I WOULD HAVE BEEN A TERRIBLE MOM TO STEVE JOBS.

I have this habit of always thinking about the mother/stepmother in all situations.  If there is a top story about anything, my mind starts to think about the mother involved.  While the world is spellbound listening to Anderson Cooper reporting from a war torn location, I immediately think of his mom and how worried she must be. During the Casey Anthony trial, I was spellbound watching the relationship between mother and daughter.  When Charlie Sheen was “winning”, I was crying for his poor mother.  Of course, when Steve Jobs passed last week, I thought about his mom. At the time, I did not know that his mom, Clara Jobs, was deceased.  But, I still cried for her.

For me, motherhood is a job steeped in fear.  Somewhere in our brains, there is always this thought of, “What if…..?” Fearful mothering comes directly from the limbic portion of our brains.  The limbic brain controls our perception of danger that we used when we lived in nature and that we still use.  It is that function of  ‘lack and attack’ that gives us the instinct that something is wrong.  Do you know that feeling when something just isn’t right?  That is your limbic brain talking to you.

Interestingly, the limbic brain controls decision-making, but has no capacity for language.  It also connects fear to that which we are not familiar.  It defines safety only by what it has experienced in life.  Anything unfamiliar will trigger a limbic response.  Knowing these facts, never helped my response to my children.  I still went bonkers!

Let me explain what my reactions would have been to a child like Steve Jobs.

Fact #1:  Steve Jobs attended Reed College, dropped out after one semester, only to hang out and take the classes he wanted to.  I don’t know when his parents knew that he had dropped out.

  My Caring Response:  Get your sorry ass home.  Calligraphy can be your hobby, but you need to focus on your future.  You need to get focused and get back into school.  NOW!

 Fact #2:  While not attending college, Steve decided to ‘find himself’ in India.  He came back with a shaved head, wearing traditional Buddhist garb and a new religion.

 My Caring Response:  Nice look! (response to the shaved head)  I respect your new-found faith, but who is going to hire a bald man in a dress?  You need to get your sxxx together, young man!

 When Steve wasn’t around, I would have been saying things like, “What is going to become of him?  Such a bright kid, but he can’t seem to get it together.  He is going to be the death of me.  Maybe, I will kill him first”

A child like Steve would have terrified me and I would have been wrong.  The thoughts in my head would have only been coming from my own experience, which certainly did not include dropping out of college and hanging out.  It also did not include building computers in a garage.  My fears would have outmaneuvered my true belief that people have to find their own way.

So the lesson is that believing your own thoughts may not be the best way to go.  Questioning your own thoughts may lead to a better path.  On Thursday, October 13, 2011, I plan on interviewing my son, Ean, on The Stepmom Toolbox Show.  My purpose is to do a review of our lives together and compare his feelings and thoughts to mine.  Maybe, I should have asked him these questions along the way?  Somehow, I have a limbic feeling that I was way off in my perceptions!  Tune in and see.