Now I Understand Teri Garr

If you remember the movie “Mr. Mom” from the early 1980’s where the unemployed Michael Keaton character stays home with his kids while his wife (played by Teri Garr) goes back to work, what scenes come to mind?  For me, there are three:  TOW (sorry, I am a huge Friends fan) “Mr. Mom” feeds the baby chili and TOW he dons the equivalent of a hazmat suit to change the same baby’s diaper (serves him right having to deal with baby-chili indigestion!).  And the third?  The one where Teri Garr is having a meal with her boss, and she starts cutting up his steak for him.  What a funny, great touch that scene was.  I’m guessing an experienced mom had something to do with that one getting filmed.  Although when I saw the movie as a tween I simply thought it was goofy, not some kind of reflexive maternal response.

Now, after three kids, I get it!  It’s funny on the level on which it was meant to be appreciated.  In restaurants I find myself clearing “dishes” and disposing the trash of everyone else at our table, even for the other adults.  I’ve seen my own mother-in-law do the same.  As a volunteer in my kids’ classrooms I automatically find myself herding students, dousing aberrant behavior, and issuing reminders to stop the nose-picking and nine-tenths of the children are not my own.   I CAN’T HELP MYSELF.  The maternal urge to do all the above is the cut-up-the-meat response that myself, my relatives and 80’s power moms simply cannot resist.  And I bet that reflex is ingrained in you, fellow parental units, as well.

So, Ms. Garr, I am enlightened.  Maternity affects the very core of a mother’s being and expresses itself outside the family haven.  I’m just like you!  Only I don’t have the outlandish 80’s power suits or a husband in a hazmat suit.