Raised by a hundred mothers

In small towns, you're never out of your mother's sight. Or somebody else's mother's.

In today's world, you're lucky to have one mother, much less a hundred. But that's the way it was when I was a kid.

No matter where you were or what you were doing, you always were under the watchful eye of a collective group of women who took it upon themselves to raise each other's children.

While there was no formal contract to do so, it was understood that they all had equal powers of discipline when it came to your behavior.

Whether you were standing in the lunch line at school or sitting in a pew at church, one wrong move and somebody's mother was there to straighten you out.

Even when my mom was working, it was not unusual for a close friend's mother to call out my full name, Kenneth Nolan Burger, across the playground if I was out of line.

That's when you knew you were in real trouble.

Permission to punish

Sometime soon after giving birth, mothers automatically acquire this mid-octave range in their voice that can stop a child cold in his tracks.

It's somewhere between shrill and accusatory, but you know it when you hear it, and you freeze.

Because in those small, tight-knit communities, there was no place to hide.

All the mothers had that voice of authority and they knew how to use it.

Not only that, they had permission to punish. I dare say I got as many spankings outside the home as I did inside the home. And deserved every one of them.

Fathers, of course, were important. They served as role models, taught us how to hit a baseball and slide into second.

But when the games were over and hearts needed mending, it was the mothers who dried the tears, bandaged the wounds and made sure there was homemade ice cream for the winning and losing teams.

Super women

I can still see them, actually, standing around the churchyard, talking away, lipstick and ear bobs in place, one hand directing traffic and the other grabbing a child by the collar, whispering some unknown threat in his ear.

I think I feared other people's mothers more than my own. They had a way of making you feel like you disappointed the entire town.

It was that universal expectation that made us all accountable.

But these women also could lift you up, dust you off, wipe your nose, dry your eyes and send you out to play when things seemed hopeless.

Even when I wandered into territory considered to be the wrong side of the tracks, there were kindhearted women who ignored color barriers, watched out for me and made sure I made it home safely.

Looking back, there were truly super women. They worked full time, sang in the choir, volunteered at the school, taught us to dance, held our families together and somehow found time to raise a village full of children.

To have one such mother is a special thing, indeed. To have a hundred is the gift of a lifetime.

Reach Ken Burger at kburger@postandcourier.com or 937-5598.