Host: Jenifer Hixson
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Moderator: [00:00:01] Truth or dare? How about both? This fall, The Moth is challenging what it means to be daring. We're not just talking about jumping out of airplanes or quitting your job. We're talking about the quiet courage to be vulnerable. The bold decisions to reveal the secret that changed everything.
This fall, The Moth Mainstage season brings our most powerful stories to live audiences in 16 cities across the globe. Every one of those evenings will explore the singular theme of daring. But the stories and their tellers will never be the same. So, here's our dare to you. Experience The Moth Mainstage live. Find a city near you at themoth.org/daring. Come on. We dare you.
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Jenifer: [00:00:56] Welcome to The Moth. I'm Jenifer Hixson. On this episode, Mothers Part - 2.
A few days ago, we aired an episode of The Moth Radio Hour called Mama Bears, where I shared some stories about the archetype of protective mothers. Fierce or cuddly, mama bears are not to be messed with. But for Mother's Day, we're looking at another side of motherhood, the overwhelming side.
First up, we've got Melanie Kostrzewa, who told this story at a New Orleans StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Appropriately Enough: Mama Rules. Here's Melanie, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Melanie: [00:01:33] So, when my first daughter was born, we brought her home from the hospital. All the advice I was told was, "You got to sleep when she sleeps." Okay, great. And I was sleep deprived. She's a wonderful child. She's a really hard baby, or I was a really difficult mom, because I didn't know [chuckles] what I was doing. I was home in the afternoon. I wasn't used to that. I wasn't used to all the sounds of my neighborhood. I wasn't used to the congregation of men that met outside [chuckles] my window at 10 o'clock every morning to debate the Saints game or anything very loudly. I wasn't used to the dogs barking. I wasn't used to the trucks that came by. And I was like, "You're going to wake up Avery." Avery's my daughter. But I really wasn't used to the ice cream man.
An ice cream man in my neighborhood comes around at 3 o'clock every day. I live uptown and I'm going to sing you the song. [sings] Anyways. [audience laughter] And then, at the end of the song, it goes, "Hello, [audience chuckle] does anybody know?" All right. [audience cheers and applause]
So, at 3 o'clock every day, I heard this. I was in this really weird state of, like, day and night. It was like, just a concept I wasn't really in because Avery was like just [chuckles] woke up every hour. So, I was only sleeping like, 45 minute increments. I would hear this song, like a crazy circus, like [sings] Hello? He was like. [sings] But when I would hear him, I meant that another day had come by, and I had survived another day as a mom and it was a marker for me to hear the ice cream man.
We eventually made it through that season, [chuckles] and Avery grew to be a toddler, and every day at 3 o'clock after her nap, she'd run to the front of the house and press her face up against the window to wave to the ice cream man, every single time he rings his bell. A couple years later, she's got a little sister, same thing, 3 o'clock. Runs to the window, elbows her sister to see the ice cream man. Waves, rings his bell. And then, a third little sister comes up and she does the same thing. And she's the toughest of them all. So, she had a good spot. And every single day, he'd ring his bell.
And so, Avery turned five and I was like, "You don't really need to take naps anymore, so this is a time when you and I get to hang out while your sisters are sleeping. Current events, politics." [audience laughter] But she really just wanted to see the ice cream man. And I said, "This is what we're going to do. We're going to get all the quarters out of the jar of coins that we all have in our house." And she's like, "Okay." We put all the quarters in this jar. I was like, "I want you to hold this jar. And then, the next time the ice cream man comes, we're going to go get ice cream." And she goes, "What?" And I was like, "Yeah, bud, we're going to go get ice cream."
“He has ice cream?” [audience laughter] And I was like, "Bud, yeah. he's the ice cream man.” “Oh, I just thought he really liked ice cream.” [audience laughter] And I was like, "I'm either like the best mom [chuckles] or the worst mom.” [audience laughter] I was like, “How did I not get that?" It was like five years of just waving to this strange man [audience chuckle] who drove by every day, and we called him the ice cream man. [audience laughter]
So the day comes, the day comes, and we hear his bell and we're like, "This is not a drill," [audience laughter] and we run out. And the van that drove by [chuckles] was just like a solid van. There was nothing on the side that we saw of the man my children waved to every day for five years. And so, I was like, "Stop." He probably thinks I'm such a cheap person, because I never purchase anything.
And so, I take Avery's hand and we walk to the other side of the truck, and she sees the whole truck is covered in pictures of ice cream and she's like, "Oh, my gosh." She got something super over frozen, and I got a choco taco, and I gave him all my coins and I was like, "Thank you so much." He goes, "All right, see you later" and he rang the bell. It is one of my favorite memories with my daughter. So, this is a huge pivot, and I do apologize for the pivot.
