we grew older.

4. She helped us with homework and tested and challenged our

Ways of thinking.

5. She fed us.

6. She was our clothier

7. She told us what to do.

8. She pinched us when we annoyed her or were disobedient.

So what so outstanding about all that?

1. She breastfed us because that was the way they did it those days.

But I remember she still nursed my sister Lise when she was two or three? She didn’t have to. Did she think she had to do it to the last drop?

2. She sang to us. She had a beautiful singing voice. And listening to her was like going to a live concert.

3. She read us stories. That’s an understatement. Every story she read was a Broadway performance on her part. She instilled us with the love of theatre, and theatrical happenings.

4. She helped us with homework. No she didn’t do it for us, but she sure challenged our minds until we had figured out the correct answers. And since she had been a brilliant student up to High School graduation, she had the knowledge. But what was special about her was that she would have made an excellent teacher. She was born with the skill to motivate others to learn. (In fact she did home teach one of my sisters for many years.)

5. She fed us. Well she would have gone to jail if she didn’t!

But how she did it was miraculous. She had very little money to buy food, yet whatever she bought ( and she knew how to tell if what she was buying was fresh) she managed to stretch it into a gourmet meal for her family. And Mama never sat diwn for meal. She would say I tasted it while it was cooking. I’m not hungry anymore.

6. She procured us with dresses and coats. What was special about it was that Mama had to cut up Pap’s old shirts to make us dresses.

What was astounding was that Mama never took a course in sewing. She taught herself and there were no TV programs at that time that she could have learned from. Not only that, everybody complimented us on our dresses, for she possessed hidden talent as a couturiere and clothing designer. Interestingly since we had no brother, we never had pajamas. Mama only made us night gowns.

7. Mama told us what to do: ’Because I say so.” Never providing some more valuable information. Even in our adult life she could not resist her need to control and instruct, but then it was taken with a grain of salt and most of the time her opinion/suggestion was greatly valued.

8. Mama was all attention when she was dealing with us, but in between she was deeply involved in her thoughts so if we became annoying, out of place and out of time, she would chastise us with a pinch which meant: “Not now. This is my time. You are distracting my thoughts.” We would say :“ouch” and leave in a hurry, and she didn’t have to say a word.

Was Mama perfect?

What’s that perfection? Who wants if for oneself or other?

Mama was not always perspicacious enough for one day when I cme back from school with my grades, I announced timidly, waiting for praise, :I want to be a poet.”

To which Mama answered; “You can’t. It’s too late?”

“Why?”

“Poets are born and they start writing poetry when they are two years old.”

That was the first time my mother hurt my feelings. And for better or for worse, she redirected my career.

--------------------------------

In conclusion Mama was not just a mother. She had a the seeds of greatness in her. She went beyond the call of duty and taught us to do the same.

In brief in every function we take for granted that a mother would perform, Mama outdid her competitors. She did it to the fullest and she did it better than any other mother.

So when I think of Hillary Clinton’s amazing campaign, I realize Hillary is not just a mother, she is symbolically this country’s mother and in many ways she reminds me of my mother. Her persistence, her endurance, her optimism, the fairness she put into a good fight, and her convictions and her policies about what this country needs.

So then I ask myself what would Mama do if she were running for president. Even better what would she accomplish as this country’s president.

Again I will make eight points.

1. First of all Mama would say after President Roosevelt: “A chicken in every pot.”

Or may be not. Knowing Mama’s skills at stretching a gourmet meal out of two chicken wings, she probably would say:” Two chicken wings in every pot” and the ability to create a gourmet meal, but I’m not going to teach you. There’s plenty of that on TV.

2. Mama would with her magic wand make an end to all wars and conflicts in the world.

3. Mama would put all the other nations under her wings, schedule a meeting to discuss every nation’s needs and enlist the help of all other nations to provide the resources needed.

4. Mama would go back to school and get herself doctorate degree in How to govern a nation or two.

5. Mama would send detectives from a mother’s group to visit poor families and report ny child neglect, abuse or lack of food..

6. She would establish a national payroll plan and a pension plan for every young woman who gave birth. (Not a welfare plan) a national

Recognition plan for service to the American national interest. She would also monitor and train mothers to use the money to buy and provide nutritious meals to their families.

7. Ah, the transportation crisis!

Gas prices are $4/gal and it is predicted will reach $20 by November so that we will look back to June with regret and shame for complaining.

Let’s face it, she would say, the average worker now needs to spend

His full paycheck just to get to work. That means we the government have to pay his rent!

No way.

She will think hard about that one.

To every able body who knew how to use a bike she would provide one. Others would travel free in government subsidized busses and trains.

Then she would crack down on the car manufacturers and demand engine that utilize gas more efficiently. She would sponsor research and create a new Nobel price to the scientist who would discover the 100% gas utilization secret.

8. About discipline in child rearing. Although there will be no draft and no war, every boy and girl would receive the kind of life skill training provided only in the army.

9. About health care for every American which Hillary is adamant about.

She would agree that there must be enough hospitals around to care for all emergencies and chronic illnesses. But what would be foremost on her agenda would be Mental Health.

Mental health would be a priority on her agenda for health care because without mental health there is no physical health. And because one out of every American has a mental health problem at some point in his life, and one in seventeen has a severe mental/emotional disability. A disability that many believe starts in the soft jelly like substance of our brain, encased in the hard box we call the cranium that is the seat for our emotions, thoughts and actions.

Incredible advances in imagery techniques such as C-T scan have opened new vistas about how the brain works and will eventually shed light about how the manipulation of certain chemicals such as the 4 neurotransmitters we know about out of perhaps hundreds of them, and other compounds we don’t even know about, might be able to provide the filter individuals with mental illness lack and cut down the noises in their brain. Some psychiatrists are already working on techniques to help people shut off the flow of what Dr. Daniel G Amen calls the “ANTS” in their brain, (automatic negative thought), by challenging oneself and asking “Is this true”? and then denying and shutting off the negative or overwhelming voices, or constant current of thoughts that inundates our brain every day.

When she didn’t like what we were saying, Mama used to tell us:

“Stop the nonsense! Apply yourself. Concentrate on what you are studying,”

In other words: “Stop, take stock and switch the circuit to a healthier

Endeavor.”

Mama would deplore the health system as it now persists and demand a research shake up so that instead of pharmaceutical companies trying to emulate each other’s drugs, they would launch a

Campain to discover the other neurotransmitters and to create new drugs aimed at them. They would study their role in creating the different symptoms and they would have the hundred different faces of mental illness deciphered so that when medicine is used it is used for healing and not just as a palliative, a not so harmless placebo, for some of these drugs must be monitored for their potentially catastrophic side effects.

She would encourage research into alternative ways of helping individuals with mental illness and their families, including alternatives such as vitamins, herbs, exercises and mental exercises to correct certain conditions.

She would put in place a support system consisting or maintenance,

Maids, nurses, teachers, counselors, nutritionists, art and dance and music therapists, recreation opportunities such as swimming or art camps to provide help to those families who choose to care for and provide treatment at home for their family member.

She would believe in the greatness of the human spirit and give people the credit they deserve for their actions with a “medal of the legion D’honneur.”

ALL OF THESE LED ME TO THINK WHAT A GREAT PRESIDENT MY MAMA WOULD HAVE BEEN!