Boxing and Motherhood

I was thinking that if I had kids, it might be difficult for me to do a boxing workout. It would difficult for me to do a lot of things. My mother always grumbled to my siblings and I that children were in her way. According to her, we prevented her from having the glorious life she felt she was entitled to have.

Several years ago, she wondered aloud why I would take up boxing. Now I realize that was just another way of her expressing her jealousy of both my younger sister and I. It all fits -- the comments about why we didn't travel more often, why we didn't we own property, why we didn't have cars (although at various times while she was still speaking to both of us, my sister and I did own vehicles), etc. Add that to the fact that I have no children and Cindy gave her two girls up for adoption, and you have why the green in Ma's eyes glowed like the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.

Her concern about me boxing probably also figured into why she also didn't want to see me after she had a last falling out with a terminally ill Cindy in late 2001. Dad joked about, "You might be able to knock my teeth out," after he learned I boxed. Ma might have thought I might have been angry enough to knock hers out after she turned her back on Cindy and I for the second time in our lives. She didn't want to take the chance that I might have, so I was banned from coming to her apartment.

I guess I was hoping for too much. . .boxing is a positive thing, and I thought maybe Ma would have been proud of me participating in it. But then she never appreciated anything that I, Cindy, or my brother Ken that was remotely positive. It was always easier for her to focus on the negatives, whether real or imagined.