A couple of months ago, I experienced a pretty hard bruise to my mother identity. I had a miscarriage, and it was really hard. I had one a few years ago as well. It's kind of this process of maybe thinking, I'm not having these beautiful babies anymore, and this might not be in the cards for me. I had to have surgery, and it was just a very difficult time. I hibernated in my grief and I was surrounded by people that literally did everything for me in these days. And Avery, she refers to this time as, "Yeah. Well, you were sleeping for a few weeks." I was like, "Yeah, mom had to sleep for a few weeks."
My first entrance back [chuckles] into the world is-- Like, I didn't have to be a mom basically for a few weeks. My first entrance back into the world is I had to go to Costco and I had to get milk. And you got to go to Costco with a [chuckles] very specific list or else you're getting all the nuts and the protein bars [audience chuckle] and every type of sparkly water. I'm just pushing this cart and I'm like, "No one knows what I'm going through here. No one cares who I am." I felt so lonely while being surrounded by people eating, like inch size pieces of cheese and like elbowing people for it. Anyways.
And so, I finally get to the checkout and I'm just hanging my head and I look up and it's the ice cream man is checking out in front of me. I go around my cart and I go, "Hey." And he goes, "It's girl, mom." [audience laughter] And I was like, "That's me." I said, "Ice cream man." He hugs me like we're at a family reunion. [audience chuckle] I squeeze him. I'm like, "Oh, ice cream man. You know?" And he was like, "All right, see you later." And I was like, "Bye, ice cream man." [audience laughter]
In that moment, in two words, "Girl mom," he healed my bruised identity as a mom, just this thing I'd been going through. When Avery was a baby and I was sleep deprived him in my life just oddly and he literally would have no idea this is even a story of my life, but he's part of it and just how he was when Avery was a baby. He just let me know that I can do another day, I can make it through another day, because I am girl mom. [laughs]
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:08:18] That was Melanie Kostrzewa. Melanie is a teacher and librarian in New Orleans. She's the mother of four daughters, married to a pastor and has loved telling stories at The Moth for over 10 years. You can find some of her other stories in our archive. She writes when she can, with hopes of writing a book one day about motherhood and living in NOLA. If you'd like to see photos of the ice cream truck, check out our website, themoth.org/extras.
And what is it about that Pavlovian ice cream truck? You can have the same exact creamsicles or rainbow rockets in your freezer, but your kids will tell you they just don't taste as good. I think it's not the ice cream, it's the whole experience.
Up next, we've got a story about a mother from the perspective of a child. Marie Dennehy told this at a London StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Family. Here's Marie, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Marie: [00:09:16] My mum decided to call the police to tell them that my dad was in the IRA in the summer of 1993. Not only was he in the IRA, but he had enough bombs hidden in our loft to blow up the whole of London. Now, there’s never a good time for your mum to tell the police that your Irish father is an active member of a terrorist organization. But that was a particularly bad time. For all of you that aren’t familiar with the inner workings of the IRA, this was the year that they’d hidden bombs in bins in Camden and had stormed through the streets of Bishopsgate with an armed tank, injuring 44 civilians. London was on high alert.
Our house was raided pretty much before my mum could even hang up the phone. I remember them storming through the house, searching high and low, but they found nothing. Not even a stick of dynamite. Looking back now, it was obvious that the house was going to be clean. It all made sense now. The hours that my mum had spent thinking that the television was talking to her, the knives she gave to us for protection when she was paranoid.
My dad wasn’t in the IRA. My mum had postnatal depression, and it had developed into psychosis. It probably wouldn't have developed into psychosis if someone had intervened. Someone like the midwife who came to see her after my younger brother was born. The midwife who, when my mum sat there crying uncontrollably, said to her, "What have you got to be upset about? You've got a good husband, he's got a nice job and you've got a three-bed semi in zone four."
My mum was so embarrassed she didn't say anything to anybody else and slowly descended into madness. I remember the countless times she was sectioned after that. The weekends we had playing in secure mental health wards and retreats. I remember the countless takeaways that my dad bought for us, because he couldn't cook when she was away. And the times that they tried and failed to cure her with electric shock treatment.
Years passed and she did recover and she even began to laugh about that phone call she made back in 1993. And even though my dad was never in the IRA, the police kept our house under surveillance for years. I remember the sound of the house phone clicking when we picked it up to make a phone call. I remember asking her, "Who's that guy stood outside the house hanging off a telephone pole with binoculars looking into our house?"
My mum would just look at me and say, "Jesus, sure, don't worry about him, sure, he's just watching the house, because I told them that your dad was in the IRA when I went mad.” [audience laughter] She was so casual about it, she probably would have made him a cup of tea. [audience laughter] Over 20 years have passed since that phone call back in 1993, and apart from a relapse back in 2011 when my dad died, she remains well.
