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CommunityMaking great sacrifices, reaping great rewards
Mothers’ common denominator is unconditional love
Friday, May 9, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by PAUL C. LEIBE
Jane Connelly, a teacher at St. Mary’s Ryken High School, decorates her office with photos of her children and grandchildren. Connelly adopted her four children after finding out she could not biologically have her own children.
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‘I am a real mother’
Jane Connelly of Lusby, a teacher at St. Mary’s Ryken High School, mothered four children without once giving birth. As a young wife, she found out she was unable to have children. But she and her husband decided that this obstacle would not stop them from creating a family. With the help of Catholic Charities, the Connellys adopted. Now with four grown children and seven grandchildren, Connelly celebrates Mother’s Day each year with new surprises and love from her ever-growing family.
Connelly remembers the moment she made the first connections with her children.
‘‘The minute we saw them, [the bond] was immediate,” she said.
Connelly has two boys, Richard, 46, and William, 44, and two girls Mary Beth, 42, and Heather, 39. She said originally she and her husband planned to adopt three but she wanted a sister for her daughter.
‘‘I couldn’t imagine not having the youngest,” she said.
Connelly said she never kept the fact that they were not her biological children a secret from them. Connelly told each child as they were toddlers that they were adopted.
‘‘The way we put it to them was that they were a gift of love,” she said. ‘‘Some [children] are born in their mother’s womb and some are born in their hearts.”
However the child is brought to the mother, the love seems to flow unconditionally, like the love offered by Sharon Kruder of Prince Frederick, a mother of five.
Kruder’s bond came during each of her four pregnancies. Her youngest boys are twins. Her children are all close in age. Joshua is 19, Zach is 18, Rebekah is 16 and Nathaniel and Ethan are 14.
With five children, schedules are hectic, and often, for many months at a time, Kruder’s husband is deployed by the military. Todd Kruder is currently stationed in Iraq.
Sharon Kruder said she has a regimented schedule, made evident by her monthly calendar – nearly every available space is covered by a series of initials with times and locations.
‘‘I keep track of them by their initials,” she said.
There are days when multiple kids have activities all over Calvert County. Kruder sees these as ‘‘Big ‘C’ Days,” referring to schedule conflicts. That’s when it gets difficult deciding ‘‘who gets Mom.”
When her husband is deployed, she sometimes relies on the help of friends to assist in the dropping-off and picking-up of her children.
When the children were younger, the Kruders were stationed at Patuxent River Naval Air Station and all of the children went to the Little Flower School. Kruder said this was the one time they were all at the same school. Kruder has a photo of all five children dressed in uniform.
Now that they are getting older, some of Kruder’s children stay home and do their own thing, so Kruder does not need to cart the whole family around.
‘‘Now I can take the smaller car,” she said.
Yet despite the tough schedule and the mere 45 minutes Kruger might see a night as ‘‘me time,” she always has a hot breakfast prepared on weekends and sits with the family together at dinner each night.
For Kruder, this is not an extraordinary life, just the life of a mother.
Motherly advice
Connelly advised anyone who cannot have children to strongly consider adopting.
‘‘They are born to us in a different way ... They are your children, they really are your children,” she said.
She said two characteristics are important for a mother: honesty and the ability to listen.
Kruder said she tries to spend one-on-one time with each of her children to give each child an opportunity to talk and spend time with her. ‘‘I know pretty much what goes on with their day,” she said.
She said dinner time is also a good time for conversations. ‘‘Sometimes dinner lasts more than an hour ... They know that dinner time is a time we eat together,” she said.
Kruder’s advice for motherhood is to have lots of patience and lots of laughter. ‘‘Enjoy the moments as much as you can.”
Mothering the mother
For women like Reneta Clinton of Carrington, the tables have turned and as her mother gets older, Clinton sees herself taking care of her mother as her mother once took care of her.
Clinton’s mother, Abbie Clinton, 75, moved in with her daughter and family in September 2003 when looking after herself became increasingly more difficult.
Clinton said caring for her mother can be difficult at times when the mother feels the child is still a child. Through the frustrations, Clinton takes on the responsibility because ‘‘I love her to death.”
Clinton said it is nice to have her mother around and when her own children were in school, her mother helped out with taking them around town.
Clinton said she would rather be the one taking responsibility for her mother rather than a nursing home.
Rosa Zinnerman understands Clinton’s frustrations as she, too, takes care of her aging mother. Mary Baker is 101 and still sees Zinnerman, 81, as a child.
Zinnerman said her mother didn’t understand that the roles of mother and daughter were in some sense reversed. ‘‘Now I am taking care of you,” Zinnerman told her mother.
Zinnerman said it’s hard to understand at first, but the responsibilities of taking care of a parent are demanding.
‘‘Patience, patience, patience,” is important, Clinton said, when slipping into the role of caretaker.
Zinnerman said it is important to think carefully before you speak. ‘‘You think that whatever you tell them they are going to accept it, but it doesn’t work that way. In their mind you are still the child,” Zinnerman said.
Zinnerman said if her mother forgets where she placed something, she used to suggest to her mother that perhaps she put it someplace else. This, Zinnerman learned, is a mistake.
‘‘The best thing you can do if they put something somewhere and can’t find it is to say, ‘OK, Mom, maybe you will find it later.’”
Zinnerman said her mother, like many mothers, is independent even though she can do very little.
Zinnerman said it is important for the daughter or whoever is caring for their mother to allow them to do as much as they can on their own.
Zinnerman said one can’t do it alone. ‘‘You think you can, but you can’t,” she said.
Zinnerman and Clinton seek assistance from the Charles County Community Services Aging Division. Clinton makes use of a support group for people who take care of their aging loved ones.
She said she can’t always attend but it’s good to go and hear other people’s stories and know she is not alone.
Zinnerman seeks other assistance through county services because as she put it, ‘‘We are just two old women, living together.”
