My mother is an incredible mother. She is one of those amazing Skin mothers who used to mix up our powdered milk before we woke up. She’d put the well-mixed powdered milk into an old milk carton so that we would think that it was “real milk” when we ate our Farina or oatmeal (or Cap’n Crunch on the first to the fifth of each month).

My beautiful older sisters – both sisters are mothers now themselves – say that my mom breastfed me till I was 8 years old and in third grade. The truth, however, is that I was 9 years old in the third grade. The third grade is when I started playing basketball, and my sisters tease me, in retrospect, and tell me that my mom’s breast milk was my energy drink before the game. It wasn’t “Red Bull,” it was “Red Boob.”

Of course they exaggerated. I didn’t breast feed till I was 8 – I was really around 6. My mom, however, would’ve let me breastfeed until I was 10 if it meant that I would be healthy, happy and fed. There was no guarantee that, as a kid, we would be healthy, happy and fed on the Blackfeet reservation, and my mom was doing her very best to raise three children with no money with no man in the house and no prospects for things to get better.

When I got too big to mooch off of my mom’s actual body, she switched to powdered milk. And my sisters and I pretended that we didn’t know that it was powdered milk in the cartons. We pretended because we could see that it made my mom so happy to know her kids were happy – that they got “real milk” to go with their oatmeal or Farina. Later on, as often happens with single moms – Skin or not – my mother struggled. It’s hard not to struggle on the Blackfeet reservation – 62 percent unemployment, hard to find housing – but then again it’s difficult for single mothers everyplace. Not just on the Blackfeet reservation.

But she always tried. She always worked hard. Even during her struggles with alcohol and immaturity she made sure that we had food on the table and shoes on our feet. Sometimes, mind you, I had to wear my older SISTER’S hand-me-downs – I’d walk in the school and try to pretend that I wasn’t wearing a lavender blouse or those little tiny ankle socks with the fuzzy ball on the back. I’d try to act confident, “This is the style – what are you talking about? I saw the guy from Tears for Fears wearing it on Solid Gold. You’re just not as stylish as I am.”

I’d also pretend that the cleats that I wore to school were NOT the only pair of shoes that I owned. “I thought this week was soccer tryouts. I have four pairs of Nikes AND some British Knights.” We didn’t have soccer at my school, of course.

I’d explain away the very cheap things that my mom bought me. Not realizing that, with our horrible financial situation, she really shouldn’t have bought me anything at all. We were dead broke – poor, with the very real possibility that no more money would come in the foreseeable future. I didn’t realize that if my mom could, she would have bought me diamond-encrusted Nikes with a platinum swoosh. But she couldn’t. So I’d get mad at her for being poor – something, at the time, that was as immutable and unchangeable as her skin color and her woman-ness. I couldn’t understand why we were so poor.

I remember one time – a time that I wish that I could forget, but I can’t – we were supposed to do a gift exchange at school. Fourth grade. There was a $5 limit on the gifts that we could buy. I went home and asked my mom to buy me something for the gift exchange – she said that she couldn’t. I said that it was “only $5.” She explained that $5 was a lot of money at that time, and she suggested that maybe I could make something as a sweet substitute. It was the thought that counted. Like the powdered milk, right?

I flew off the handle. I’ve never hollered at my mom or cursed at my mom, but I may as well have. In fact, I may as well have ripped my mom’s huge heart out and trampled on it with my non-stylish cleats. I was very mean to her and told her how much I hated being poor and I wish that I was born in another family – a family that had money, a family that could afford to go places and buy STUPID little gifts during gift exchanges. I was gonna be embarrassed at school and I can’t believe we can’t even afford something as small as this.

All that was important to me was that I get my way. I didn’t realize that we couldn’t even afford the lights. But somehow the lights were on. We couldn’t afford gas to bring me to basketball practice. But somehow I got to basketball practice. We didn’t have a phone – but nobody had a phone at that time where I lived – but mom was struggling to keep food in our cupboards, and gas in our tank. But to me, it was all about my $5 toy. And it was all about not being embarrassed at school.

One of the worst moments in my life. I made my mom cry. I made her feel inadequate and lazy. On the other hand my dad was never around – and he got rewarded for not being around. He was rewarded because he didn’t have to endure any railings and rants about how I hated being poor. He was rewarded because he didn’t have to help with my awkward early teens. He didn’t have to clean up my scratches and cuts and bruises when I got beat up. Instead, when I saw him, he got to be the good guy – he would give me a few bucks, and take me to McDonalds. It instantly made up for the months and months and months that I didn’t see him – for the child support that he didn’t pay, for the attention that he never gave.

But my mom was there every day. For better or for worse, she was invested.

My suspicion is that although my mom is incredibly special to me – she’s not special. What I mean by that is that I’m sure that there are millions of moms like her – both Skins and non-Skins. One thing that I’ve learned about Skin mothers is that they will not only take a bullet for their babies, but they’ll also clean up the mess afterwards. Then they’ll make sure that no blood got on you.

I’m sure there are exceptions – there are “bad” mothers of every ethnicity. Still, I gotta say that Skin mothers are amazing. They are angels. Not in disguise. Angels.

Do any of you Skins have stories about your mothers that you’d like to share? Are Skin mothers simply the best? What do you Skins think?

Gyasi Ross is a member of the Blackfeet Nation and his family also comes from the Suquamish Tribe. He is a lawyer, a warrior, a teacher, an entrepreneur, and an author. He is co-founder of Native Speaks LLC, a progressive consultation company owned by young Native professionals. He can be reached at gyasi.ross@gmail.com.