Advice From an Ex-Con: Reverence for Mothers

Content Warning: This post mentions parental conflict, police intervention, and child welfare/foster care.*

I once had a supervisor who had been incarcerated in prison for several years for dealing hard drugs. I’ll call him “Carl.”

Carl was arguably a hardened person. Street smart. Not somebody to mess with.

One of my coworkers, I’ll call him “Dan,” and Dan’s child’s mother had had some recent issues and police had been called.

Dan told Carl that once his daughter was older, Dan was confident she’d realize that her mother was the problem, not himself.

Carl saw Dan’s little girl’s sweet face on her daddy's phone screen. Carl asked, “That’s your daughter?”

Carl shook his head. He got super serious. Dead serious. 

Carl proceeded to give wisdom I remember vividly. 

Carl declared, “NEVER put your child’s mother in jail.” He continued, “Because then your child will know, ‘Daddy put Mommy in jail.’”

Carl told Dan he was dead wrong in thinking that his daughter would see her mother as the problem someday. Carl told Dan that the way things were going, authorities would look at the situation, say there’s trouble on both sides, and then Dan’s daughter would go to foster care and not one of her parents would have her.

Carl told Dan that he had had his own challenges with the mothers of his children and that he knew things could be difficult.

Carl reiterated: Never. Put. Your. Child's. Mother. In. Jail. 

There's great value to glean from this tremendously difficult conversation I witnessed. Carl had brought tears to Dan's eyes.

There’s something to be noted here for the status of motherhood and the implications thereof...Negatively impact your child’s mother, and ergo, negatively impact your relationship with your child.

It's the opposite of, “To Jesus through Mary.”

Our Protestant brethren are separated, in a sense, from Our Blessed Mother.

They have a mother, but they do not know her, or see her, or love her.

Oh, tragedy of tragedies!

Dark forces, in figuratively putting the Blessed Mother in the jail of oblivion (i.e. Protestantism), wound the Protestants’ relationship with God the Father.

Their father.

At the time of the memorable workplace conversation, Carl was not someone I adequately appreciated. That changed after witnessing that conversation. 

Little did I know I’d still be reflecting on it over a decade later.

And in a grand and spiritual way.

*Content warning generated by AI.