Today, on Mother’s Day, I’d like to take a moment to honor all the rodeo moms out there; the horse Uber driver moms, the multitasking moms who are hauling kids and loading horses like western switchboard operators, one hand on the leadline and the other on the landline.
To the Sherpa moms carrying saddles through dust-filled parking lots as the sun comes up and the warrior moms carrying them out as the sun sets. To the moms who roll out barrels and the moms who work the gates, to the moms who bankroll entry fees and display ribbons on walls like paycheck stubs for the tiny tax man to evaluate at the end of the year in their record books. To the royalty moms who spend too long getting their princesses’ curls just right, then need to hide their own hair under a hat.
Here’s to the moms in the kitchen making Frito Pie. Gordon Ramsay has nothing on you. He may have Hell’s Kitchen, but you’re in full Hell Fire Glory as you whip up your corn chip concoctions faster than a calf roper bustin’ out the shoot. All of you moms are the ones who make rodeo, well, rodeo. You mamas are letting your babies grow up to be cowboys and if the world needs more of anything right now, it’s more cowboys and cowgirls.
You have wiped away dirt-stained tears with your pearl snap sleeves and cheered from nearly empty bleachers on a Saturday gymkhana morning so your kids and everyone else’s kids felt like they were riding at the NFR. You have tripped over countless trailer hitches, slammed your fingers in trailer doors and taught your kids to swear with conviction in the process. You have survived on Red Bull and Navajo tacos and have a first aid kit in your truck that will stitch up a wound and mend a broken heart.
It’s been said you can’t drive a car looking in the rearview mirror, but Au Contraire, cowboy. You are (unless you are me) masters of backing up trailers and give true meaning to the momism of “having eyes on the back of your head.” You are out there like Rosie the Riveter in a Stetson, your red bandanna around your neck rather than adorning your head. She was right. “We can do it,” and when we do, it’s with spurs.
Motherhood is a lot like rodeo; you may have a plan of how it’s supposed to go, but when you actually get out there in the stirrups, anything could happen. Some days, motherhood is more of a saddle bronc ride, some days it’s a trail ride that meanders through the woods on a bluebird day. Other days its mucking stalls over and over. If you have a teenage daughter, it’s like mucking stalls over and over with a tiny supervisor telling you you’re doing it wrong.
So, alas, it is Mother’s Day, or a day to say raising rodeo kids can sometimes be a real Mother, but I, like the rest of my mom brigade, say Yee Haw and throw caution and our hats to the wind.
Here’s to you ladies! There may not be mimosas or roses when we wake up, but that’s ok. I’ll gladly trade flowers for rosette ribbons any day of the week, even on Mother’s Day, because Hay girl, my mom Jeans are Wranglers; what’s your superpower?
Jenny Johnston is a fourth-generation Durango local, mother to two lil buckaroos and thankful for her rodeo mom team! You ladies all know who you are!
