Dana Oliver at the Huffington Post gave a tribute to Clair Huxtable as her favorite TV mom. I, like many others would have to second that assertion. Mrs. Huxtable was finally someone who looked and acted like my mom. My mom was the first, where-and-when-do-I-not-work mother(I have taken on that mantle, though not quite as effectively). In the DC Metropolitan area, it's easier for you to point out the areas where my mother has not worked. She worked at Goddard Space center and Bowie Race track. She worked with dying cancer patients and with patients in South East Washington, DC (the hoodiest of the hood at that time) who were home bound. My mom had what amounted to a working farm in our backyard and during summers we commonly ate food that came from there almost exclusively. She was and is an amazing cook and we consumed food that easily could have come from a restaurant. And I mean that literally. It wasn't just good, it was smack yo mama good, in a food network, she-could-win-easily-top-chef kind of way. She could make chicken gravy and grits along with making shrimp newburg -- for breakfast!
She made clothes, took us to all activities, was active in the PTA, read all the books we read, made a solar panel with my brother, chopped down a tree when she was 8 months pregnant and built a fence when she was 70. And she looked elegant in an evening gown and a beautiful suit. She's literally superhuman. I didn't know she was fallible until I was about 25.
Chair Huxtable was like that. She looked perfect. Clair had style and grace. She was a professional woman who was present for her kids. She cooked and worked and looked good doing it. She was fictional, but my mom was not. It was validating. I did exist. We were not mutants. There were other mothers like mine. Claire was good. But my mom was better. Now if I can just get her to to say thank you when you tell her how good her food is…
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