The surface of Mother’s Day is flowers, cards, and rosy colors but we wanted to get to the dirt.
11Alive’s Matt Pearl spoke with people who told their untold stories about their mothers ahead of the special holiday.
Jamaal Peavy of Marietta shared a story from his younger years when he was the second-grade class clown.
“Basically, my mother wasn’t thrilled about coming up [to the school] to check on my progress, so basically, she took me out of class and into the boys’ bathroom and beat my behind,” Jamaal told Pearl.
But that’s Jamaal. He’s multiple generations of Marietta who is now a grown man and a proud son.
“She just made sure her sons – her babies, that’s what she put it. I’m 32-years-old, and I’m still her baby,” he said. “That’s never gonna change.”
Sometimes motherhood requires improvised discipline. More often it requires all kinds of sacrifice like splurging on a gift or working hard to prepare the perfect holiday feast.
Some moms are even up before the sun, like Siddharth Poyapakkam’s mother.
Siddharth’s mother, Superna, wakes up around 4 a.m. and fixes her son, a freshman at Georgia State, coffee.
“I’ll wake up at 4. She wakes up 20-30 minutes later like, ‘You want some food?’” Siddharth said.
Even now, with Siddharth in college, Superna goes down for lunch.
“If no one else is there for you, there’s always someone else who’s there for you, mi Madre,” Siddharth said.
Everyone’s stories stand out both in those full-grown and those still growing, like 9-year-old Sarah Taylor’s.
When asked about Sarah and her mother Brianna’s story, Brianna said she’s always supported the pets Sarah had.
“Definitely that,” Brianna said.
“I have nine pets,” Sarah told Pearl, one pet for each year of her life.
“She’s the best mom ever. She does everything. She’s the nicest, sweetest mom I’ve ever had,” Sarah said.
“I’m the only mom you’ve ever had,” Brianna joked.
But that’s not always the case.
Take Jazmine Mills for example. Jazmine was taken at 9 years old into foster care.
“I kept flopping and flopping to different foster homes, me and four other siblings,” Jazmine said. “We were separated plenty of times.”
That was until Lisa.
“She took me in when I was, like, 13 years old,” she said. “At 18 years old, she could have let me go but at 20 years old, she still contacts me.”
Maybe that’s because of what Lisa started when she was around that age.
“She’s fostered at least 86 girls in her home and she started at the age of 19,” Jazmine told Pearl.
But on this Mother’s Day, that’s not the only mother on Jazmine’s mind.
“I do not bash my biological mother in no way, shape, and form. I understand there are situations that happen,” she said.
Jazmine shared photos of her biological mom, Tywanna, and their journey to connecting again.
“She actually really wants to go back to school, so I’m really happy about that. She had us at a very young age. School stopped for her,” Jazmine said. “She has four of us, but she’s definitely trying to get back in a good, upstanding place with all of her kids. I’m proud of her. It makes me happier because she’s trying.”
Motherhood is about trying, giving, pulling, cheering, and doing. It is about building so many memories of specifics that the only way to summarize is with the stuff of surface.
