Family sees change over time in motherhood
By:Eric Schwarz
For all moms, Mother’s Day on Sunday means an appreciation for the work they do and a chance, perhaps, to reflect on how parenting has changed.
Tess Nevitt was born and raised on South Seventh Avenue in Manville, the daughter of a father who worked at Johns-Manville and a mother who did not work. She had three brothers and two sisters, all of whom still live in Manville.
Mrs. Nevitt had five children of her own on Huff and North Fifth avenues.
Her daughter, Stacey Kita, at 40 is the oldest of the children, a special-education teacher at Weston School and the mother of three. Her husband, Robert, is a disc jockey who works out of their home on North 10th Avenue.
Mrs. Nevitt said children now are involved in more activities than when she was raising a family with her husband, Richard.
“Kids are involved in all kinds of activities,” Mrs. Nevitt said. “The curriculum has expanded that much more.”
Mrs. Kita illustrated her daughter’s active social life by taking her daughter, Amanda, to a Girl Scout meeting at the beginning of an interview.
Mrs. Nevitt commented on Mrs. Kita’s parenting: “Stacey’s very independent on her own. She works with kids all day long. She’s more professional in that respect than I am.
“Basically speaking, her kids are pretty normal, pretty well-behaved.”
Mrs. Nevitt and Mrs. Kita said Mother’s Day doesn’t mean breakfast in bed, but a time to get together with extended family.
“I don’t think they go out of their way to make my life easier,” Mrs. Kita said of her children. Amanda is 13, Matthew turns 10 on Memorial Day and Nicholas is 7.
“Being a mom means you’re always available,” Mrs. Kita said. “You never have a day off.”
Nicholas said Mother’s Day means “you don’t bother them.”
And when his grandmother asked if the boys had a present for their mother, Matthew said, “you’ll see.”
“We never go out to dinner” on Mother’s Day, Mrs. Kita said. “We’re more likely to get together at my house and have a picnic than we are to go out to dinner.”
Mrs. Kita said she’s related to half of Manville.
“We have a lot of extended family here,” she said. “I can remember when I was younger, not so much my aunts helping out, but my cousins. That hasn’t changed. There’s still always someone.”
Mrs. Nevitt has worked for many years at the Blumberg & Rosenberg law office in Manville, and when her children were younger, she always came home by 3 p.m.
And she was able to take off from work to be a chaperone for school trips whenever necessary.
“She’s been to every museum, zoo and attraction in the tri-state area,” Mrs. Kita said.
“As a teacher I have different expectations of students, and what I can do as a teacher based on what kind of family they have,” Mrs. Kita said. “With a single mom you cannot expect the same kind of help as you can from an intact nuclear family.”
Mother’s Day has its origins in the ancient Greek celebration honoring Rhea, the Mother of the Gods, and in Mothering Sunday, popular in England since the 1600s.
The first organized Mother’s Day in the United States occurred in 1862 when Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” organized celebrations in and around Boston. In 1914 Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.