If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that growing up with a mother from South America is quite the experience. A very loud and hilarious one, and definitely one of a kind.
It's always interesting trying to explain to people who don't come from multicultural families what it was like to live in a totally different country at my house. Especially when we mix two languages without realizing it, or dance randomly to foreign music at a grocery store.
Universally, mothers are some of the most important people in our lives. Whether she's your biological, step, or figural mom, she's the one you turn to when you're happy, sad, surprised, angry, or have completely lost all faith in humanity. However, a South American mom is the one you turn to when you need to get back to your roots, when you need help adjusting to a culture that isn't your original one, or just when you want to relate to someone who gets it when your soccer team doesn't win and you just can't even.
There are some qualities that are specific to moms who come from South America that definitely contribute to a one of a kind childhood and adolescent experience.
She taught me how to love carbs and salt.
Salt in rice, on spaghetti, on potatoes, on corn, and really on anything else. And bread. I grew up eating French bread with butter, ham, and cheese, along with a cup of chocolate milk or cafe com leite/leche. I learned very early on to respect the paozinho.
She's late because I'm late, but I'm late because I thought she would be late, but now we're both late... Forget it, the party's already over.
People have to tell us events start an hour earlier so we get there on time.
Novelas are serious business.
Some families eat dinner together every night at six. Others have a family game night. South American mothers and their kids watch novelas, and it's a very serious ordeal. Also, if you miss an episode to do something else, she won't tell you what happened because obviously, your priorities are not in order.
We interrupt each other and it drives both of us crazy.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone whose blood runs Latin? I can't tell you how many phone calls have ended in frustration because we just agree too much. We add to each other's sentences with exactly what the other was thinking, but we get mad because the other beats us to it. If that makes any sense.
We eat. All. The. Time.
Shameless destruction of a box of chocolate we got the last time we went to the mother country. Oh, and then we blame it on the dog or something because if no one saw you devour a million calories, they clearly don't count.
She mixes languages with me and it's totally normal.
Sometimes it's easier to say something in one language, even when we started the story in another.
We make fun of everything.
It's concerning, really. There are no boundaries. There's even a saying that translates to something like, Latinos will lose a friend but not an opportunity to make a joke. We don't do it to hurt feelings, but we do make fun of absolutely everything.
She's the reason people think I'm weird.
I use weird colloquial terms that make total sense in my house and even in my first language but have absolutely no meaning anywhere else.
We eat obscene amounts of chocolate, constantly yell at the characters in novelas like they can hear us, and have by far the worst road rage you'll ever see. But, growing up with a South American mother has given me the very best memories, life lessons, and passion I could ever ask for.
South American love is deep, sweet, and oh so expressive.
If there's anything I can both praise and complain about, it's the love of a South American mother. It's tough, it's strange, but it's genuine and truly, forever. They really mean it when they say that Latinas come with their mothers in relationships, and jobs, and travel, and literally almost anything else.
Te amo, Mom.
