My mom is Wonder Woman.

I may be biased (in fact, I assure you I am) but my mom is the best. Let’s put aside the fact that she has dealt with my “shenanigans” my whole life, and get down to everything else that makes her awesome. Most of it is stuff she doesn’t have to do.

My earliest memory of my mom doing something for me is fourth grade. We had just moved to Houston for my dad’s job. So of course, I hadn’t grown up with the kids in my fourth grade class. I was the new, awkward kid. At first, it seemed like I would be okay. It seemed like I had made friends. Unfortunately, fourth grade is when kids start to get mean and I didn’t know this. One day in PE I was throwing a soccer ball back into the net. This would have been fine if I hadn’t hit someone in the face with it. Yes, I did say I was sorry for hitting them with the ball. However, one has a tendency to quit being sorry when one of the girls in that group comes up behind you and pulls on your hair. I don’t mean a gentle tug either. She pulled hard, and I defended myself without really thinking about it: I punched her. Of course I was the one who got in trouble with the PE teacher. We were sent to the counselor’s office, and the woman had us sit while she called my parents. My mom was mostly on the phone because I just wouldn’t apologize for punching someone in defense. Here’s where my mom becomes a superhero. She asked if I was sorry, and of course I wasn’t. She told the counselor that if I wasn’t sorry, I didn’t have to apologize. She wasn’t going to make me lie, and that’s pretty cool.

Toward the middle of the semester, my mom asked me if I still wanted to be in school. This was after they fought with the school to get my testing recognized, and told them every illegal thing they were doing. I didn’t ever want to go back, so I was puled out and we began homeschooling. Now, it definitely wasn’t the easiest transition for either of us. Eventually though, I started feeling out different subjects and figuring out what really interested me. What really interested me was physics. Great, a ten year old who likes advanced physics. My parents are smart, really smart, but I’m not sure either of them was up to the challenge of teaching me theoretical physics. So what did my mom do? She found me a physics mentor. And no, not just some college kid who’s majoring in it. She found a tenured professor from Texas A&M, someone who I still speak to now, almost nine years later. Again, that’s pretty freakin’ cool.

My mom has never told me not to go out and try something (well, as long as it’s legal/not dangerous/you get the point). She has always encouraged me, and always told me that whatever I wanted to be, be the best at it I could. So every type of art I wanted to do, every subject I wanted to learn, any sport I wanted to try, she was there and she had my back. She still does. When I was really interested in philosophy, she told me about a Duke TIP camp where I could spend three weeks learning about the subject. When I was really interested in art, she told me about the Glassell School of Art, which I received a scholarship for.

My mom knows how to give lessons outside the home though, and she’s pretty good at it.

I’ve seen the Very Large Array, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, Giant People Statues, and Graceland. I’ve been to Europe and Trinidad and the Bahamas. My mom has instilled in us the idea that travel is a good thing, that new experiences are something to be loved. When she wanted to go camping in Austin, I stood outside and realized how small I was compared to the millions of stars above me. Is spending sixteen hours in a car the most fun ever? No, of course not.  But getting to stand in front of the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile is the most fun ever. Is watching your sisters while your mom is at a conference in New Orleans the most amazing experience? No. But meeting Bill Nye the Science Guy is. Oh! Have I mentioned the people I’ve met because of my mom’s tireless effort to give me amazing opportunities? Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Bill Nye, Vin Diesel, Nick Suntzeff, Michael Duff, and Lawrence M. Krauss to name a few. I’ve done things and met people most won’t ever get to do or meet. That’s awesome.

Probably one of the most important things my mom has done for me, though, is helping me make friends. It’s not easy to be a smart kid. I mean a really smart kid. It can be very lonely and very isolating. My mom found other kids who, like me, needed someone who understood them. Someone who found their jokes funny. Several years later, I am still friends with some of those kids, and we still laugh with each other. They are some of the most important people to me and I would never have met them if it weren’t for my mother.

And of course, my mom performs the basic “mom duties”. She makes sure I’m doing my homework, gets me to class, and tells me about how bad energy drinks are. She allows me to make my own mistakes, but she’s always there when I fall down. She gives me advice, and dries my tears when I’ve got a broken heart. She keeps me safe, supports and loves me, and makes sure I know I’ve always got somewhere to go. I’m not going to say my mom is my best friend, because that isn’t her job. She’s my mom, someone I look up to and enjoy as a person. She is a strong force to be reckoned with, and a daughter can only hope to be as good of a mom one day as she is.

My mom is a superhero. My mom is Wonder Woman.