Uncle John’s “Spiff” Notes
Another great read about the extraordinary bonds between mothers and daughters, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club traces the relationships of four Chinese American mothers and their American-born daughters. Showing how cultural differences can affect family life, the book draws contrasts between the mothers’ lives in China with that of the daughters in the U.S. Will the girls better understand their moms and appreciate the hardships they had to endure? Pick up a copy and find out!
Mom’s Haunted House
Mom’s ghost becomes a celebrity.
Raynham Hall is the magnificent ancestral castle of the Townshends. Its most notorious occupant, the Brown Lady, came there by her marriage to Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount, in the 16th century. She is the ghost of Dorothy Walpole, sister of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of England.
THE PAST CAN HAUNT YOU
The marriage was the viscount’s second and Dorothy’s first. However, before her marriage, Dorothy had been involved with Lord Wharton, a well-known womanizer who fled England to escape his debts. Several years into the marriage, Dorothy’s old affair resurfaced as a source of tragedy. Some say the new Lady Townshend missed her old life with the no-goodnik Wharton, resumed their love affair, and her husband found out. Others say that Lord Townshend simply discovered Dorothy’s past affair with Wharton. In either case, he was horrified by her loose morals and demanded that Dorothy be locked in her apartments and kept away from the children.
Despite Dorothy’s pleas, Charles never relented. In 1726 she died, officially of smallpox. Rumors of murder persisted, from tales of her being poisoned to her being pushed down the stairs. Dorothy’s presence persisted, too. According to residents, she became the Brown Lady (wearing a dress of brown brocade) and haunted Raynham Hall in search of her five children.
A GHOSTLY IMAGE
The Brown Lady became a ghostly celebrity. King George IV was staying in the Townshend castle when he awoke to find her at the foot of his bed. Recognizing her from a portrait, he immediately fled the house, saying, “Tonight I have seen that which I hope to God I never see again.” Over the centuries the Brown Lady has terrified grown men, led servants to quit, and even caused police investigations. But the motherly ghost never seemed to scare children. In 1926, Lady Townshend’s young son and his friend saw the Brown Lady, but she smiled so warmly they assumed she was a guest—until they gave the adults her description.
In 1936, Captain Provand and Indre Shira came to Raynham Hall on a photo shoot for Country Life magazine. Provand was focusing the camera for a shot of the staircase when Shira saw “an ethereal veiled form coming slowly down the stairs.” He yelled to Provand, who snapped a photo of a ghostly woman floating down the stairs. Though some skeptics say that this now world-famous photograph is only a double exposure, many paranormal experts believe that the Brown Lady is captured on film—caught in the act of seeking her children.
Like Mother, Like Son
Joy Murray, a champion cowgirl, raises the “King of the Cowboys.”
What kind of mother would let her baby grow up to be a cowboy? What kind of mother would put her kid on a 1,000-pound bull and watch to see if he stays on for a very long eight seconds through bucking and kicks—either of which could kill him?
A MOTHER WHO’S DONE IT HERSELF, FOR ONE
Joy Myers Murray—mother of Ty Murray, “King of the Cowboys” and the only seven-time world champion Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association All-Around Cowboy in history—is no stranger to bull riding. In fact, she’s a two-time world champion bull rider herself, having won the event, as well as the all-around champion title for senior girls, in the National Little Britches Rodeo.
Born in 1942 into a rodeo family in rural Colorado, Joy Myers grew up with horses. Not only did her dad rodeo, all the kids in the family participated in Little Britches Rodeo, the Little League of the rodeo world. So it was natural for Joy to participate. A tomboy, she loved the thrill and excitement of racing horses and jumping them over barrels.
Joy liked the fun of a challenge. And what greater challenge than being judged on how well you rode eight long seconds on the back of a half-ton bucking bull? She never worried about staying on–she was having too much fun.
A RODEO FAMILY
Not long after winning her world champion titles, Joy gave up bullriding to marry Butch Murray four days after her eighteenth birthday. The couple moved to Arizona, where Butch worked on the racehorse circuit.
Soon, the Murray family grew. First came daughter Kim. Eleven months later, daughter Kerry was born. Joy enjoyed her daughters for six years, but from the moment she was pregnant with her third, she knew this one was a boy. “Baby Ty” came home from the hospital wrapped in a blanket and wearing diapers and cowboy boots. Two years later he was riding Joy’s Singer sewing machine and declaring he was going to be a bullrider.
TEACHING THE COWBOY WAY
Joy and Butch raised their children in a traditional fashion. Butch worked at the racetrack, rode horses, and broke in colts; Joy worked at the family’s tack shop, where she sold saddles and other riding equipment and broke in the kids.
One night when the girls were in the first and second grades, Joy and Butch attended a school meeting where a policeman spoke to parents about keeping kids off drugs. Thirty-five years later, Joy still remembers one woman asking the cop, “Do you find drugs more in rich kids, poor kids, or middle-income kids?” The policeman responded: “The only pattern we found for kids using drugs is that it is more common among kids who have nothing to do.”