The police surveillance has long since stopped on our house. And to be honest, I don't think they'd have much to report on now, watching her go to mass from her retirement flat in Watford. I look back, and I remember feeling so embarrassed and so ashamed of what had happened and all the pressure in our family and how weak she must have been. But now I'm a bit older, I feel so proud of her and how resilient she must have been to get through it all and I hope a little bit of that resilience has rubbed off on me. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:13:13] That was Marie Dennehy. Marie lives in London and works for a charity that helps unhoused people. She's been working on a collection of short stories since 2021. Her mother, Chris, remains well and lives nearby. When we emailed Marie to let her know that her story was airing, she was actually visiting her mom that weekend, so she was able to find some old photos. To see those photos, visit themoth.org/extras.
After the break, we'll hear from a mom who gets in over her head. Be back in a moment.
Welcome back. Our final story is a favorite from the archive from an often unheralded and sometimes malign kind of mother, the stepmother. Marya Morris, told this at a Mainstage in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
[cheers and applause]
Here's Marya, live at The Moth.
Marya: [00:14:04] Thank you. I was 46 years old, never married. I lived in Chicago. I owned my own house and I had a fantastic career going. My big indulgence was traveling to see about 15 or 20 Bruce Springsteen shows every year. [audience laughter] I had a little bit of FOMO though. I thought maybe those people that say, "I don't want to die alone," are right. So, I joined eHarmony. [audience chuckle] The first match I got was a fellow named Andy. He was a widower. He had a job as a software engineer. He had three children. He lived in a little nice suburb and he actually mentioned Springsteen in his bio. So, of course, I pounced on it. [audience laughter] It wasn't quite like that. [audience laughter]
Our first date, we went to a very elegant restaurant. We had the best time. He told me that his wife, Judy, had died four years prior and he'd been raising his kids on his own. It was just the best night. We closed the place down. He drove me all the way back to the city. When he dropped me off, he said, "Would you like to go out again tomorrow?" I was like, "Oh, okay." He said, "How about coming up to the house to meet my kids?" And I said to myself, "I don't know much about dating, but I think that breaks a rule." “Sure, [audience laughter] I'll meet him.”
So, I get there the next night. Three of them all lined up at the front door waiting to shake my hand. Cassidy was 12 at the time, and she was very reserved, keeping an eye on me, but very polite. Honor was this tiny wisp of a little kid. He sat on my lap and drank an entire quart of wonton soup by himself. [audience laughter] And Hannah was nine, and she wanted to show me everything in her room. Her Polly Pockets, all her American Girl gear, her books, her homework, everything.
After a while, I played with them and I was like, "Okay, I got to take off, you, guys." And Hannah said to me, "Do you think you could stay and help us get ready for bed?" I'm like, "Come on, [audience laughter] what is the matter with you? Are you trying to cue me to death?" I drove home, I'm like, "I think I love these people." [audience laughter] Our third date was, it was either the next night or the night after that and Andy said, "I'm going to ask you to marry me, but I'm going to wait until enough time has passed that you won't think I'm joking." [audience laughter] And I said, "Oh, what the hell, just ask me, I'll say yes." [audience laughter] So, he asked me, I said, "Yes, I'll marry you."
At that point I thought, maybe I should tell some people in my real life about this. [audience laughter] My parents lived on the first floor of my two flat in the city, and I hadn't even told them I'd gone on a date. I had not been on a date in more than 10 years. [audience laughter] So, I tell my mom, "Mom, I met somebody." And she's like, "God, you think you know a person." [audience laughter] And my friends, I find out later, we were trying to stage an intervention. Everybody was unsettled, let's put it that way. [audience chuckle]
And so, we got married six months after we met. I moved to the suburbs, into the big house. And immediately, I could feel the void that Judy had left. It was deep and cold and quiet. I just looked around and said, "What is my role here? What do I do?" I got the answer two months later when the mortgage crisis struck and I got let go from my job. I went from a person who had always obviously supported themselves and had a really good thing going to being financially dependent on somebody, and I was a full-time stay-at-home stepmom.
I looked around and I thought, you know, I have never cooked raw chicken before. [audience chuckle] I have never managed household finances, and here I am, I'm in charge. I googled what do families eat for dinner? [audience chuckle] And it turns out it's not popcorn and red wine. [audience laughter] So, one of those very first days, I was home alone, the kids were at school and I'm looking, I'm like a detective with a marriage license in lieu of a search warrant. I'm digging through drawers, like, "How did she do this? How did she manage finances, feed these people, keep them clean and relatively happy? How did she care for Andy? How did she care for the kids?"
