December 8th is a very special holiday for us Panamanians, as it is Mother’s Day. If there’s something you need to know about Latin American culture is that this day is very important to us; probably due to the fact that our mothers don’t kick us out as soon as we graduate high school and in many cases let us leave when we get married (sometimes not even then!), we develop much stronger bonds with our mothers. Part of the Latino stereotype, I’ve seen, is that visit from mother, and she usually thinks that everything her son/daughter does is wrong and feels she must stay and straighten things out. Don’t blame me for that assessment, seriously… it’s all the T.V’s fault! Any which way, mother’s are a critical part of our upbringing, and in many cases mom is so overprotective of us that she refuses to let us go, expecting us to overcome their faults for the sake of the family. Of course, with us Latinos we tend to put family over a lot of things… it’s like that lazy brother you have, the one that thinks he’s going to win the lotto every time he purchases a ticket and is always in some weird get-rich-quick scheme that he wants in on with you. You know he’s a fuck-up, you know you shouldn’t be within 500m from him because he’s bad news but you take him in either way because he’s family and you don’t deny family… well, that very same feeling, that sense of family? Maximize it 10-fold and you’ll get an idea of what it’s like to have a Latino mom around.

Since we’re very much traditional (even in Panama, despite the fact that we’re the most technologically advanced and culturally diverse country in the region), our ties to our mothers are nothing short of sacred. I think that of all of my friends, no matter how crazy and delirious their mothers are there’s not one of them who would give out one of his kidneys for her in a heartbeat. Seeing the shitty relationships moms have with their offspring on American T.V is very shocking for most of us because we have this preconceived notion that whatever you do, you don’t fuck around with mom… it’s a little silly how extreme it goes, though. With some people even a “yo momma” joke is enough to make them tighten up their faces and go all macho, asking what the hell’s my problem talking about their mom. Personally, I just laugh. Getting riled up that easily is, to me, the same thing as getting a ridiculously large and powerful car: it tells me you might be trying to compensate for something else you’re lacking.

My mom is what you could qualify as “notorious.” For starters, she doesn’t look like my mom as much as she looks like my sister; that’s what a freak fetish for going to the gym and a ridiculously insane diet regimen will do. Sometimes she’ll see other people with their moms on the street and just point laughing… I’d tell her that was being a little mean and rude, but then I remember she’s pushing 50 when she looks like she just turned 30… if I was in her shoes I’d be laughing at other moms as much as I possibly could, too. Since she knows she looks 20 years younger than she actually is she takes it upon herself to wear the most 20-something clothes she can find… hell, it seems that much of my fiercely satirical and mocking nature comes from here, fueling the whole brother/sister idea. Then she does what’s been a habit of us ever since I was a little baby, kissing me hello and goodbye in the mouth, throwing every human being in proximity for a loop. She’s very loud. Very loud. She carries so many keys, hoops, bracelets, necklaces and random crap on her that my ears have been trained in hearing her jingle jangle from half a mile away… she laughs loudly, screams loudly, jumps and giggles when she’s excited, makes faces as much as she breathes and is overall what you would call “bubbly.” Inexplicably, she has more tattoos than I do. In fact, my ink was done by her tattoo artist.

My relationship with her is as tight as I could possibly allow. Being of an inherently independent nature (as in: I wander off a lot. Get used to it), I’m not what you would call a Latino type of son given the fact that my parents have brought me up to think about them more as friends than authority figures and that mentality leaked out to other aspects of my life… I’m just not used to listening to what the family says as opposed to good advice, whether it comes from a family member or not. We’re pretty united, as much as I hate to admit it, and even though I do wander off a lot I know I can pick up the phone and give them a call no matter what. Continuing the meta analysis here, my parents implemented a system that allowed me a tremendous amount of freedom in hopes that it would want me lure myself back to them on my own due to the foundation that I know they love me for who I am as opposed to them telling me what to do and what not to do like most parents do in hopes of molding them to what they want their kids to be, hoping it would work…. and it did. It did so well, in fact, that my relationships are based on that same principle too: I’ve found that the best way to keep me around is to give me the freedom to wander off. Fucking bizarre.