That did it. From that point on, the Murray kids always had something to do. Joy believed sports would keep her kids from experimenting with alcohol and drugs; rodeo was just the thing. In spite of their hard-working lifestyles, Joy and Butch managed to get three children to different rodeos every weekend.
Joy not only took her kids to rodeo events, she also took them to school practices. Ty was also on the gymnastics and football teams, and at the end of the school day, Joy would race from the tack shop to the football field to pull up her chair and watch him practice! “I couldn’t imagine my kid doing something without us being there to watch,” Joy exclaims. She adds that the best thing she and Butch did for their children was to be there for them, to love them, and to support them.
Of course, raising a champion cowboy isn’t something you set out to do; it’s a mind-set and a set of values. Joy says that raising children is the hardest job anyone can ever do. Her philosophy was to raise each child as an individual. She tried not to focus on Ty more than the girls, but as the kids grew up, it became obvious that while the girls enjoyed rodeo, Ty was obsessed with it.
RAISING THE WORLD’S GREATEST COWBOY
Although the Murray kids learned early about doing without, they also learned about working hard to get what you want. Joy taught them the power of persistence. When Ty was a young teen, he worked all of one summer to save enough to buy a mechanical bull. By the time school started again, he’d earned $840. But mechanical bulls were selling for thousands. Joy never gave up. She searched the want ads and spent hours on the phone, and one day her persistence paid off. She found a mechanical bull for sale for $1,000, talked the man down to $840, and Ty had a career in bull riding ahead of him.
Inspired by his mother’s determination and his father’s work ethic, Ty Murray set out to become the world’s greatest cowboy. He wanted to break the record held by Larry Mahan, who had earned six All-Around Cowboy titles.
Joy watched in the stands as Ty won rodeo title after rodeo title, including Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s (PRCA) overall and bareback-riding Rookie of the Year and six PRCA World All-Around Championships.
In 1998, Joy Murray was in the stands yet again watching as her son finally achieved his goal and broke the world record, capturing his seventh PRCA world championship!
STILL RIDING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
Unfortunately, kids grow up and leave home. “
We spent our whole life on our kids,” Joy Murray says. “Then our kids, dang it, grew up on us.”
Fortunately, Riley entered Joy’s life. Riley, a beautiful brown and cream paint horse with a white face and blue eyes, gave Joy something to do: learning how to ride all over again. Yes, even cowgirls who have been riding all their lives can learn a thing or two. Proving that you can teach a cowgirl new tricks, Joy recently began studying “Universal Horsemanship” with Dennis Reis to learn how to work with a horse’s nature versus trying to control it.
Although her kids keep reminding her that she’s 60 years old, Joy says she’ll worry about getting old when she’s 90. Until then, Joy Murray hasn’t turned in her spurs, and even though her bulls riding days are over, she plans to keep riding until the trail’s end.
Motherhood by the Numbers
What the statisticians say about moms.
According to the year 2000 U.S. Census, there’s a lot of interesting info about American moms.
STATE(US) OF MOTHERHOOD
•There are 75 million moms in the United States.
•57% of women aged 15 to 44 are mothers.
•There are more single moms (with children under the age of 18)—the figures grew from 3 million in 1970 to 10 million in 2000.
HOW OLD IS MOM?
•24.8 is the median age at which U.S. women give birth for the first time. Median age rose almost 3 years from 1970 to 2000.
•Over the past decade more births are occurring to women over 30 years of age.
TEEN MOMS
•The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all developed countries. Almost half a million teenage women (10% of all women aged 15–19) become pregnant annually.
•But teenage pregnancies are declining: by 17% from 1990–96 (from 117 pregnancies to 97 per 1,000 women). By 2000 the rate had declined by 21.9%.
•78% of teen pregnancies are unplanned, accounting for about one quarter of all accidental pregnancies annually.
•Daughters of teen mothers are 22% more likely to become teen mothers themselves.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
•Of having twins? About 1 in 33. In 2001, twin births exceeded 3% of all U.S. births for the first time. The twinning rate has climbed 33% since 1990 and 59% since 1980.
•Of having triplets or multiple births? About 1 in 539. The triplet-plus birth rate has risen over 400% since 1980, largely due to older mothers taking fertility drugs.
•Of delivering by caesarean? About 1 in 4. The caesarean rate has increased steadily since 1996, climbing to 24.4% of all births by 2001.
IF THIS IS TUESDAY IT MUST BE YOUR BIRTHDAY
•In 2001, Tuesday was the most popular day for giving birth with 12,000+ births daily.
•In 2001, August was the leading month—360,000 births occurred.
•Most babies arrive in August and September meaning they were conceived around the holidays. (Can we blame it on the December eggnog?)
• The fewest babies are born in April meaning fewer are conceived during the hot summer months, particularly in the Southern United States.
•The hotter the U.S. summer, the fewer the number of babies conceived. (Although colder winters do not necessarily produce more babies.)
HOW MANY?