And in the drawer of the vanity in our bathroom, I found a black compact of Lancôme Blush. I opened it and I could see the indent where her finger had rubbed it down. I turned the compact over, and the color was a plum. It was the same one that I had. And under our bed, I found the baby books. Judy had taken such care to write every detail, the first smile, their first food that they liked, what they didn't like,, their first little noises, of course, their first steps.
I found out from that part of my search that Cassidy, who was 12 then, she didn't sleep for the first three years of her life. [audience chuckle] I was glad I missed that era. [audience laughter] But I had time. That's all I had. And I dove in. I'm getting kids out of bed. I'm making lunches. I'm driving them to school. I'm sitting in the car line. I'm just following along what other parents seemed to do. And it was a lot. I realized at a certain point, I'm not sure I like this.
I started to panic, but I was so invested in looking competent and secure in my role that I didn't tell anybody. So, it just built and built. The frustration grew. I was both overwhelmed and finding the whole thing just really tedious at the same time. It all came to a head one day when I was serving corn chowder that I had made from scratch, okay? [audience chuckle] No powdered mixes here. I was ladling it into one of Hannah's bowls and she looks at it and she's like, "I'm not going to eat this." I responded in a way that I thought was proportionate at the time. I took the pot of soup, I walked to the sink, I held it three feet higher than the sink and I dropped it. I turned around, ran upstairs and I cried in the bathroom. [audience laughter]
Andy came up. He's like, "I'm sorry. Hannah feels really bad. She's sorry." I said, "I think I'm in over my head. I'm not good at this. I don't even like it. I'm sorry. I don't want to do this anymore. I got to go." And he's like, "They're there. They're there. You're doing a wonderful job." And I was like, "Job? Did you hire me or marry me? This is awful. I don't like this." And he's like, "Well, what's so bad?" I was like, "Well, take the socks, okay, in the laundry.” Pairing up little kids’ socks is a job that should be relegated to people who have to do community service in lieu of jail time. [audience laughter]
[cheers and applause]
I settled down. I just got used to what I was doing, even though I'm still bitter. I missed about 20 Bruce Springsteen shows that first year. All my friends are out there on tour, and I'm matching socks. [audience laughter] I did eventually on another excursion into the cabinets, find the key to the castle. It was in the form of Judy's blue Lucite recipe box. She had all the recipes for the Jewish foods that the family loved. I made it as a meal. I made the beef brisket, I made matzo ball soup, I made noodle kugel. I put it on the table and everybody smiled. They were so happy. They were like, "You get us. This is wonderful."
I met other parents and I realized, you know, I'm not a failure. This stuff is hard. Everybody goes through stuff. Like, my coping mechanism was to take a bottle of wine up to the laundry room and iron sheets and pillowcases [audience chuckle] for an hour. But everybody's got their thing. [audience laughter] I could even see myself rubbing off on them a little bit. I busted on her, who was only six, singing, Born to Run. [audience chuckle]
And that first year Christmas fell right in the middle of Hanukkah and Cassidy said, "Let's call it Christma Cup." I'm like, "Yes." And then, we went to get a Christmas tree, and Hannah says, "We can bring that thing in the house, but it's going to have blue lights and we're calling it a Hanukkah bush." And I'm like, "That's perfect." It was wonderful. It was about six or eight months after we were married that I was helping Hannah get ready for bed and she said, "Momsy, is there any way that you know that my mom can come back someday?" I wanted to say yes so bad, but I said, "No, honey, and I am sorry." We cried, and then she said, "Well, you're a pretty good mumsy."
So, last August, Andy and I celebrated 13 years of marriage. [audience cheers and applause]
Thank you. It was all me. [audience laughter] There's been, I don't know, 12 or 13 Christmases, two bat mitzvahs, some door slamming. [audience chuckle] Andy and I went to see Bruce Springsteen together on Broadway. [audience cheers and applause]
When I think about it, I hope Judy is both relieved and proud of us. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:25:23] That was Marya Morris. Marya is an urban planner who lives in Chicago. In her free time, she designs and maintains perennial gardens and fights to save our democracy. She's a two-time Moth GrandSLAM winner. You can hear more of her stories on YouTube.
That's it for this episode. If listening to these stories has inspired you to tell your own, why not get up on The Moth stage at a Moth StorySLAM? To find one near you, visit themoth.org/events. You can also pitch us your story at The Moth Pitchline. For instructions, go to themoth.org/pitchline. And for all who celebrate, from all of us here at The Moth, Happy Mother's Day.
Marc: [00:26:01] Jenifer Hixson is a Senior Director, one of the hosts of the Peabody Award-winning Moth Radio Hour, and co-author of The Moth’s How to Tell a Story.
Marya Morris's story was directed by Chloe Salmon. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Lee Ann Gullie and Patricia Ureña.
The Moth Podcast is presented by Audacy. Special thanks to their Executive Producer, Leah Reis-Dennis. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.