Always The Mom | Teen Ink

Always The Mom

June 12, 2013
By dwoobs SILVER, Overland Park, Kansas
dwoobs SILVER, Overland Park, Kansas
5 articles 2 photos 4 comments

Favorite Quote:
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." Ernest Hemingway


There are a few kinds of people at every party, no matter where that party is. There's the sober, judgy kid; the kids drinking and staying calm; the kids taking selfies with too bright of a flash; the obnoxious couple; and the kids that go too far. We all become one of these people at one time or another, but there's usually one that... rings truest.

I'm always the mom. I'm the one making sure everyone's DD is actually sober, the one finding lost phones, the one giving her shoes to a drunk girl so she can go pee in the woods (and, unfortunately, on my shoes). After a few choice experiences, being the mother has become less of a choice and more of a necessity.

A boy at a party got incredibly sick after drinking a bottle of cough syrup, taking intensely concentrated molly, and drinking half a bottle of vodka and half a bottle of rum. Most of the kids at that party would have actually died in that kind of state. I was lucky enough not to have to take care of him, but I heard terrifying stories of him convulsing in his friend's backyard because they couldn't take him to a hospital and risk arrest.

Here I am, thanking God he and I weren't close - it could never happen to someone I would have to mommy. "No one's that f***ing dumb", everyone said. Even me.

Then my best friend drank too much and I became a mom to keep my friend from going to the hospital. As he held my hand so tight I thought he'd break my fingers, he kept telling everyone to "SHUT UP!" and "DON'T TOUCH ME!" He'd grab my fingers every time he vomited, laying flat on his stomach. His entire body was wracked with the force of his gags, me sitting with my leg under him and just trying to keep him from choking. We sat in the rain as I wiped vomit off of his face with a rag. With no judging or complaint.

I got barfed on three times that night. Then I slept in the passenger seat of a car I'd never been in, during the middle of a lightning storm in a field, just to take car of a girl who got too high and couldn't drive herself home.

Being the mom isn't this thing to brag about, to call your friends out on and say how much they owe you. Being the mom is a responsibility where in some cases, this kid's life is partially dependent on you.

Everyone talks about drinking and how horrible it is for you and how it'd be better if it wasn't allowed at all. There's a problem with that: no one will listen to surveys. No one listens to their parents or horror stories. No one thinks they'll be the kid vomiting out of the side of a car and begging for someone to make it stop. Then they become that kid and they learn.

I'm always the mom. The rock, the hand to hold, the one who gets a thank-you text in the morning, the one everyone knows will never judge and will always be there. It's not glamorous, it's not fun, but it teaches you about people and about limits. I'm always the mom.


The author's comments:
Scary events, surreal memories. I don't write it to share "hardcore party memories" or to brag about taking care of people. But I think there's this disgusting misconception that taking care of someone somehow makes you a saint and gives you permission to judge and make fun of them. It's a responsibility and an honor to be the person that others trust never to judge them and to do what needs to be done for them. This is about being the mom and looking at yourself in the eyes of that person you helped the next morning and being silently proud. Take care of yourselves because there isn't always a mom.

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