St. Nmother

When I was 16, my mother had a baby - now, my mother had a baby on average every 2-3 years, so this wasn't as embarrassing for me as a 16-year-old as it might have been for a teenager who somehow didn't realize that her parents actually had sex.  In my NFOO, older siblings took care of infants and young children more than Nmother did - so, when we were out in the world, one of us was usually holding the baby.  This, of course, led to sales clerks and other people thinking that the baby belonged to the teenager holding it - which sent  Nmother into hysterics! This, of course, would make her the baby's grandmother!  Now, there was a lot of attention to be gained by having ever so many children - people in many rural cultures really did believe that motherhood is akin to sainthood - add to that that my Nparents were Catholic and you have an unending supply of saintliness, no matter that Nmother couldn't seem to muster up a hug for a child who needed one.   She always became righteously indignant at people who believed one of us to be the baby's mother, but she never seemed to figure out that if she actually held the baby, cooed and giggled with it, people might think that the child was actually hers...  Of course, to her, most of her daughters were not "motherhood" material - she, Nmother, was the ultimate Mother, the most feminine of all women, the most sophisticated, the woman with the cleanest house, the tidiest children, the loveliest flower garden.  AACK!!!  In reality, we lived in a very tidy, spotless group home.