Now, about Mother’s Day:

Different countries celebrate Mother’s Day on various days of the year because the day has a number of different origins. One school of thought claims this day emerged from a custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother worship — which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of gods, and Rhea, the wife of Cronus — was held around the Vernal Equinox around Asia Minor and eventually in Rome itself from the Ides of March (March 15) to March 18.

In the United States, Mother’s Day was originally conceived by social activist Julia Ward Howe during the American Civil War with a call to unite women against war. She wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. In the British Isles, the day now simply celebrates motherhood and thanking mothers. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother’s Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.

In most countries, Mother’s Day is a new concept copied from western civilization. In many African countries, Mother’s Day has its origins in copying the British concept. In most of East Asia, Mother’s Day is a heavily marketed and commercialized concept copied straight from Mother’s Day in the USA.

In Panama we mostly do what we usually do whenever there’s a holiday, with the addition of our mothers tossed into the mix. That pretty much translates to eating and drinking ourselves to retardation. It’s a big deal for us, given to how important our moms are in our culture… the whole family gets together and shares some times together while they, umm… eat and drink. There’s not much of any traditional things we do for Mother’s Day except for that so aside from hanging out with mom the day is pretty non-eventful and without much consequence… it’s a nice day to chill out and not party hardy because well, y’know, you don’t want to piss mom off… unless you’re like mine and manages to drink half the bottle of vodka you had tucked away for a special occasion because she wanted to make bloody mary’s every night for 2 weeks straight.

I will tell you a quick story that kind of sets the foundations for my relationship with mom… it’s funny, I promise!

I used to be a big baby. In many ways I still am, but that’s of no great importance. Anyway, I was one of those babies that are pretty easy to envision: take my face, shave it, and stick it on a baby body shaped like a trunk. Add to that He-Man briefs and a Star Wars baby tee… yeah, that’s baby Rob! My mom has always been skinny but back then she was skinny and without half the muscle mass she has now… I was still as heavy as a car tire, so what she’d do is carry me around in a baby basket (which we still have today). She’d take me everywhere; who would’ve thunk that mom would be so proud?

One good morning, Mom had to go to work so she decided she’d drop me off at my grandparents’ (we didn’t live next door to each other back then) and the building’s elevator was broken… so Mirna treks down 6 floors of stairs with 4 bags, a 30 pound baby and high heels. She manages to get to the lobby just fine, but she didn’t count on the last couple of steps before getting to the door; she also didn’t count on them being recently mopped and still went. She lost her balance and the bags, the baby and her shoes flew up in the air, all of them crashing down on the lobby floor. My mom quickly got up, forgot the bags to pick up my brain and brush off the lint on it before pushing it into my gaping skull and driving to the hospital like a bat outta hell. Details after this are sketchy because it’s a touchy subject for her and I don’t really wanna press in too much about it, but I got a over 100 stitches across the right side of my skull, resulting in the devilishly sexy battle scar I sport today. Also, I managed to score some oxygen between my brain and the base of my skull, so I can safely say that I had my first near-death experience at 8 months old. In fact, I had two in the same month: while I was still stable yet in delicate condition, my parents and grandparents were arguing with the doctor over what had happened (they wanted to pin my mom down for negligence) baby Rob was in the incubator, choking on his oxygen tube. As it turns out, I’m not a cute baby when I’m turning purple. If it weren’t for my sassy aunt checking up on me, I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale… so yeah! That’s how my mom and I started out… rocky start, yes?

In the end, I love my mom dearly even if she did drop me. I didn’t end up entirely fucked up so that’s always a plus. Taking her out to lunch tomorrow so she can have a good time… we’ll probably get drunk and make fun of people. We do that.

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