My Mom, the Boss
My family got MTV in 1983, the same year my younger brother Kevin was born. Those two major family changes may constitute the most formative moments in my early life. At six years old, I lost my standing as the youngest of three children. As the often-overlooked third of four children, I was free to spend hours in front of a television that transported me from Malvern, Pennsylvania to a rich world of music and pop culture. My older siblings and I loved our MTV.
One day in 1984, MTV was also a window into the person I loved most in the world, my mother. When Kevin was born, my mom was 35. I thought she was old. She wasn’t old in the grandparent kind of way, and not too old to be having another kid, but older, grown up, and completely in charge. She was happy, but it seemed like the fun part of life, or at least fun as I defined it, was pretty much over.
Taking care of us was a full time job, and when Kevin was born two months early, the job intensified. She was promoted overnight from mother of three children to mother of four children, one now with health complications, while also having endured a life-threatening delivery. I remember second grade as the year that my mom looked tired and spent a lot of time in her wooden rocking chair, especially in the winter after Kevin finally came home from the hospital. My mom rocked her newborn baby on her chest, an afghan crocheted by my great-grandmother covering both of them. She often said goodbye to me from the chair as I left to meet the school bus each morning and greeted me when I later returned home. If it weren’t for the fresh-baked brownies in the kitchen or her book and tea cup on the end table, it may look some days as if she hadn’t moved.
But she did move. She filled cupboards, ran carpools, and managed my baby brother’s many doctor’s appointments. There were no outings for manicures and pedicures; no moms nights out or ladies’ weekends. For a few hours early on Saturday mornings, she and her neighborhood friends went yard saling, cruising around town in our Buick station wagon to buy other people’s old stuff for cheap. She left my father in charge to manage the cartoons, breakfast and maybe a soccer practice. He was a far less qualified boss, and when he raised an eyebrow as my sister and I sprinkled generous amounts of sugar on our Fruity Pebbles, we smiled innocently and lied, “We always do this.” He shrugged and walked away with his Philadelphia Inquirer and coffee in hand.
A couple times a year, my mom’s younger sister Donna (our Fun Aunt) visited from Florida and I got clues to a life before all the kids. On a hot summer day in 1984, my mom and Donna were hanging out in the living room, probably drinking iced tea, while my sister Chrissy and I were downstairs blasting MTV.
Our split-level home was decorated in shades of brown, chartreuse and mustard seed yellow with a heavy dose of wood paneling. From the living room, half a flight of stairs led down to the family room, home of the coveted television. One music video ended and a new one began, this one featuring a man — I might have thought him old at the time but I see now that he was definitively not old — on stage in jeans and a white t-shirt. The music started and we heard feet moving above us. One woman, possibly two, squealed with delight. We turned to see our mom dancing in broad daylight to Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark. Her freshly permed, short black hair framed her shining eyes and wide smile with curls. She and Donna both wore eyeshadow beneath sculpted eyebrows. They were tan from the summer sun, and in my memory, they were wore matching shirts from our last visit to Florida, lace-trimmed black tank tops with the words Harley Davidson written in cursive and adorned with pink roses.
“What are you doing?” My sister demanded. At seven, I was surprised and confused. At nine, Chrissy knew enough to be embarrassed.
“It’s Bruce Springsteen! He’s the Boss!” Donna explained. They came closer to the stairs to see the video. By summer of ’84, I had already experienced intense crushes on Scott Baio, Michael J. Fox and every member of Duran Duran, but as far as I knew my mom only had eyes for my goofy father. “Look at him move!” My aunt screamed, followed by comments about arm muscles and a cute butt.
Chrissy covered her eyes as mine widened. Born in the USA had just been released, and it is quite possible that this video was the first time my mom and Donna saw Bruce Springsteen on stage. For me, it was the first time I saw this side of my mom, the Boss: Youthful, carefree, beautiful.
Follow-up note: Family research confirmed the tricks of memory. Those tank tops were never on display in Pennsylvania, but that picture marks this time period for me and is one of the only photos we have of my mom and aunt Donna together in the spring of 1984.