•U.S. families are shrinking. In 1976, 36% of moms had 4 or more children. These days it’s closer to 11%.
•Most U.S. moms will have 2 kids.
•3 is the average number of children that Utah women can expect—the highest in the nation.
NAME THE SCARIEST STATISTIC!
•The average child used 10,000 diapers before being toilet trained. With an average of 2 kids that’s 20,000 diapers that need changing!
•An average-income family will spend $165,630 on a child by the time he or she reaches age 18.
•Stay-at-home moms put in 65% of the child-raising time compared to 60% put in by working moms.
•The College Board estimated that tuition, room, board, and other college expenses in 2000 came to about $11,000 a year for students at in-state public colleges and almost $24,000 for private institutions. Four years of schooling can cost $44,000 to $96,000.
Spot the Mom!
Is she or isn’t she? Only Uncle John knows for sure!
Meet these political “first ladies.” They were each the first to achieve a goal for their gender. They became legends in politics. Were they legendary moms too?
1. Indira Gandhi:
First woman to be prime minister of India
She was the only child of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Oxford-educated, Indira was elected to India’s parliament two years after Nehru’s death following the death of his successor. Her party made her a compromise candidate for prime minister of India thinking she would be easy to control if she won. Oops, big mistake! Indira had political smarts to elbow out her would-be bosses and became a powerhouse of a prime minister who led India for 15 years (1966–1977 and 1980–1984), won a war with Pakistan, and established the state of Bangladesh.
Was Indira more than mother to her country?
2. Margaret Thatcher:
First woman to be prime minister of England
She went from a grocer’s daughter to a baroness and in between (1979–1990) she ran the United Kingdom as the Conservative prime minister. Maggie Thatcher worked her way up in her party by holding cabinet positions like secretary of state for education and science. She was a hard-line Conservative, notorious for tough actions like abolishing free milk, which earned her the soubriquet “Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher.” As prime minister, Thatcher was the “Iron Lady,” slashing government services, promoting business, and stomping Argentina in the Falkland Islands War.
Was Maggie Thatcher too tough to be a mom?
3. Wilma Pearl Mankiller:
First female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
Wilma started life in 1945 on an Oklahoma farm until a drought forced her family to relocate to San Francisco, where Wilma later attended college. As a young woman, Wilma returned to her ancestral lands in Oklahoma outside of Tahlequah. She immediately began working for her people, and in 1983 won her first office as the Cherokee Nation’s deputy chief. In 1985 when the former chief stepped down, as deputy chief she became the principal chief of the second-largest tribe in the United States. Mankiller faced death threats from those who refused to be led by a woman, but she persevered to be elected outright in the 1987 and 1991 tribal elections. She won respect for her focus on education and health care, and for tirelessly helping her tribe achieve economic independence.
Has Wilma continued the family line with children of her own?
4. Condoleezza Rice:
First female U.S. National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice, one of the most powerful women in the United States, grew up in a segregated Birmingham, Alabama. To combat prejudice, she concentrated on her education and being “twice as good” as everyone else to succeed. Rice was a political science professor at Stanford University when she was picked by President George W. Bush in 2000 to serve in his cabinet. A powerful member of the administration, she has helped manage the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, but she says her dream job is to be commissioner of the National Football League.
Is Condoleezza Rice working to make the world safer for her own children?
Answers on page 301.
Did You Know?
According to the Guinness Book of World Records,
Shortest Interval Between Separate Births:
208 Days
Jayne Bleackley of New Zealand
Kid 1 is born on September 3, 1999.
Kid 2 arrives on March 30, 2000.
Longest Period Between Separate Births:
41 years, 185 days
Elizabeth Ann Buttle of the United Kingdom
Kid 1 is born on May 19, 1956.
Kid 2 arrives on November 20, 1997.
Africa’s Joyful Moms
Mothers raising
kids in the heart of Africa may have a unique lesson for the rest of the world.
Don’t all parents wonder how to raise kind, thoughtful children with healthy self-esteem? The answer to all their questions may lie deep within the equatorial rain forests of Africa with the Aka.
ALSO KNOWN AS AKA
The term “Aka” means “human,” and these very humane humans are a tribe of pygmies. Adult Aka males usually reach a height between four to five feet. They once roamed most of central Africa, but now they make their home in the forests of the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) where they keep a thousands-year-old nomadic hunting-and-gathering tradition alive.
Under a canopy of foliage, the Aka hunt for game and gather berries, edible roots, protein-rich termites and caterpillars, and wild honey harvested from high trees. Their clothing is made of bark, and their housing from leaves and thatch, all taken from the forest. Among their neighbors are the chimpanzees, lowland gorillas, and forest elephants.
From time to time the Aka also entertain Western anthropologists like expert Dr. Barry S. Hewlett of Washington State University, who has studied this pygmy tribe’s unique way of life and raising kids. Hewlett and others have found that Aka mothers bring up their children in a way that encourages a peaceful, cooperative society.
Uncle John’s Presents Mom’s Bathtub Reader Page 19
